Question

The symbolism of the author plucking the rose and offering it to the reader is a device to
a. have the reader feel connected to the narrator and the story.
b. hint to the reader that the story will be sweet and "rosy."
c. indicate that the reader should feel the author is giving a gift.
d. show the reader that the rose is extremely sweet and beautiful.

Answer 1

This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally overshadowed it, or whether, as there is fair authority for believing, it had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson, as she entered the prison-door, we shall not take upon us to determine. Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers and present it to the reader. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow.

(Excerpt from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne)

Answer 2

c

Answer 3

thank u, i thought so