All 3 Uses of
ordeal
in
The Scarlet Letter
- With almost a serene deportment, therefore, Hester Prynne passed through this portion of her ordeal, and came to a sort of scaffold, at the western extremity of the market-place.†
p. 52.9 *ordeal = very difficult or painful experience
- The infant, during the latter portion of her ordeal, pierced the air with its wailings and screams; she strove to hush it mechanically, but seemed scarcely to sympathise with its trouble.†
p. 65.7
- The very law that condemned her—a giant of stern features but with vigour to support, as well as to annihilate, in his iron arm—had held her up through the terrible ordeal of her ignominy.†
p. 73.7
Definitions:
-
(1)
(ordeal) a very difficult or painful experience
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Much more rarely, ordeal can refer to a primitive method of determining a person's guilt or innocence by subjecting the accused person to dangerous or painful tests believed to be under divine control. Escape or survival was usually taken as a sign of innocence.