“On one side of the portal. And rooted almost at the threshold. Was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him. ” Chapter 1, peg. 46 | -This rose-bush represents Pearl afterwards in Hester life. The prison reflects on the image of Hester where Pearl gives Joy and comfort to Hester to bear the weight of the sin in her soul.
On the breast of her gown, In fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold-thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that It had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendor. ” Chapter 2, 50 | -She made It look so, In order to tell the public that she is a sinner. Even tough she has a sin inside her soul, she is trying to portray It through the fanciness of her bosom and make It bearable to carry It on.
I Stretching for the official staff in his left hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward; until, on the threshold of the prison door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air, as if by her own free will. ” Chapter 2, peg 48 | -as if. ” Does that mean it’s not actually free will? Or is tanned does actively choosing to be shamed and punished mean that she eventually gets forgiveness? I “It had the affect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity and inclosing her in a sphere by herself’.
Chapter 2, peg 51 I -This is the scarlet letter: It’s a “spell” that takes her out of the ordinary stuff of day-to-day life. But Is Hester the only one under the letter’s spell? I “When he found the eyes of Hester Prying fastened on his own, and saw that she appeared to recognize him, he slowly and calmly raised his finger, made a gesture with It in the air, and laid it on his lips. ” Chapter 3, peg. 57 | This Is the moment of recognition of Hester and her real husband that did not make to Boston with her. I “never! ‘ Replied Hester Prying, looking, not t Mr.. Wilson, but Into the deep and troubled eyes of the younger clergyman [Timescale]. It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony, as well as mine! ‘” Chapter 3, peg. 641 – Pride is revealed as a characteristic of Hester. Her sin has determined the letter to be worn on her bosom. As a seamstress the letter took a lot of time, patience and skill to make and she wont take It off because that letter has a price. I “It was whispered, by those who peered after her, that the scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark passageway of the Interior. Chapter 3, peg. 64 | obviously the scarlet letter wasn’t actually glowing.
But this incident and other supernatural type events put us into a different world, one in which everyday natural events have supernatural meanings. To people who can see the supernatural where it doesn’t exist, I “Why dost thou smile so at me? ” inquired Hester, troubled at the expression of his eyes. “Art thou Like the Black Man that the ruin of my soul? ” Chapter 4, peg. 65 | You’d think that, if you sold your soul to the devil, you’d know about it?but here, Hester is trying to figure out if she actually did. Apparently, Chlorinating is as good as the whole creepy thing that he’s actually being confused for the Devil.
I “As he spoke, he laid his long forefinger on the scarlet letter, which for with seemed to scorch into Hester breast, as if it had been red-hot. He noticed her involuntary gesture, and smiled. “Live, therefore, and bear about thy doom with thee,” Chapter 4, peg. 67 | -The interesting thing is that instead of killing people, Chlorinating keeps them alive. He wants Hester and Timescale to be as healthy as can be so they can feel their punishment and the Judgment of others as fully as possible. I “It was my folly! I have said it. But up to that epoch of my life, I had lived in vain.
The world had been so cheerless! My heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill and without a household fire. I longed to kindle one! ” Chapter 4, 71 | -We could almost feel sorry for poor, lonely Chlorinating?except that he’s about to prove himself a psycho- stalker I “They averred that the symbol was not mere scarlet cloth tinged in an earthly depot, but was red-hot with infernal fire, and could be seen glowing all alight whenever Hester Prying walked abroad in the nighttime. And we must needs say it seared Hester bosom so deeply,” Chapter 5, peg. 3 | – That’s a pretty hefty thing to have to carry around on your chest everyday. And yet, people seem to be more taken by its color and its glowing qualities than they are by what it represents (adultery, temptation, the Devil). I “Dames of elevated rank, likewise, whose doors she entered in the way of her occupation, were accustomed to distill drops of bitterness into her heart, sometimes through that alchemy of quiet malice, by which women can concoct a subtitle poison from ordinary trifles, and sometimes, also, by a courser expression, hat fell upon the sufferer’s defenseless breast like a rough blow upon an ulcerated wound. Chapter 5, peg. 75 | -narrator describes the coldness of the “elevated” ladies toward Hester. Their mean words are like those cool little sponges that, when dry, are the size of your pinky nail, and that, when wet, grow to be the size of your hand. I “Here, she said to herself, had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and work out another purity than that which she had lost; more saint-like, because the result of martyrdom.
