The extract from ‘The Scarlet Letter’ gives a good view of what life in Salem was like and the way people act towards people’s personal issues. The language used in the extract keeps the reader in captured in the wait for the confession from the Reverend to take place. The morals and ways of life in Salem were quite different from now, and because of this, the extract has a huge impact on the reader. To see the difference in life is quite extraordinary, where the sins of a person is a very public issue, and very important, whereas, now issues are mostly kept in private.

The treatment of sinners in this period of time was very poor. For example, Hester had committed adultery, and not just being punished by the law, she had to wear ‘a scarlet letter’ to make sure the whole community knew her offence. People did not take kindly to offences like this. People felt that her sentence was too lenient. They punish her by making both Hester and Pearl social outcasts. They avoided interaction with either of them and also gave suspicious looks and threw insulting

comments in their direction. Life in the era of purity would have been extremely difficult; people who sinned where treated very badly, like Hester for her behaviour in the chapter is waiting on ‘scaffolding’ waiting to be hanged along with Pearl. Hester’s act is seen so evil that even pearl of the offspring of the offence is seen as ‘elvish’ and ‘with-like’.

The extract is very powerful connecting you with the world of Salem and the way of life. This extract explores many issues in the Salem world, how everything is so public, and how Hester and her illegitimate child is introduced to the ugliness, complexity, and ultimately the strength of the human spirit.

A climax is reached in this chapter of the book. Here, the characters' secrets are publicly exposed and their fates sealed. Dimmesdale, Hester, and Chillingworth tell their secrets each other; they push these revelations to an extreme that they all must leave the community by death or another way. The climax is also reached by dramatic tension portrayed. It takes a long time for the Reverend to admit his sin, also as his confession is in the

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