Who is Proserpine?

Who is Proserpine?

Persephone, Latin Proserpina or Proserpine, in Greek religion, daughter of Zeus, the chief god, and Demeter, the goddess of agriculture; she was the wife of Hades, king of the underworld.

Who is Lethe in Greek mythology?

Lethe, (Greek: “Oblivion”), in Greek mythology, daughter of Eris (Strife) and the personification of oblivion. Lethe is also the name of a river or plain in the infernal regions.

What is Lethe and Nepenthe?

Lethe was the River of Forgetfulness in Greek mythology. He knows not Nepenthe which is an Egyptian drug(perhaps opium) used to dispel sorrow through forgetfulness.

What is a Tartarus?

Tartarus, the infernal regions of ancient Greek mythology. The name was originally used for the deepest region of the world, the lower of the two parts of the underworld, where the gods locked up their enemies. It gradually came to mean the entire underworld.

Why is Chillingworth in the jail?

Why is Roger Chillingworth in prison? He is pretending to be a physician in order to see Hester. To be a physician and to heal the ill baby. He gives Pearl medicine that eases her pain almost instantly and she falls asleep.

What are Hester’s three punishments?

Hover for more information. Hester’s punishment was to spend a little time in jail; she is released three months after the birth of her child, the child her Puritan community believes was conceived in sin since Hester’s husband has been missing for two years.

How does Hester die?

Dimmesdale, leaving the church after his sermon, sees Hester and Pearl standing before the town scaffold. He impulsively mounts the scaffold with his lover and his daughter, and confesses publicly, exposing a scarlet letter seared into the flesh of his chest. When Hester dies, she is buried next to Dimmesdale.

Who got Hester Prynne pregnant?

Arthur Dimmesdale

Why did Hester name her child Pearl?

A beautiful flower growing out of sinful soil, Pearl is so named because she was “purchased with all [Hester] had—her mother’s only treasure!” Because “in giving her existence a great law had been broken,” Pearl’s very being seems to be inherently at odds with the strict rules of Puritan society.

Why does Hester ask Pearl Art Thou my child?

Why does Hester ask Pearl, “Art thou my child?” (Pg. 79) 5. Hester believes that, while society punishes her for sinning, God has a different reaction.

What does Hester name her daughter?

Pearl

What is the first thing Pearl sees as a baby?

The first thing she noticed was the scarlet letter on Hester’s bosom! One day, as her mother stooped over the cradle, the infant’s eyes seized upon the glimmering of the gold embroidery around the letter.

Why does Pearl wash off Dimmesdale’s kiss?

In The Scarlet Letter, Pearl washes off Dimmesdale’s kiss because she believes him to be impure for sinning and failing to live with his daughter.

Why does Hester dress pearl so nicely?

Just as the scarlet “A” that Hester is forced to wear is turned by her skill with the needle into a symbol of beauty and finery, so Pearl, the illegitimate child of an illicit and unlawful union, is a figure of beauty and is arrayed in all finery by her mother.

What color does Hester dress pearl in?

Much to the consternation of her Puritan society, Hester dresses Pearl in outfits of gold or red or both. Even when she goes to Governor Bellingham’s to plead for her daughter’s custody, Hester dresses Pearl in a crimson velvet tunic.

Why is The Scarlet Letter red?

Red in The Scarlet Letter The letter ‘A’ that Hester needs to wear in The Scarlet Letter is made of red fabric to ensure that everyone can quickly identify her as an adulteress. It is a symbol of shame that everyone recognizes. Hester’s daughter Pearl can also be characterized by the color red.

How does Pearl react to punishment?

How does Pearl react to punishment? She thinks the child is a devil child and wasn’t at peace unless pearl was sleep. She doesn’t like the other children because she gets made fun of, and when she does she throws rocks at the other children.

What is the look that Pearl gives Hester?

What does it make Hester wonder? Pearl gives her mother a “certain peculiar look” that lets Hester know one of Pearl’s tantrums is about to begin. The look makes Hester question if Pearl is a human child because it is described as “so perverse, sometimes so malicious” (76).

Why was Pearl so named?

At the beginning of chapter five it states that she was named Pearl because she was “of great price-purchased with all she had,-her mother’s only treasure!” So, Pearl’s name is symbolic of the price that Hester had to pay in order to bear her.