Entry 12
"She felt of fancied, then, that the scarlet letter had endowed her with a new sense. She shuddered to believe, yet could not help believing, that it gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts."
The people that she could feel gaze at the A when she walked by gave her a throb of pain and she wondered if she had sinned alone. Hester has Pearl so it proves that she has sinned, but no one else has real proof, so as she walks along the town she wonders who else has.
This goes back to the idea of the society being a jail because everyone is too scared of the punishment to actually admit to their sins. If the town wasn't so harsh, Hester's sin would have been dealt with differently, and there'd probably be so many, they'd let some of them go.
Good - continue with the jail extended metaphor/symbol. Find other places that the jail reappears.
ReplyDelete