Question

Why does Hester come to dread children, according to the passage from Chapter 5 of The Scarlet Letter? "She grew to have a dread of children for they had imbibed from their parents a vague idea of something horrible in this dreary woman, gliding silently through the town, with never any companion but one only child. Therefore, first allowing her to pass, they pursued her at a distance with shrill cries, and the utterance of a word that had no distinct purport to their own minds, but was none the less terrible to her, as proceeding from lips that nailed it unconsciously."

a)They taunt her as she walks down the street, calling her ugly names.
b)They throw things at her as she passes them.
c)They tease Pearl for being an illegitimate child.
d)The mock her Scarlet letter, putting fake ones on their own clothes as she passes.

Answer 1

a is the correct answer

Step-by-step explanation:

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Answer 2

Hester comes to dread children because (a) they taunt her as she walks down the street, calling her ugly names.

Hester is the protagonist of the novel The Scarlett Letter, which was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850. Throughout the book, Hester is forced to wear an "A", the scarlett letter, on her clothes to indicate that she has committed adultery. As a result, she gives birth to Pearl, an illegitimate child, and she is forced to put up with public humiliation for the rest of her life. As this excerpt shows, even children mock her and insult her when she walks down the street for being a 'sinner'.