Chapter 1 Summary

The denizens of Salem stand outside the great oak door of the prison waiting for the prisoner to emerge. It is ancient door by now, studded with spikes and stained with age, a foreboding portal to the grim justice of the Puritanical magistrate. By the door, there is a wild rosebush, from which the author symbolically plucks a single of its flowers for the reader. Hawthorne hopes that this blossom's fragrance and brightness may serve to alleviate, if but for a moment, the travails of the reader, who is about to experience a dark and sorrowful little tale.

Chapter 1 Analysis

Hawthorne, even from the beginning of the narrative, seems to side with the victim of this tale of Puritanism. We, the readers, are, like-wise, the prisoners of this dark tale, needing the relief of this fragile blossom.