The Scarlet Letter (1/4)

Nathaniel Hawthorne

In the first couple chapters, Hawthorne utilizes several literary devices such as metaphors, allusions, and various images. The first scene depicts "sad-colored garments", "steeple-crowned hats", and buildings "studded with iron spikes" (35). The buildings, though relatively new, are "marked with weather stains and other indications of age". The scene is that of gloom and darkness. Surprisingly, the only splash of color is from that of a rose bush. Around the time Hawthorne creates the image of the rose bush, he alludes to Anne Hutchinson. It turns out that Hutchinson was religious, but also a more liberal woman who disagreed with Puritanical teachings. She was  imprisoned in Boston and then banished. Hawthorne claims that it is possible that the beautiful rosebush growing directly at the prison door sprang from her footsteps. This implies that Puritanical governing obliterates all that is beautiful and free. This allusion within a metaphor seems to foreshadow the Puritans dealing with Hester Prynne, another victim of her oppressive society.