“the black flower of civilised society, a prison”
The narrator, Chapter I
In the novel's second paragraph the narrator notes that every new colony builds a cemetery and a prison first. The metaphor makes the prison a plant that grows naturally from “civilised society”, which is a bleak claim about any society, not just the Puritans'. The black flower is answered at once by the wild rose-bush, and Chillingworth picks up the image in Chapter XIV.
“It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.”
The narrator, on the letter, Chapter II
The letter isolates Hester as surely as a magic circle. “Spell” gives a symbol of law the power of witchcraft, which is exactly how the Puritans half-see it. The image of a sphere recurs throughout, as the “magic circle” that forms around her in the Election Day crowd, so the sentence sets up her whole life as an outsider.
“It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony as well as mine!”
Hester to Mr Wilson, on the scaffold, Chapter III
Hester refuses to name the father while looking “into the deep and troubled eyes of the younger clergyman”, so this is the reader's first clue. “Branded” turns embroidered cloth into a mark burned into flesh, and her wish to bear “his agony” shows loyalty, and pity, for a man who leans over the balcony above her urging her to speak, and says nothing of his own guilt.
“He bears no letter of infamy wrought into his garment, as thou dost, but I shall read it on his heart.”
Roger Chillingworth to Hester, in the prison, Chapter IV
The contrast between garment and heart states the novel's main structure: Hester's sin is outside, the lover's inside. “Read” shows how Chillingworth thinks, as a scholar treating a man as a text. The line is also prophecy, because Dimmesdale's secret will finally be read on his breast, and Chillingworth is the first person the novel shows looking at it.
“But she named the infant “Pearl,” as being of great price—purchased with all she had—her mother’s only treasure!”
The narrator, Chapter VI
The name alludes to the parable of the pearl of great price in Matthew 13, in which a merchant sells everything he owns to buy one pearl. Hester has paid with her reputation and her place in society, so the child is both treasure and cost. The dashes build the price up phrase by phrase, and the exclamation gives the narrator's voice real tenderness.
“It was the scarlet letter in another form: the scarlet letter endowed with life!”
The narrator, on Pearl in her crimson tunic, Chapter VII
Hester has dressed Pearl in crimson velvet embroidered with gold, so the child matches the letter. The colon works like an equals sign: Pearl is the letter. The phrase “endowed with life” makes the symbol of her sin a living, growing person, which is why Pearl can punish her mother and also, in the end, be the reason she survives.
“She is my happiness—she is my torture, none the less! Pearl keeps me here in life! Pearl punishes me, too!”
Hester to Governor Bellingham and the ministers, Chapter VIII
Facing the loss of her child, Hester speaks in balanced pairs: happiness and torture, life and punishment. The dash and the repeated name hold the opposites together rather than choosing between them. This is the most useful single quotation for Hester as a mother, because it shows love and guilt as the same feeling.
“He now dug into the poor clergyman’s heart, like a miner searching for gold; or, rather, like a sexton delving into a grave”
The narrator, on Chillingworth, Chapter X
The narrator corrects his own simile, and the correction is the point. A miner seeks treasure; a sexton digs among the dead, and the sentence goes on to say he is likely to find nothing but corruption. The imagery of digging makes Chillingworth's investigation physical and violating, as if the heart were ground to be broken open.
“He had spoken the very truth, and transformed it into the veriest falsehood.”
The narrator, on Dimmesdale’s sermons, Chapter XI
Dimmesdale tells his congregation he is the worst of sinners, and they revere him more for his humility. The paradox of truth turning into falsehood captures his whole position: his words are accurate, but because he hides what they refer to, they deceive. The balanced superlatives, “very truth” and “veriest falsehood”, make the sentence feel like a verdict.
“Thou wast not bold!—thou wast not true!”
Pearl to Dimmesdale, on the scaffold at midnight, Chapter XII
Dimmesdale will not promise to stand with Hester and Pearl “tomorrow noontide”, only at the day of judgement. Pearl's two short accusations name his two failures, courage and honesty, in words a child can use. The repeated structure makes her sound like a prophet, and “true” anticipates the narrator's final moral in the Conclusion.
