QUOTE : Hester, in the dark conclusion of Hawthorne's brooding novel, reassumes the Puritan mantle….Hawthorne thus captures the catch-22 of feminism: the very woman who is able to envision a new order of living is, by the same token, unable, since the passion that enables her also adulterates her in the eyes of the Puritans. Released from goodness, she is imprisoned in badness, within the framework of the puritanical order. But her mind is free to question the order.