Romanticism

__The Scarlet Letter__ by Nathaniel Hawthorne was published during the Romantic age. Below are a series of famous quotations from the novel. You may work together and create very good answers to the questions. You may edit what someone else has entered, but please do this with educational responsibility. The goal is to combine your knowledge in a collegial manner. Answer in complete sentences. Explain the meaning of this quotation within the framework of the novel. Explain who is speaking, who it refers to and why it is considered an important quotation from the novel.

One token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another. Chapter II "The Market-Place"

It means that even if Pearl is hiding the letter it will not conceil what she has done to get the letter A on her chest. Hester is thinking it to herself. It is important because Hester veiws her child in shame as the Scarlet Letter.

This quote means even though she knows she commited the audltary to get the letter A, her daughter which was a good that came from it will not sheild what she has done from society. The narrator said this quote about Hester Prynne. This quote is important because it shows how serious what she did was.

Ah, but let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart. Chapter II "The Market-Place"

My interpretation of this quote is that even if Hester covers the scarlet letter she will in the back of her mind always know that is it there. It has become a part of her and she will never know life without it. A young wife with a child in town square said this quote.

In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvellous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it. Chapter II "The Market-Place"

A bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part. Chapter X "The Leech and His Patient" The quote means that a disease may just be guilt or shame built up and makes the carrier of this guilt or shame sick or sick feeling do to the build up of the shame or guilt. This is talking about Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. The qoute refers to Dimmesdale's sickness. Chillingworth has figured out that dimmesdale is not sick he is just simply making himsefl sick from the guilt and shame that has built up since he has committed his misdeed. It is important becasue it shows that Chillingworth has figured out that Dimmesdale was Hester's partner in crime. Also, that Dimmesdale's guilt is eating him alive. ~G. F.

A pure hand needs no glove to cover it. Chapter XII "The Minister’s Vigil" This quote is said by the sexton.This quote means when dimmesdale went to the scaffold he dropped his glove, the man that found it said that because if your innocent you don't need to hide anything. The glove represents him hiding something.

It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility. Chapter XIII "Another View of Hester"

Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart! Else it may be their miserable fortune, when some mightier touch than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached even for the calm content, the marble image of happiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality. Chapter XV "Hester and Pearl"

She had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness. Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods. 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. Chapter XVIII "A Flood of Sunshine"

But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose. Chapter XVIII "A Flood of Sunshine"

She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter XVIII "A Flood of Sunshine"

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. Chapter XX "The Minister in a Maze"


 * "But she named the infant 'Pearl,' as being of great price- purchased with all she had- her mother's only pleasure." Chapter 6 “Pearl” This quotation contains a Biblical allusion – Find that allusion and explain how it fits this situation.

The biblical allusion this quote refers to comes from Matthew 13:46. It said David the father of the mesiah once he found his great pearl that he sold everything he had to have it. This relates to Hester because she did the same in having Pearl, she sacraficed everything for pearl her dignity and her life to have her pearl as did David.

The narrator said this quote and it refers to Hester Prynne. It is important because it basically is the whole point of the story.

The quote was said by the narrator and it refers to Hester. The quote came from Matthew 13:46 because Pearl cost Hester her reputation and her place in sociaty, she gave up a lot for Pearl. In the bible it said that a pearl cost eveything a person has.