Explain the following quote:"The founders of a colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally protect, have invariably...

As this quotation occurs on the opening page of the novel,
it sets the tone for the work.  First of all, the satire is evident.  Puritan era
Massachusettes is hardly a Utopia.  What the Puritan community seeks is a society filled
with virtue and morality in keeping with its strict Orthodox beliefs.  What it has
created is a society of hyperjudgmentalists and and a trail of nasty
secrets.

Thus, the second part of the quotation provides a
more realist view:  the need for a prison and a cemetary.  Ironically, if one is
attempting to create a Utopia, it's odd that the first considerations are given to
criminals and the dead.

The rest of the novel exposes the
secrets and hypocrisy of the community which, again ironically, begins in a prison and
ends in a cemetary.