Relaxed Review Day: Tomorrow we will have a quiz on close reading of content from chapter 14-24, vocab from chapters 14-19, and a rhetorical analysis passage from chapters 14-24. 

I will give you 35 minutes today for silent review of vocab, content of the chapters, and working through a practice rhetorical analysis passage. The last 10 minutes you can confer with a classmate or two about the rhetorical analysis questions, and then we will review the answers quickly. 

Students who came in for extra review the other day will be familiar with the passage and most questions, so they can devote more time to review of vocab or content of the chapters. 


In addition to the chapters 14-19 words, the following words from 9-13 may appear.  We don't want to learn words once only to forget them two weeks earlier. I am choosing words that have particular value in academic settings, and thus they prepare you for reading in English and history, especially in the reading of primary (original) documents in history and English and Psychology.

1.            vindicate:  maintain, uphold, or defend

2.            affinity: a close connection marked by community of interests

3.            vilify: spread negative information about

4.            latent: not presently active, but present within

5.            odious: unequivocally detestable

6.            antipathy: a feeling of intense dislike

7.            ethereal: of heaven or the spirit

8.            defile: spot, stain, or pollute

9.            admonish: warn strongly; put on guard

10.          replete: deeply filled or permeated

1. derisive
   expressing contempt or ridicule
   It seemed to be his wish and purpose to mask this expression with a smile, but the latter played him false, and flickered over his visage so derisively that the spectator could see his blackness all the better for it.
2. propinquity
   the property of being close together
   But it was the constant shadow of my presence, the closestpropinquity of the man whom he had most vilely wronged, and who had grown to exist only by this perpetual poison of the direst revenge!
3. bane
   something causing misery or death
   But this long debt of confidence, due from me to him, whose bane and ruin I have been, shall at length be paid.
4. blighted
   affected by something that prevents growth or prosperity
   Hester gazed after him a little while, looking with a half fantastic curiosity to see whether the tender grass of early spring would not beblighted beneath him and show the wavering track of his footsteps, sere and brown, across its cheerful verdure.
5. verdure
   green foliage
   Hester gazed after him a little while, looking with a half fantastic curiosity to see whether the tender grass of early spring would not be blighted beneath him and show the wavering track of his footsteps, sere and brown, across its cheerful verdure.
6. sedulous
   marked by care and persistent effort
   She wondered what sort of herbs they were which the old man was sosedulous to gather.
7. deleterious
   harmful to living things
   Or might it suffice him that every wholesome growth should be converted into something deleterious and malignant at his touch?
8. upbraid
   express criticism towards
   She upbraided herself for the sentiment, but could not overcome or lessen it.
9. reproach
   express criticism towards
   Else it may be their miserable fortune, as it was Roger Chillingworth's, when some mightier touch than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached even for the calm content, the marble image of happiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality.
10. petulant
    easily irritated or annoyed
    Heretofore, the mother, while loving her child with the intensity of a sole affection, had schooled herself to hope for little other return than the waywardness of an April breeze, which spends its time in airy sport, and has its gusts of inexplicable passion, and is petulant in its best of moods, and chills oftener than caresses you, when you take it to your bosom;
11. precocity
    intelligence achieved far ahead of normal development
    But now the idea came strongly into Hester's mind, that Pearl, with her remarkable precocity and acuteness, might already have approached the age when she could have been made a friend, and intrusted with as much of her mother's sorrows as could be imparted, without irreverence either to the parent or the child.
12. asperity
    harshness of manner
    "Hold thy tongue, naughty child!" answered her mother, with anasperity that she had never permitted to herself before.
13. primeval
    having existed from the beginning
    It straggled onward into the mystery of the primeval forest. This hemmed it in so narrowly, and stood so black and dense on either side, and disclosed such imperfect glimpses of the sky above, that, to Hester's mind, it imaged not amiss the moral wilderness in which she had so long been wandering.
    A primeval forest is mysterious because it existed before humans and civilization. Hester and Dimmesdale's choice of this setting for their first private meeting in seven years can mean 1) they need to hide from the light of God and the eyes of the town, 2) they are morally lost, and/or 3) their love is timeless and wild, and it can only be acknowledged outside the civilizing forces of Puritan society.
14. scintillating
    marked by high spirits or excitement
    Pearl set forth at a great pace, and as Hester smiled to perceive, did actually catch the sunshine, and stood laughing in the midst of it, all brightened by its splendour, and scintillating with the vivacity excited by rapid motion.
    Another definition of "scintillating" is "having brief flashes of light"--this could refer to the appearance of sunshine in a dense forest. But Hawthorne is using the adjective to describe Pearl's mood after she successfully catches the sunshine. This scene emphasizes the literal and symbolic connections between Pearl and light, which contrast with Hester and darkness.
15. cadence
    a recurrent rhythmical series
    The child went singing away, following up the current of the brook, and striving to mingle a more lightsome cadence with its melancholy voice.
16. vivacious
    vigorous and animated
    To Hester's eye, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale exhibited no symptom of positive and vivacious suffering, except that, as little Pearl had remarked, he kept his hand over his heart.
    "Vivacious" and "positive" are odd adjectives to describe suffering. But this is in the eye of a woman whose own suffering has led her to become self-ordained as "a Sister of Mercy" who often seeks out the poor and sick to give them clothes or care. Although physically changed too, Hester is not "haggard", "feeble", "nerveless" or "listless" like Dimmesdale.
17. contiguity
    the attribute of being so near as to be touching
    The very contiguity of his enemy, beneath whatever mask the latter might conceal himself, was enough to disturb the magnetic sphere of a being so sensitive as Arthur Dimmesdale.
18. consecration
    sanctification of something by dedicating it to God
    "What we did had a consecration of its own.
    Another definition of "consecration" is "a solemn commitment of your life to some cherished purpose"--while Hester had committed her life to loving Dimmesdale, and their physical act of sex could be seen as a consecration, she is using the religious meaning of the word here, which Dimmesdale as a reverend cannot accept.
19. satiate
    fill to satisfaction
    He will doubtless seek other means of satiating his dark passion."
20. vestige
    an indication that something has been present
    Deeper it goes, and deeper into the wilderness, less plainly to be seen at every step; until some few miles hence the yellow leaves will show novestige of the white man's tread.
21. extenuation
    a partial excuse to mitigate censure
    Were such a man once more to fall, what plea could be urged inextenuation of his crime?
22. subjugate
    make subservient; force to submit or subdue
    Such was the sympathy of Nature—that wild, heathen Nature of the forest, never subjugated by human law, nor illumined by higher truth—with the bliss of these two spirits!
23. inure
    cause to accept or become hardened to
    "Hasten, Pearl, or I shall be angry with thee!" cried Hester Prynne, who, however, inured to such behaviour on the elf-child's part at other seasons, was naturally anxious for a more seemly deportment now.
24. mollify
    make less rigid or softer
    But Pearl, not a whit startled at her mother's threats any more thanmollified by her entreaties, now suddenly burst into a fit of passion, gesticulating violently, and throwing her small figure into the most extravagant contortions.
25. pallor
    unnatural lack of color in the skin
    Hester turned again towards Pearl with a crimson blush upon her cheek, a conscious glance aside at the clergyman, and then a heavy sigh, while, even before she had time to speak, the blush yielded to a deadly pallor.