#3
•"But he opposes to me, that it were wronging the very nature of woman to force her to lay open her heart's secret in such broad daylight, and in presence of so great a multitude."
-Hawthorne describes how Hester's confession of adultery is irregular as far as society believes. He tries to send across the message that although society has labeled her as an adulterer, acting up is a part of human nature. Although there is darkness in the letter that she wears upon her chest, light can still be shed upon it.
#4
•"At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead"
-Society should label her as the adulterer she is and her sins should be publicized. Regardless that everyone else too is just as guilty as she is, for different things, she is the only one who is brave enough to confess to her wrong-doings, but is ostracized for them. Hawthorne uses this as a way to define how people who act out of society are picked out negatively, but those who do not and choose not to confess to things fit in.
Chapter 3
#5
•"Such an interview, perhaps, would have been more terrible than burning down upon her face, and lighting up its shame; with the scarlet token of infamy on her breast; with the sin-born infant in her arms; with a whole people, drawn forth as to a festival, staring at the features that should have been seen only in the quiet gleam of the fireside, in the happy shadow of a hoe, or beneath a matronly veil, at church."
-If Hester was to be confronted by one of the Puritans about her letter, it would be more terrible than anything. She is the main attraction to the event and the gathering is so massive that it seems as if it were a festival. In light, darkness, and happiness, she is still a sinner regardless of how the public is viewing her.
#6
•"With the same hard demeanour, she was led back to prison, and vanished from the public gaze within its iron-clamped portal."
-Although Hester was extremely happy to be released for a short period of time, regardless of the demeaning nature she endured, she was returned to the cage that was her prison where the citizens could no longer mockingly discern her. This is Hawthorne's way of describing how Hester views isolation as a peaceful solace where people can no longer judge her. Isolation is the only peace that she can find when all of society is trying to feast its eyes upon the adulterer as if she were an animal in a zoo.
Chapter 4
#7
• "After her return to the prison, Hester Prynne was found to be in a state of nervous excitement that demanded constant watchfulness, lest she should perpetrate violence on herself, or do some half-frenzied mischief to the poor babe."
-Once again using her isolation to describe her self-found safety, this time Hawthorne uses it to show that Hester does not want to be in prison via her own free will. Hester is always enlivened and acts strangely, because society views her as abnormal, she may inflict harm on herself or her child. These assumed random acts require constant supervision to protect her as well as her own child. This is showing that Hester cannot completely isolate herself from society because of the sin that she has confessed to.
#8
•I have thought of death, she said, "have wished for it,
would even have prayed for it, were it fit that such as i should pray for any thing. Yet, if death be in this cup, I bid thee think, again, ere though beholdest me quaff it. See! It is even now at my lips."
- Hester, having reason to believe that the physician could potentially poison her drink,
Chapter 5
#9
• "And over her grave, the infamy that she must carry thither would be her only monument."
-Hawthorne foreshadows that although she was born an honorable child to an honorable family, she will be buried and remembered as what society labelled her as; an adulterer.
#10
• It may seem marvellous, that, with the world before her, kept by no restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of the Puritan settlement, so remote and so obscure, free to return to her birthplace, or to any other European land, and there hide her character and identity under a new exterior, as completely as if emerging into another state of being, and havingalso the passes of the dark, inscrutable forest open to her, where the wildness of her nature might assimilate itself with a people whose customs and life were alien from the law that had condemned her, it may seen marvellous, that this woman should still call that place her home, where, and where only, she must needs be the type of shame.
- Disregarding how odd it may seem that Hester is outcast in a society that has little to do with nature, she can still call it her home. She could leave at any time if she truly wanted to and hide herself away in darkness, but chooses not to. Hester knows that she can still be the person society wants her to and even go beyond the expectations of the Puritans by performing good deeds and helping the people out.
Chapter 6
#11
• "The child had a native grace which does not invariably coexist with faultless beauty; but its attire, however simple, always impressed the beholder as if it were the very garb that precisely became it best. But little Pearl was not clad in rustic weeds."
-Pearl is not among the typical Puritan children who play with one another, but she however seems so different, by the way she dresses, which is seemingly different. She is different from the others because she was born of sin, and a seemingly spawn of evil.
#12
• "An imp of evil, emblem and product of sin, she had no right among christened infants."
- Pearl is completely evil in society's eyes, and because so, she has no reason to fit in with the others. If she did, it would be meaningless for Hester to have been labelled
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