How do the townspeople feel about Hester in the chapters 9-15? Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter"

While Hester
does not greatly figure into Chapters 9-11 of "" in which most of the narration is
focused upon the Reverend , she has become accepted by her Puritan society as one upon whom they
can rely as a seamstress and nurse. In fact, Hester has been so helpful that her scarlet
"A" is now interpreted as meaning "Able."  Nevertheless, in true to their
Puritan canon, no one is redeemed by good works, so Hester remains a pariah--"The links
that uniter her to the rest of human kind...had all been broken." (Ch. 13) and is given
menial tasks to perform and is still subjected to insults. For instance, whenespies her leaving
the Bellingham mansion one day, she calls out,

'Hist,
hist!' said she, ....'Wilt thou go with us tonight?  There will be a merry company in the
forest; and I wellnigh promised the Black Man that comelyshould make one.'

Having lost her beauty and youthful appearance, Hester yet lives on
the outskirts of the village and she is never commissioned to sew anything for weddings.  And,
while she accepts the guilt attached to her sin, her isolation has caused her to contemplate the
role of women in her community.  Hawthorne writes that if the "forefathers" had known
her "freedom of speculation," they would have held it "to be a deadlier crime
than that stigmatized the the sacrlet letter." 

Hester realizes inthat
the "world was hostile."  She is cognizant that

As a first step, the whole system of society is to be torn down, and built up anew. 
Then, the very nature of the opposite sex....is to be essentially modified, before woman can be
allowed to assume what seems a fair and suitable position.

In , Hester returns from the deathbed of one of the community and is on her way home to
make a shroud for the good Puritan when she andhear strange sounds coming from the scaffold.
Stopping she recognizes the Reverend Dimmesdale and talks with him, resolving to comfort him,
for in contrast to Dimmesdale, her hardships have made her stronger.  Her caring nature, for
both her child and her former lover, is what determines Hester's actions.  Inshe challengesto
pardon Dimmesdale.