Rhetorical Analysis Of The Scarlet Letter

OCE 1 - The Prison Door
Arjun Shreekumar In the first chapter of his magnum opus, The Scarlet Letter, transcendentalist author Nathaniel Hawthorne describes the opening scene of the novel and introduces the society in which the story takes place. In illustrating the environment, Hawthorne initially conveys a dreary tone; however, near the end of the chapter he makes an optimistic shift to leave the reader with a sense of hope as the story begins. Beginning with the first paragraph, Hawthorne’s language explicitly paints a depressing picture of the environment. In describing the color of the clothing of men observing the denouncement of Hester, he uses the phrase “sad-colored” and “gray”, both of which connote negative emotions and a sense of morbid gloom. These emotions are amplified by the use of “throng”. The word creates an image of a large crowd of people, all of whom are dressed in dark, gloomy clothing.

This adds to the emotion of the environment, making the reader feel like anyone bound for incarceration will face a drudged, difficult process. He continues to describe the front of the door as “dark” and “gloomy”, words that are similarly connoted to solidify any perception of sadness and dreariness. In line 22, Hawthorne uses a simile to convey how old and integral the prison is to Bostonian society. He compares the prison to crime as a whole, which “has never known a youthful era”. The device implicitly makes the observation that crime and prisons go hand in hand and that if crime is intrinsic to society, so are prisons. Because the jail is so old, the fate of imprisonment seems