Read this excerpt from chapter 1 of The Scarlet Letter using comprehension strategies. But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him. What is the meaning of this excerpt? Puritans plant a rosebush near the prison to comfort criminals. The rosebush is more beautiful and fragile than anything else near the prison. The rosebush is nature’s offering to those who must enter or leave the prison. Puritans believe that criminals deserve a view of beauty from their cells.

The rosebush is nature’s offering to those who must enter or leave the prison.

Explanation:

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" revolves around the adultery conviction of Hester Prynne and the 'punishment' she must endure for the crime. This Puritan society's expectation of making a 'perfect' society where a sin like adultery is a major crime one can commit, and the eventual punishment that she must endure, bearing the "scarlet letter A" as a sign of her sin and punishment for all to see.

In the given excerpt from the very first chapter of the book, the speaker/ narrator describes the jail/prison entrance where there grew a while rose-bush. It offered its "fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom [as a] token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him." This rosebush is a symbol of nature's offering to everyone who enters or leaves the prison.