"The grass-plot before the jail, in Prison Lane[...]" (Pg. 47, ll.1ff)
Hawthorne describes the setting of the chapter.
The chain of ancestry (Pg. 48, ll. 12)
The chain of ancestry is a metaphor to describe the characteristics and habits of mothers giving birth to children. It says that every child has the beauty, a physical frame and a character from its mother, but it is not there fully and in the same amount as the mother has those thing.
Does this have to do with the child and the further plot of the novel?
The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter - The 'A' on Hester Prynne's chest - stands for unfaithfulness and sins.
Even though it means such a worse thing in that society it is sticked on her dress in such an ornamental way. On page 53, lines 8-9 it says "...of deepest sin...".
As red is the color of love, passion and sin and a scarlet red is a deep red, this letter stands for the deep sin mentioned in this paragraph. Again Hawthorne uses red to describe something, even if sin and shame are the complete opposite of the purity of the rose-bush it seems as he uses red a lot to describe things.
Memo to myself: Looking out for things that could be red.
Comparison to Mary
For some reason Hester and her child remember me of Mary and Jesus. Just as in the bible she has a child and its not her husband that procreated it, it is some one else who is not clear. Mary was ridiculed because she claimed of having a child from God and Hester is ridiculed because of having a child from somebody else than her husband.
Moreover she is described as something with such an unnormal beauty with her clothes and her way she stands over the crowd. She nearly has something holy.
Mary and Jesus is an interesting idea - how does the fact that Pearl is a girl play into this?
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