Prompt #1 - Setting includes more than just time and place. It also concerns social conditions and customs of a given location and time period. Discuss the setting of "The Scarlet Letter" and how it contributes to your understanding of the book so far.
The setting of "The Scarlet Letter" is revealed throughout the first chapters of the book, through both Nathaniel Hawthorne's physical descriptions, and the way his characters act and interact with each other. How his characters treat the protagonist of the novel, Hester Prynne, sets the setting surrounding her and the expectations placed on her for the rest of the book. The first few chapters of the novel are dedicated to educating the audience about social conditions and customs of Puritan-era Boston through the characters gathered around the prison door at the beginning of Chapters 1 and 2. The situation of Hester Prynne at the beginning of the novel is revealed throughout the following couple chapters.
Chapter 1, though very brief, is what starts to establish the setting. It gives us a physical description of the Boston prison as well as giving some background of the time period and the customs of incoming settlers in the New World. Most of this short chapter is dedicated to describing the need for a new settlement to set aside land for both a prison and a cemetery, a social custom that gives our first hint at what life must have been like. When law and order is so ingrained in a society that one of the first buildings they erect is a place to keep the "sinners" or the "damned," it creates a whole new backdrop for crime and punishment, and the Puritanical setting of "The Scarlet Letter." These people, especially these women, who Hawthorne says are, "[standing] within less than half a century of the period when the man-like Elizabeth had been the not altogether unsuitable representative of the sex," are influenced by the rigid monarchy and religious orders they follow. These same factors that influence these strong, independent women are demonstrated in the setting in the moments before Hester Prynne is condemned to walk to and stand on the platform, bearing the scarlet A for all to see. Everyone's reaction to Hester's situation is mostly derived from their fear of God and strong opinions on religion. Rather then having concern for Hester, or her child who has been condemned for doing nothing wrong, the women in front of the prison wonder about how this will influence the "God-fearing gentlemen" or "Reverend Master Dimmesdale's congregation."
These social customs and deeply set morals are what have shaped the world Hester has been condemned to live in. She remarks that her first steps leaving the prison, not the ones walking to the scaffold, were the hardest, since she knows they only mark a lifetime of similar shameful steps, brought on by the expectations and people surrounding her. She is sent off to another setting, a small, remote cottage, which demonstrates the society-imposed isolation she finds herself living under. It's ironic, really, how as the book goes on these harsh conditions of the time period are only pinned to Hester Prynne, who tries to do good, instead of the other members of the Puritan community. At one point in Chapter 5, it says, "except for that small expenditure in the decoration of her infant, Hester bestowed all her superfluous means in charity, on wretches less miserable than herself, and who not unfrequently insulted the hand that fed them." So, while the harsh expectations, social conditions, and customs set in place in the beginning of the novel are what create the setting of "The Scarlet Letter," throughout the book this may be open to change and interpretation based on which characters are being held up to this original moral standard.
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