1. “None so ready as she to give of her little substance to every demand of poverty; even though the bitter-hearted pauper threw back a gibe in requital of the food brought regularly to his door, or the garments wrought for him by the fingers that could have embroidered a monarch’s robe. None so self-devoted as Hester, when pestilence stalked through the town. In all seasons of calamity, indeed, whether general or of individuals, the outcast of society at once found her place. She came, not as a guest, but as a rightful inmate, into the household that was darkened by trouble; as if its gloomy twilight were a medium in which she was entitled to hold intercourse with her fellow-creatures.”
Some time has passed in the town; Pearl is now 7 and Hester is now seen differently by the townspeople. Hester takes care of the townspeople. She makes clothes for them, she gives some money, and when a plague came to town, she took care of the sick ones. The Scarlet Letter on her chest now, to some people, mean “able” while Hester Prynne is still seen as the adulterer of the town by some people.
2. “It was due in part to all these causes, but still more to something else, that there seemed to be no longer anything in Hester’s face for Love to dwell upon; nothing in Hester’s form, though majestic and statue like, that Passion would ever dream of clasping in its embrace; nothing in Hester’s bosom to make it ever again the pillow of Affection. Some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a woman.”
Due to her punishment of the Scarlet letter, Hester began to lose her sense of beauty. Her hair was either cut off or covered by a cap. All of her beauty went into her child whom she loved, Pearl.
B. Chapter 14:
1. “In a word, old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man’s faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil’s office. This unhappy person had effected such a transformation by devoting himself for seven years to the constant analysis of a heart full of torture, and deriving his enjoyment thence, and adding fuel to those fiery tortures which he analysed and gloated over.”
Roger Chillingworth, ever since he came, has been torturing Arthur Dimmesdale’s heart for the secret that he dreaded. But now, it reveals that now, Roger Chillingworth gains enjoyment from digging into Dimmesdale for the guilt he hids.
2. “‘And what am I now?’ demanded he, looking into her face, and permitting the whole evil within him to be written on his features. ‘I have already told thee what I am—a fiend! Who made me so?’ ‘It was myself,’ cried Hester, shuddering. ‘It was I, not less than he. Why hast thou not avenged thyself on me?’ ‘I have left thee to the scarlet letter,’ replied Roger Chillingworth.”
As the conversation between Hester and Chillingworth comes to an end, Roger then says that it was not his fault anymore and claims that it was only her that was at fault and it was Hester who transformed him into what he is now, a demon (fiend). Hester then asks why does Chillingworth only goes after Dimmesdale and not her. Chillingworth then replies that the Scarlet Letter does that for him, as there is no need for him to put himself into that position.
C. Chapter 15:
1. “Pearl, whose activity of spirit never flagged, had been at no loss for amusement while her mother talked with the old gatherer of herbs. At first, as already told, she had flirted fancifully with her own image in a pool of water, reckoning the phantom forth, and—as it declined to venture—seeking a passage for herself into its sphere of impalpable earth and unattainable sky.”
As Chillingworth leaves, Hester then calls for Pearl. When Hester finds Pearl, she is looking at a reflection of the sky in a puddle of water, daydreaming as a child often would.
2. “… seeking a passage for herself into its sphere of impalpable earth and unattainable sky. Soon