Chapter 5 peg. 80 | – All the magistrates can do is force Hester to wear a scarlet letter: Hester is the one making herself endure the punishment of sticking around in a community that runs on judgment I “The unlikeliest materials?a stick, a bunch of rags, a flower?were the puppets of Pearl’s witchcraft, and, without undergoing any outward change, became spiritually adapted to whatever drama occupied the stage of her inner world. ” Chapter 6 peg. 83 | – Witchcraft, sure or maybe Just active imagination.
But to the Puritan kids, who only know how to play at going to church and “scourging Quakers,” his wild imagination probably does seem a lot like witchcraft. I “Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations that made her mother tremble because they had so much the sound of a witch’s anathemas in some unknown tongue. ” Chapter 6 peg. 86 | – She was born in a prison, she lives with her mother in a tiny cottage far away from are in a storm if we were in Pearl’s position. I “Never, since release from prison, had Hester met the public gaze without her. Chapter 6, peg. 87 1 – Hester shows mental weakness. A cure for such a condition would be taking Pearl anywhere with her using her as a shield as a protection of the people ever hungry eyes. I “But the proprietor appeared already to have relinquished as hopeless the effort to perpetuate on this side of the Atlantic, in a hard soil and amid the close struggle for subsistence, the native English taste for ornamental gardening. “Chapter 7, peg. 93 | – Nature on this side of the Atlantic is so tough that even the rich people can’t manage to have nice gardens.
I “There was a fire in her [Pearl] and throughout her; she seemed the unpremeditated offshoot of a passionate moment. Chapter 7 peg. 931 – She is uncontrollable create, she behaves as an adulterer sometimes, however she is always playful and her energy never fail for being capricious. I : “no, my little Pearl! ‘ said her mother. ‘Thou must gather thing own sunshine. I have none to give thee! ‘” Chapter 7, peg. 95 | – An advice is given to Pearl to go and life her own life and not live the life of her sinner mother. Hester says that she has to go and “earn” it.
I “l am my mother’s child,’ answered the scarlet vision, ‘and my name is Pearl! ‘” Chapter 8, peg. 101 | -She is being rude even though she does not want to say it. She is protective and all she is trying to do is to protect her mother. She is being very aggressive to other people for she knows that her mother loves her only and no other. I “After putting her finger in her mouth, with many ungracious refusals to answer good Mr.. Willow’s questions, the child finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison-door. ” Chapter 8, peg. 03 | -Pearl never takes any question serious, however always trying to make fun of people and to protect her mother. This is a key quote for he story. She is being very aggressive to other people for she knows that her mother loves her only and no other. I ‘Speak thou for me! ‘ cried she. ‘Thou was my pastor, and hats charge of my soul, and knows me better than these men can. I will not lose the child! Speak for me! Thou knows, – for thou hast sympathies which these men lack! – thou knows what is in my heart, and what are a mother’s rights, and how much the stronger they are, when that mother has but her child and the scarlet letter!
Look thou to it! I will not lose the child! Look to it! ” Chapter 8, peg. 104 | – Hester is desperate for Pearl. If Pearl is taken away from her she will “die” for she has no will to live. The sin will soon become too heavy without Pearl. As every mother is protective, Hester as a mother too is protective. This is one of nature laws. I “Roger Chlorinating – the man of skill, the kind and friendly physician – strove to go deep into his patient’s bosom, delving among his principles, prying into his recollections, and probing everything with a cautious touch, like a treasure-seeker in a dark cavern.
Few secrets can escape an investigator, who has opportunity and license to undertake such a quest, and skill to follow it up. ” Chapter 9, peg. 114 | -Roger Chlorinating is a mean character. All he is trying to do is to hurt Timescale and make him confess the sin he has in his bosom, like Hester has. He is skilled in doing such a Job, where Timescale doesn’t give up that easy and he is not telling Roger Chlorinating anything I “In his Indian captivity, moreover, he had gained much knowledge of the properties of native herbs and roots; nor did he conceal from his quite as large a share of his own confidence as the European. Chapter 9, peg. 115 1 Considering that the European system of medicine at this time mostly consisted of bloodletting and cutting off limbs, probably almost anything would have been better. I “These questions were solemnly propounded to Mr.. Timescale by the elder ministers of Boston and the deacons of his church, who, to use their own phrase, “dealt with him” on the sin of rejecting the aid which Providence so manifestly held out. He listened in silence, and finally promised to confer with the physician. ” Chapter 9, peg. 1171 – Timescale wants to let himself die, but he’s not allowed to: it would be a sin to refuse Clownishness’s help.
