Summary of the Novel
On a day in June 1642, the people of the Puritan colony of Boston await the public humiliation of a sinner among them. Hester Prynne is to stand on the scaffold in the village square for three hours. The red letter “A” which she has embroidered on her dress and the baby she holds in her arms brand her as an adulteress.
Hester refuses to name the father. Her husband, an old scholar, had sent her ahead two years earlier and is now in the crowd observing the scene. Under the guise of a medical doctor and the assumed name of Roger Chillingworth, Dr. Prynne demands unsuccessfully the name of the child’s father and vows revenge on him.
Hester takes up residence with her daughter Pearl at the edge of the village. Chillingworth remains as the town physician and moves in with the young Reverend Dimmesdale, whose physical health is deteriorating but whose sermons about sin are more powerful than ever. Chillingworth determines that Dimmesdale is indeed the father of Pearl and torments the minister with innuendo and debate while keeping him alive with medicines. During this period Hester successfully rebuffs efforts to remove Pearl from her keeping.
For seven years, Hester suffers her outcast state until the deterioration of the minister’s health forces her to confront him. Arthur Dimmesdale, her lover, and Hester meet in the forest where they renew their love and commitment and resolve to return to England together. However, the minister is unable to endure his spiritual agony and mounts the public scaffold in the dark of night, confessing his sin where no one can hear him. He is discovered by Hester and Pearl, and observed there by Chillingworth, who persuades him that his confession is a symptom of his illness.
The next morning, however, the minister leaves a public procession to mount the scaffold in the light of day. Joined by Hester and Pearl, and unsuccessfully restrained by Chillingworth, Dimmesdale confesses his guilt and dies. Chillingworth, now deprived of his life’s purpose, dies within a year, leaving his fortune to Pearl. Mother and daughter leave Boston, but many years later, Hester returns to take up quiet residence and resume wearing the scarlet letter and doing good works.
The years in which Nathaniel Hawthorne lived and wrote were turbulent ones for the young nation. The country did share a cultural harmony based on strong community values linking hard work and virtue to success. In addition, the majority of citizens shared the idea that the United States, under divine guidance, was destined for greatness. Among the negatives, however, was the sense that some of the original values of the Revolution were being lost. Political reform movements sprang up. Utopian experiments were tried. New religious sects, unhappy with old theologies, broke away from the established churches. Over the course of Hawthorne’s life, the United States was engaged in three wars, skirmishes with the Native American peoples, economic depressions, and problems with newly arriving immigrants. Looming large on the horizon and eventually leading to civil war was the conflict over slavery. Like that of many writers, Hawthorne’s work reflects the times in which he lived.
The idea of writing as a career was also evolving. Increased literacy was creating a market for mass-produced books. Fiction became increasingly popular with readers, and the young nation was looking for writers who might compete on the cultural level of the Europeans. Writing became a way to possible fame and fortune. To be financially successful, however, a writer had to be very good and productive at his craft. Most writers had to work at occupations other than writing to support their families.
The Scarlet Letter was well received when it was published in 1850. It is one of those rare works which, recognized as a “classic” immediately upon publication, has remained in print and impressed generations of readers. Despite the desire of the reading public in 1850 for a balance of humor and pathos in new works, the publisher was enthusiastic over what Hawthorne thought to be a defect— The Scarlet Letter stressed the dark and somber side of human affairs.
The critics were nearly unanimous in their proclaiming The Scarlet Letter a major American novel. History has proven these critics right; The Scarlet Letter has never been out of print in its century-and-a-half existence. While very religious critics found his topic—a couple enmeshed in adultery—to be immoral, and Hawthorne’s treatment of them too sympathetic, most commented on the novel’s stylistic perfection, its intensity of effect, and its insight into the human soul. Hawthorne was quickly elevated to the position of the nation’s foremost man of letters.
List of Characters
The narrator—Though he does not participate in the plot, the narrator is a storyteller who presents various versions of events and, from the vantage point of 1850, comments on the characters and their actions.
The people of Boston in the 1640s—Puritan colonists who set out to purify their lives and who live under strict moral codes. They punish the adulteress, Hester Prynne, by making her continually wear a scarlet letter “A” as she lives among them.
The town beadle—A town official who leads Hester to the scaffold, the place of public punishment, and reads out her sentence.
Hester Prynne—A young Englishwoman who has given birth to a child out of wedlock and is now forced to wear the scarlet letter “A,” publicly marking her as an adulteress. She refuses to make known the identity of the father.
Pearl—The daughter of Hester Prynne and her unknown lover; she brings both pleasure and pain to Hester.
