The Puritan society is symbolized in the first chapter by the plot of weeds growing so profusely in front of the prison. Nevertheless, nature also includes things of beauty, represented by the wild rosebush. The rosebush is a strong image developed by Hawthorne which, to the sophisticated reader, may sum up the whole work. First it is wild; that is, it is of nature, God given, or springing from the “footsteps of the sainted Anne Hutchinson.” Second, according to the author, it is beautiful — offering “fragrant and fragile beauty to the prisoner” — in a field of “unsightly vegetation.” Third, it is a “token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to” the prisoner entering the structure or the “condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom.” Finally, it is a predominant image throughout the romance. Much the same sort of descriptive analyses that can be written about the rosebush could be ascribed to the scarlet letter itself or to little Pearl or, perhaps, even to the act of love that produced them both.
Finally, the author points toward many of the images that are significant to an understanding of the novel. In this instance, he names the chapter “The Prison Door.” The reader needs to pay particular attention to the significance of the prison generally and the prison door specifically. The descriptive language in reference to the prison door — ". . . heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes” and the “rust on the ponderous iron-work . . . looked more antique than anything else in the New World” and, again, ". . . seemed never to have known a youthful era” — foreshadows and sets the tone for the tale that follows.