I “Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared. ” Chapter 10, peg. 120 | – This tells how Timescale is keeping a safe distance from the drill of Roger Clownishness’s words. However, he cannot really see that Roger Chlorinating is a friend or not so that is why he is keeping a safe distance from him. As we know Timescale is like a safe, he will never tell him the sin he is keeping inside it. Roger Chlorinating in contrarily is making best efforts to open that safe. I ‘”Even in the graveyard here at hand… They are new to me.
I found them growing on a grave, which bore no tombstone, nor other memorial of the dead man, save these ugly weeds, that have taken upon themselves to keep him in remembrance. They grew out of his heart, and typify, it may be, some hideous secret that was buried with him. ” Chapter 10, peg. 120 1 -These ugly weeds symbolize the evil or bad things that were done by that man. They symbolize some hideous secret that was buried with him, because they grew from his heart. The heart is a secret safer and that is why it is said that a secret was buried. I “Come away, mother! Come away, or yonder old Black Man will thatch you!
He hath got hold of the minister already. Come away, mother, or he will catch you! But he cannot catch little Pearl! ” Chapter 10, peg. 123 | – Pearl is knows an “evil fighter”. Her ultimate goal is to “kill” the Black Man. Because she is an “evil fighter” the Black Man could not catch her. Pearl does not really know that the Black Man will catch Hester, but is trying to “safe” Hester. This also reveals as command to Hester, where Pearl seizes the opportunity to make Hester listen to her. I “To the untrue man, the whole universe is false,- it is impalpable,- it shrinks to nothing within is grasp….
The only truth that continued to give Mr.. Timescale a real existence on this earth was the anguish in his inmost soul” Chapter 11, peg. 134 | – You can Imagine the universe as Damselfly’s heart, however remember that the universe is infinite large. The secret somewhere in the center of the universe, but I can’t find the center because the universe is infinite big and the center cannot be found even though we know there is. I “The intellect of Roger Chlorinating had now a sufficiently plain path before it. It was not, indeed, precisely that which he had laid out for himself to tread.
Calm, gentle, passionless, as he appeared, there was yet, we fear, a quiet depth of malice, hitherto latent, but active now,” Chapter 1 1, peg. 135 | -Hester is paying a hefty price for her crime, but public shaming and repentance is different from the “intimate revenge” that Chlorinating is planning. Wearing a scarlet letter is apparently appropriate revenge for a community to take. I “Would not the people start up in their seats, by a simultaneous impulse, and tear him down out of the pulpit which he defiled? Not so, indeed! They heard it all, and did but condemning words. ” Chapter 11, peg. 7 | -Timescale doesn’t try to confess. He does?sort of. A little half-heartedly and non-distinctly, but still. The problem is that his community Just won’t believe it. So, is it their fault that he’s a hypocrite? I ‘Come up hither, Hester, thou and little Pearl…. Ye have both been here before, but I Nas not with you. Come up hither once again, and we will stand all three together! ” Chapter 12, peg. 140 | – He wants to feel sinner too, even though there is no one to Mantes this situation, he is feeling greatly relieved. He felt it for first time how Hester had been through this years.
He also knows that he cannot really imagine how it Mould feel like if the whole crowd was present. It is the only way to feel the right feeling of how Hester feels like standing on the scaffold. I “It was, indeed, a majestic idea that the destiny of nations should be revealed, in these awful hieroglyphics, on the cope of heaven. A scroll so wide might not be deemed too expansive for Providence to write a people’s doom upon. The belief was a favorite one with our forefathers, as betokening that their commonwealth was under a celestial guardianship of peculiar intimacy and strictness. Chapter 12, peg. 42 | When Damsel sees the meteoric “A”, he thinks it’s in reference to his own destiny, but most people don’t believe that God would bother sending about an individual life. I ‘To his features, as to all other objects, the meteoric light imparted a new expression; or it might well be that the physician was not careful then, as at all other times, to hide the malevolence with which he looked upon his victim. ” Chapter 12 peg 146 | tatted in a maybe supernatural light, Damsel guilt is momentarily lifted, Chlorinating Just looks plain guilty and evil.
I : “Many people refused to interpret he scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prying, with a woman’s strength. ” Chapter 13, peg. 148 | – Because of Hester strong character and dedication, the public feel that she doesn’t feel the sin anymore and that he has overcome the pain of it. They replace the A for Adulterer as “Able” to cope with the sin. I “It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society. ” Chapter 13, peg. 51 | – This says that people that have wisdom and a lot of common ensue about thing they conform with the perfect silence to the external world. I ‘She was self-ordained a Sister of Mercy; or, what we may rather say, the world’s heavy hand had so ordained her, when neither the world nor she looked forward to this result. The letter was a symbol of her calling. ” Chapter 13 peg. 154 | Hester becomes a kind of nurse, almost a nun but she didn’t want to be one, and it almost sounds like the world doesn’t want her to be one either. I “It lies not in the pleasure of the magistrates to take off this badge….
