Meagan IrisMs. Saleem English 11H-722 September 2013

In the Puritan community, the citizens could expect to be punished in fatal ways such as execution or minimal ways such as a whipping for any wrong doings (47). Hester Prynne, a character in the book The Scarlet Letter, is punished very gently by having the letter A put around the chest area of her dress, but manages to make it look elegant (50). Imagery is used when describing the appealing letter A embroidered on her dress and also helps to connect this incident to the movie Easy A. In this movie, Olive Penderghast is given a bad image by her school peers and decides to stitch a red A to everything she wears. She makes the A look flawless and wears it off with pride in order to show her classmates that she embraces her new identity. In the colony, the founders had built a prison because they had acknowledged from the start that their colony was not filled with perfect people (45). The prison door was made out of oak, which symbolizes the natural laws of God as described by the Puritans, while the iron spikes on the prison door symbolizes laws made by men in the society. The colonists were now standing outside the prison focusing on the heavily guarded prison door (46). The use of imagery to describe the group of men and women gathered around the prison door connect this setting to the setting of that described in the book To Kill a Mocking Bird. The main character Scout, uncovers a mob of men outside a the town prison ready to lynch a prisoner named Tom Robinson. Sin is a major theme portrayed throughout the book The Scarlet Letter. The Puritans who established this colony had created a prison, knowing that people were sinners (45). The character Hester Prynne is known as a sinner throughout the colony and is punished for her sins by being forced to wear the letter A on her clothing (50). It is ironic that the Puritans had created a prison in their so-called pure society where there should be no sinners and it is also ironic that there are sinners in the great country known as America. Our country is supposed to be safe and filled with loving, caring people, yet most people are afraid of the may sinners in our country that kill and hurt innocent people. Outside the prison located in the Puritan society grows a beautiful red rosebush (46). This rosebush symbolizes hope for the prisoners because the alluring rosebush grows in a cold and dark area, next to a prison. The allusion or whether, as there is fair authority for believing, it had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Anne Hutchinson, as she entered the prison door (46) helps to connect the symbol of hope of the rosebush to hope in times of segregation in America. Martin Luther King Jr. was a man who preached about what he believed in. He also helped change the course of history, much like Anne Hutchinson. The character in the book The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth, is described as small and deformed as well as savage and civilized (56). He is a man of mystery in this colony because he had not heard of Hesters sins (57). The simile A writhing horror twisted itself across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly over them, and making one little pause, with all its wreathed intervolutions in open sight (57), helps to connect the feeling Roger had when he discovered he knew who Hester was, to the feeling people get when uncovering dark secrets. Whether revealing dark secrets about oneself or discovering horrifying secrets about other people, an unpleasant sinking in ones stomach always appears. It comes across one just like a snake, quickly and creepily.