How old is hester prynne baby in chapter 2

Study Guide. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Previous Next. Chapter 2 The Market Place Ooh, now it's time for a description of the solemn way Puritans observe any act of punishment, from the execution of a hardened criminal to a child's whipping, all "solemnity of demeanour" and "meager… and cold" 2.

That's right: talk back to your parents, and instead of getting your smartphone taken away, you get whipped. The town mean girls gossip while they wait to watch Hester Prynne's punishment. One says Hester should have been executed.

Another says that Hester's punishment is way too light—just a letter A on the bodice of her dress, which could be easily covered up.

She regards her current fate with disbelief. These chapters introduce the reader to Hester Prynne and begin to explore the theme of sin, along with its connection to knowledge and social order. This belief fits into the larger Puritan doctrine, which puts heavy emphasis on the idea of original sin—the notion that all people are born sinners because of the initial transgressions of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. But the images of the chapters—the public gatherings at the prison and at the scaffold, both of which are located in central common spaces—also speak to another Puritan belief: the belief that sin not only permeates our world but that it should be actively sought out and exposed so that it can be punished publicly.

While exposing sin is meant to help the sinner and provide an example for others, such exposure does more than merely protect the community.

Indeed, Hester becomes a scapegoat, and the public nature of her punishment makes her an object for voyeuristic contemplation; it also gives the townspeople, particularly the women, a chance to demonstrate—or convince themselves of—their own piety by condemning her as loudly as possible. Rather than seeing their own potential sinfulness in Hester, the townspeople see her as someone whose transgressions outweigh and obliterate their own errors.

The women of the town criticize her for embroidering the scarlet letter, the symbol of her shame, with such care and in such a flashy manner: its ornateness seems to declare that she is proud, rather than ashamed, of her sin.

Both the rosebush and Hester resist the kinds of fixed interpretation that the narrator associates with religion. The narrator offers multiple possibilities for the significance of the rosebush near the prison door, as he puzzles over its survival in his source manuscript. So, too, does the figure of Hester offer various options for interpretation.

From this point forward, Hester will be formally, officially set apart from the rest of society; yet these opening chapters imply that, even before her acquisition of the scarlet letter, she had always been unique. The text describes her appearance as more distinctive than conventionally beautiful: she is tall and radiates a natural nobility that sets her apart from the women of the town, with whom she is immediately juxtaposed.

The prison door is opening. Here comes Mistress Prynne herself. This personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the offender. Stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward; until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air, as if by her own of free-will.

She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had brought it acquainted only with the gray twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of the prison. The prison door was flung open. The town beadle Minor official designated to keep order during certain town proceedings.

He was a grim figure, with a sword by his side and the staff of office in his hand. The beadle represented the laws of the Puritans, and it was his job to deliver the punishments they required. Holding the official staff in front of him with his left hand, he laid his right on the shoulder of a young woman.

He led her forward until, on the threshold of the prison door, she freed herself. With dignity and force, she stepped into the fresh air as though it were her free choice to do so. She carried a child in her arms—a three-month-old baby that squinted and turned its face away from the bright sun.

Until that moment, it had only known the dim, gray light of the prison. When the young woman—the mother of this child—stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress.

In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A.

It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony.

She seemed to do so not out of motherly affection but rather to hide something attached to her dress. Realizing, however, that one shameful thing would not hide another, she took her baby on her arm. With a burning blush, but a proud smile and eyes that refused to be embarrassed, she looked around at her neighbors.