Answer:
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.
