Scarlet Letter, Chapters 7- 9

For the record, I was absent from school today because I was born with the unfortunate affliction of being allergic to everything, and the second I opened this book, my eyes were watering from the amount of dust in it. BHS needs to take better care of their reading material.
Near-death experience aside, I read chapter seven through chapter nine. Chapter seven begins with Hester going to see the town governor because she heard that the people want to take Pearl away from her. I think this is a little ridiculous. It's been long enough that Pearl can walk and talk already, and all of a sudden the townspeople are scared that she's the Antichrist or something. Like, this isn't the first season of American Horror Story, relax.
As stated in previous entries, I really hate long descriptions of seemingly pointless things, but the way Hawthorne describes Governor Bellingham's house on page 99 was beautiful. "...it glittered and sparkled as it diamonds had been flung against it". The word choice, the way that the sentences flow together so seamlessly, the picture that appears in my mind so vividly as if it were real.
I just really love words.
The next chapter is when we actually meet the governor and his posse of old white men. Reverend Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are part of the group, though Reverend Wilson is the one to "examine" Pearl - basically, he's supposed to see if Hester has been raising her to be a good little Christian. I can almost say that this doesn't really bother me, because in such a devout Christian community, should you really expect different behavior? But think of it this way: if it were a man taking care of his born-out-of-wedlock child, would this situation be different? because I'm pretty sure it would be.
There's a little talk of witchcraft and I think some stuff about marrying the Devil but Hester doesn't seem to be down with that. Hester gets to keep Pearl, though I really don't know if it'll last long.
Chapter nine is a mini-biography on Chillingworth and how he became close friends with Dimmesdale. I don't care about him so I didn't find it very interesting and don't have much to say about it, except these people are really paranoid because they're seeing Satan everywhere and it's getting slightly ridiculous already.
Hester's part in these chapters is what interested me the most. Her interactions with the Governor and the other men reminded me of a story my sister once told me about. I've never read it myself, but it's called the Yellow Wallpaper. It's a short story about a woman who suffers from some such affliction and so her husband locks her away in a room of their home so that she can get better. With nothing better to do, the woman spends all day staring at the wallpaper in her room. As her sanity declines, she begins to think that she sees things in the pattern of the wallpaper, people that are trapped and screaming to be released. Eventually, she loses her mind and tears the wallpaper off the wall, freeing the people while her mind stays imprisoned in the four - now empty - walls.
The tale of the Yellow Wallpaper reminds me of Hester's plight because of the similarities in the story. Both are centered around women whom are trapped (or nearly so in Hester's case) by men who think that they need to control their weak, unstable women and may also be trying to destroy them. I personally kind of like Hester, so I hope that the men don't win in her story.