Were I worthy to be quit of it, it would fall way of its own nature, or be transformed into something that should speak a different purport. ” Chapter 14, peg. 155 | – This is a struggle for Hester whether she should take off the letter or not or to be transformed into something that should speak a different purpose. She doesn’t not want the letter to be taken away by the authority because it reflects directly to the sin. Changing, being transformed, would stand for something different, for example not as big sin as she has done in the past. I ‘l have already told thee what I am! Fiend! Who made me so? ‘It was myself! ‘ ride Hester, shuddering. ‘It was I, not less than he. Why has thou not avenged thyself not avenged me, I can do no more! ‘ He laid his finger on it, with a smile. ‘It has avenged thee! ‘ answered Hester Prying. ” Chapter 14, peg. 158 | – Roger Chlorinating describes himself as a monster. He cannot bear from the mistake he has done in the past that didn’t come together with Hester to Boston. He is saying that he is guilty for giving her the scarlet letter on to her bosom and that if he was present before what actually happened would have been different and that would have not happened.
I What choice had you? ” asked Roger Chlorinating. “My finger, pointed at this man, Mould have hurled him from his pulpit into a dungeon, thence, peradventure, to the gallows! ” Chapter 14 peg. 160 | Chlorinating could have gotten revenge by making sure that Damsel was thrown in prison or hanged. I ‘Truly do l! ‘ Answered Pearl, looking brightly into her mother’s face. ‘It is for the same reason that the minister keeps his hand over his heart! ‘” Chapter 15, peg. 166 | – Pearl believes that she knows everything, and she knows something about the sin that Hester and Timescale share together.
She compares the scarlet letter on Hester with the minister’s hand over his heart. In the book it looks like more like an educated guess from the side of Pearl. I “Pearl resembled the brook, inasmuch as the current of her life gushed from a wellspring as mysterious, and had flown through scenes shadowed as heavily with gloom. But, unlike the little stream, she danced and sparkled and prattled airily along her course. ” Chapter 15 peg. 167 1 -Pearl has a close connection to the natural world is that because she grew up on the edge of the forest? I “And so it is! Said the child Pearl. And, mother, he has his hand over his heart! Is it because, when the minister wrote his name in the book, the Black Man set his mark in that place? But why does he not wear it outside his bosom, as thou dost, mother? ” Chapter 15 peg 169 | -even worse when your kids figure it out. This is the ‘Do as I say, not as I do” school of parenting, and it works Just about as well as it always does. I ‘”Mother,’ said litter Pearl, the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom. Now see!
There it is, playing a good way off. Stand you here, and let me run and catch it. I am but a child. It will not flee from me, for I wear nothing on my bosom yet! ‘ ‘Nor ever Nail, my child, I hope,’ said Hester. ‘And why not, mother? ‘ asked Pearl” Chapter 16, peg. 168 | – Pearl says in symbolic words that her mother is a sinner and has done something wrong for the sun doesn’t love her anymore, where on the other hand Pearl tells her mother that she is happy and hasn’t done anything wrong defining the purpose of why the sunshine only shines upon her. I ‘But mother, tell me now!
Is there such a Black Man? And didst thou ever meet him? And is this his mark? ‘…. ‘Once n my life I met the Black Man! ‘ said her mother. ‘This scarlet letter is his mark! ‘” Chapter 16, peg. 170 | Pearl as any other child is a very curious child. She ask many questions that should not be answered. Hester in the other hand answers this question as a lie, like all the parents do nowadays to their children to keep them away from certain things. Her mother lied that the black man gave her the scarlet letter, where in really she did put the mark on her bosom.
I “l might have known it,’ murmured he. ‘l did know it! Was not the secret told me, in the natural recoil of my heart, at the first sight of him, and as often as I have seen him? Why did I not understand? O Hester Prying, thou little, little knows all the horror of this thing! Roger Chlorinating is finally revealed. He cannot bear the thinking his mind is producing, thinking what might Roger Chlorinating do as an advantage over him. Make him confess? However he is angry at Hester because she hasn’t tell him anything of him. I “Thou shall forgive me! Cried Hester, flinging herself on the fallen leaves beside [Timescale]. “Let God punish! Thou shall forgive! “. Chapter 17 peg. 178 1 When Timescale finds out that Clownishness’s mental manipulation is all part off twisted plot to seek revenge on his wife’s lover, he not too happy. I “No, Hester, no! ” replied the clergyman. “There is no substance in it! It is cold and dead, and can do nothing for me! Of penance I have had enough! Of penitence there has been none! ” Chapter 17 peg. 182 | Can’t be penitent if your entire community thinks Ho can do no wrong. You can’t even explain your sin.