“They said that it meant Able, so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength.”
The narrator, on the townspeople, Chapter XIII
After seven years of nursing the sick, Hester has changed what the letter means to many people. The single word “Able” shows that meaning is made by a community, not fixed by a law. The phrase “a woman’s strength” insists that her strength is not borrowed from men, which is why feminist critics find this chapter so important.
“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”
The narrator, on Chillingworth, Chapter XIV
The narrator's calm, almost scientific phrasing makes the idea more frightening: anyone can become a devil simply by doing a devil's work for long enough. “Faculty” suggests a natural human ability. Hawthorne presents evil as something chosen and practised, not inherited, which is the novel's most important point about revenge.
“It is our fate. Let the black flower blossom as it may!”
Roger Chillingworth to Hester, on the shore, Chapter XIV
Hester begs Chillingworth to forgive and be human again, and he refuses, claiming he has no power to pardon. The “black flower” echoes the prison of Chapter I, so evil is pictured again as something that grows. By calling it fate, Chillingworth denies his own responsibility, and the reader, who has watched him choose, can see through him.
“Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret!”
Dimmesdale to Hester, in the forest, Chapter XVII
Dimmesdale envies the woman the whole town has shamed, which turns the Puritan idea of punishment upside down. “Openly” and “in secret” sum up the difference between them, and “burns” makes his guilt a fire under the skin. The line is the clearest statement of the theme of secrecy, and it prepares for the revelation on the scaffold.
“He has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart.”
Dimmesdale to Hester, on Chillingworth, Chapter XVII
Dimmesdale ranks the sins: “That old man’s revenge has been blacker than my sin.” Theirs, as the narrator puts it in the next chapter, was “a sin of passion”; Chillingworth's is committed “in cold blood”, a phrase that links to the chill in his name. “Sanctity” makes the heart a holy place and his investigation a desecration. Most readers accept this ranking, and the novel's structure, which destroys Chillingworth, seems to endorse it.
“What we did had a consecration of its own.”
Hester to Dimmesdale, in the forest, Chapter XVII
This is Hester's most defiant sentence. “Consecration” is a religious word for making something holy, so she claims their love was sacred in itself, whatever the church's law says. Dimmesdale hushes her, though he admits that he has not forgotten. Whether the novel agrees with her is one of the best questions a student can argue about.
“The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.”
The narrator, on Hester, Chapter XVIII
The letter meant to confine her has become a “passport” to freedom of thought. The three capitalised nouns are personified as teachers, like figures in an allegory. Then comes the turn: they made her strong, “but taught her much amiss”. The narrator admires Hester's independence and distrusts it in the same sentence, and a strong answer quotes the whole of it.
“Now thou art my mother indeed! and I am thy little Pearl!”
Pearl to Hester, at the brookside, Chapter XIX
Pearl crosses the brook only when Hester has pinned the letter back on. Her joy suggests that she knows her mother only with the letter: it is part of their bond. The word “indeed” is cruel and tender at once, and she follows it by kissing the letter, which Hester feels as mockery.
“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”
The narrator, on Dimmesdale, Chapter XX
Dimmesdale is pleased that the ship sails after his Election Sermon, so that people will say he left no public duty undone. The narrator calls this self-deception pitiable. The metaphor of two faces turns hypocrisy into a loss of identity: after seven years he no longer knows which self is real, which explains the wild impulses of this chapter.
“Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!”
The narrator, Chapter XXIV
The narrator offers the one moral he will put into a sentence. The triple repetition is almost like a sermon, which is ironic in a novel about a preacher. The qualification is important: he does not demand total confession, only “some trait” of the truth, a more humane standard than the Puritans'.
“the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world’s scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too”
The narrator, on Hester’s later life, Chapter XXIV
This is the letter's final change of meaning. “Stigma” becomes “type”, a symbol, and the reactions move from scorn through sorrow and awe to “reverence”. The long sentence enacts slow change over many years. Whether this is triumph or resignation is open to argument, but the letter now means what Hester's life has made it mean.