Hester Prynne 1-Nye and Mackenzie

Character Sketches: Hester (Group 1)

For homework, I asked you to mark initial descriptions/depictions of the following characters.

In pairs/threes, get down as many traits, behaviors, physical details as possible. Be sure to include at least 2 quotations. Otherwise, you may summarize.

HESTER PRYNNE

Group 1: pg. 47-52,

·       Mother: “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 the other darksome apartment” (Hawthorne 47).

·       “The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance, on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deeply eyes” (Hawthorne 48).

·       “She was lady-like, too” (Hawthorne 48).

·       “Her attire…seemed to express the attitude of her spirit, the desperate recklessness of her mood, by its wild and picturesque peculiarity.” (48)

Hawthorny Romance:

In your section, find any examples you can of romantic elements (going by Hawthorne’s definition of a romance novel).

·       “The door of the jail being flung open from within, there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into the sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side and his staff of office in his hand.” (47)

·       “Yet there were intervals when the whole scene, in which she was the most conspicuous object, seemed to vanish from her eyes, or at least, glimmered indistinctly before them, like a mass of imperfectly shaped and spectral images.” (51)

Hawthorny Themes:

What central themes (from any of the Wordles) come up in your section?