I “Dost thou think the child Nail be glad to know me. ” Chapter 18, peg. 186 | – Timescale is right asking myself if Pearl will accept him as a friend, because he knows how Pearl behaves. I ‘She had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness; as vast, as Intricate and shadowy, as the untamed forest, amid the gloom of which they were now holding a colloquy that was to decide their fate. ” Chapter 18 peg 183 | Living Ninth her guilt for seven years has taught Hester a thing or two about life like, if your community Just wants to blame you, maybe they don’t have all the answers.
I “The stigma gone, Hester heaved a long, deep sigh, in which the burden of shame and anguish departed from her spirit. O exquisite relief! She had not known the weight, until she felt the freedom! ” Chapter 18 peg 185 | So, it is the letter that makes Hester feel guilty or does she actually accept the blame for her actions? I “l have a strange fancy,’ observed the sensitive minister, that this brook is the boundary between two Norris, and that thou cants never meet thy Pearl again'” Chapter 19, peg. 191 | Timescale informs us that Pearl might never come back since the brook represents an obstacle to be reached.
Pearl is her willed and no one can change her mind. If she decides to stay on the other side of the brook, she will stay. I “Children have always a sympathy in the agitations of those connected with them; always, especially, a sense of any trouble or impending revolution, of whatever kind, in domestic circumstances; and therefore Pearl, who was the gem on her mother’s unquiet bosom, betrayed,” Chapter 19 peg. 194 | Is Pearl special, or do all girls in his community have to learn to hide their feelings Just like Hester. I “What a strange, sad man is he! ” said the child, as if speaking partly to herself. In the dark night-time, he calls us to him, and holds thy hand and mine, as when we stood with him on the scaffold yonder! And in the deep forest, where only the old trees can hear, and the strip of sky see it, he talks Ninth thee,” Chapter 19 peg. 195 | -It is weird that Damsel will not only acknowledge his lover and child in the dark forest, but not quite sad enough for us to feel sorry for him, since there’s an easy fix. I ‘”At least, they shall say of me,’ thought this exemplary man, ‘that I leave no public duty unperformed, nor ill performed! ‘” Chapter 20, peg. 971 All this quote is telling is us is that Timescale even tough he is trying to escape the New World he would not miss the Electoral Day armor, because he thinks it will live the public think that he doesn’t care of important things and that he is evil. That event is very important stage of his life and that is why he delays the trip to the Old World for couple of day more. I “The but his bitterest enemy. ” Chapter 20, peg. 204 | – Roger Chlorinating finally saw the eyes of Timescale and told him that he knew everything Chilling worth was Hester past. From a “friend” of Damselfly’s he became the biggest enemy.
He hated him for what he done with Hester before he made it in Boston. I What a strange, sad an is he! ‘ said the child, as if speaking partly to herself. ‘In the dark night-time he calls us to him, and holds thy hand and mine, as when we stood with him on the scaffold yonder. And in the deep forest, where only the old trees can hear, and the strip of sky see it, he talks with thee, sitting on a heap of moss! And he kisses my forehead,” Chapter 21, peg. 209 | -Pearl is suspicious of Damselfly’s actions. She doesn’t understand why Timescale is doing such actions.
She want to know why he is doing such things being all weird. She wants Timescale to hold her hand at noontide with her mother on the scaffold. All this represent complications in Pearl’s mind. I “At the final hour, when she was so soon to fling aside the burning letter, it had strangely become the center of more remark and excitement, and was thus made to sear her breast more painfully than at any time since the first day she put it on. ” Chapter 22, peg. 225 | – She is finally a free person and breathe the same air as everyone had. What a feeling after seven year of such struggle.
It is the biggest pain to throw of such a harsh feeling. I “She thought of the dim forest, with its little dell of altitude, and love, and anguish, and the mossy tree-trunk, where, sitting hand in hand, they had mingled their sad and passionate talk with the melancholy murmur of the brook. ” Chapter 22 peg,226 1 -In town, appearances matter: Hester and Timescale aren’t officially allowed to know each other, and so they don’t. But when they met in the forest, I “The glow, which they had Just before beheld burning on his cheek, was extinguished, like a flame that sinks down hopelessly among the late- decaying embers.
