Scaffold meaning scarlet letter7/13/2023 Knowing well her part, she ascended a flight of wooden steps, and was thus displayed to the surrounding multitude, at about the height of a man's shoulders above the street. In Hester Prynne's instance, however, as not infrequently in other cases, her sentence bore that she should stand a certain time upon the platform, but without undergoing that gripe about the neck and confinement of the head, the proneness to which was the most devilish characteristic of this ugly engine. There can be no outrage, methinks, against our common nature-whatever be the delinquencies of the individual-no outrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame as it was the essence of this punishment to do. The very ideal of ignominy1 was embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron. It was, in short, the platform of the pillory and above it rose the framework of that instrument of discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus hold it up to the public gaze. In fact, this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine, which now, for two or three generations past, has been merely historical and among us, but was held, in the old time, to be as effectual an agent, in the promotion of good citizenship, as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists of France. Be sure to support your explanation using details from the text. In seven to ten complete sentences, explain how this detail helps to create tension in the narrative. Question: In this excerpt Hawthorne devotes much time to describing the scaffold before having Hester climb it to take her place.
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