What are key questions for chapters 7 and 8 of The Scarlet Letter?

I like to pull out quotes that seem especially meaningful and then ask for interpretations or explanations of those quotations. For example, you could ask about Pearl's behaviors and the comparisons the narrator draws between her and other entities or objects. One quotation that might be quite fruitful is the following:

She resembled in her fierce pursuit of [the children who flung mud at her and Hester], an infant pestilence,—the scarlet fever, or some such half-fledged angel of judgment, —whose mission was to punish the sins of the rising generation.

Why might Pearl be compared in this way? Do you think her behavior was inappropriate? Why do you think Hester does not try to stop her? Why is the final line of those quotation ironic—that Pearl serves to punish others' sins—given her own origins? What might Hawthorne want us to conclude from this irony?

You could also ask what might be significant about Hester's seeing her own scarlet letter in an armored breastplate at the Governor's house. What is such an object typically used for? How does the reflection change the appearance of the letter? What might the significance of this change be?

Why do the men at the Governor's house want to take Pearl from Hester? Why do they ultimately choose not to do so?

Who is Mistress Hibbins, and to what event does she invite Hester? Why does Hester decline? What conclusions might Hawthorne want us to draw about Hester's society as a result of her decision?