Roger Chillingworth—The assumed name of Hester’s husband who sent her ahead to Boston and who arrives to witness her disgrace and his. He is determined to find the identity of her lover and to exact his revenge. He has lived among the native peoples and learned their herbal medicines.
The Reverend Mr. John Wilson—The eldest clergyman of Boston who thinks highly of the Reverend Dimmesdale. He is concerned that Pearl be properly raised.
Governor Bellingham—The royal appointee who oversees the political needs of the colony.
The Reverend Mr. Arthur Dimmesdale—A young clergyman, who agonizes for many years over his real or imagined sinfulness and unworthiness.
Master Brackett—The jailer who summons Chillingworth to calm Hester and her child after the scaffold ordeal.
Mistress Hibbins—A sister of the governor and a reputed witch. She taunts both Hester and Dimmesdale about their secret.
The sea captain—A man known to Hester through her charity work. He agrees to take Hester, Pearl, and Dimmesdale from Salem to Bristol, England.
Estimated Reading Time
Hawthorne prefaces his novel with an introductory essay entitled “The Custom-House” which an average reader could finish in an hour and ten minutes. If you are assigned the essay to read, Hawthorne’s style and vocabulary level will probably require that you read the essay in two or three sittings, taking notes as you read.
Reading The Scarlet Letter by itself will require about ten hours for the average reader. Read the novel in its entirety or in sections as presented in these Enotes. Keep notes as you read and compare them to the summaries and comprehension questions that follow to confirm your understanding of ideas and events.
Summary (Magill's Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
The Scarlet Letter was Hawthorne’s most commercially successful work and is still regarded as his masterpiece. The entire novel is built on the five simple words contained in one of the biblical Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” The fact that Hawthorne was able to base such an enduring work on such a simple premise is an indication of genius.
The great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy did much the same thing in his novel Anna Karenina (1875-1877) some quarter of a century later, and no doubt he was influenced by Hawthorne’s example. Another prominent Russian writer, Anton Chekhov, in “The Lady with a Pet Dog” (1899), emulated Hawthorne’s very modern treatment of the psychological turmoil arising from adultery. Theodore Dreiser’s novel An American Tragedy (1925) deals with a similar theme.
Most people in Hawthorne’s day had orthodox notions of religion, based on the Bible. They thought of God as a bearded super-patriarch living up above the clouds who was somehow able to see everything that was happening on Earth and was keeping a record of everyone’s sins with the intention of punishing them in the afterlife. Hawthorne and his intellectual contemporaries no longer believed in Heaven and Hell, or angels and devils, because modern science was rapidly undermining the authority of the Bible.
This did not by any means imply that Hawthorne rejected traditional morality. He...
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Summary (Identities & Issues in Literature)
The Scarlet Letter, long considered Nathaniel Hawthorne’s greatest novel, is a complex investigation of the effects of secrecy and guilt. Set in seventeenth century Boston, the novel follows the life of Hester Prynne, a Puritan woman convicted of adultery and forced to wear a red patch, the letter A, as part of her punishment. Hawthorne’s sympathetic depiction of Hester’s struggle with this restrictive self-image is largely responsible for the book’s status as an American classic.
After her emergence from Boston prison at the book’s beginning, Hester faces a number of obstacles as she tries to reestablish herself in the restrictive Puritan community. The town has labeled her a sinner, so she must first find a way to challenge the community’s perception of her and her daughter, Pearl, the child and the proof of her “guilty passion.” Her talent for sewing and embroidery becomes her primary medium for self-expression. Not only does she decorate the letter she has been forced to wear, but also she dresses Pearl in beautiful, elaborate clothes in order to counteract the intended shame of the punishment.
Hester must also face the fact that Pearl’s father, the Reverend Mr. Dimmsdale, refuses to acknowledge his part in the affair. Despite pressure from the authorities, she keeps his secret, although it soon becomes clear that Dimmsdale’s guilt is consuming him from within. As with many of Hawthorne’s reclusive...
(The entire section is 465 words.)
Overview (Masterplots II: Christian Literature)
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s first novel, The Scarlet Letter, is introduced by a long chapter entitled “The Custom House,” which chronicles the author’s recent politically motivated dismissal from his position at the Salem Custom House. In this introduction Hawthorne describes both his short-lived experiences as a political appointee as well as his recent re-emergence as a novelist. Hawthorne creates a historical and artistic connection to his own Puritan ancestors by presenting a fictionalized account of his discovery of an old cloth scarlet letter bound with ancient legal documents.
The novel proper opens with Hester Prynne, the protagonist, emerging from the depths of an ancient-looking prison, which the narrator calls the “black flower” of the Puritan community’s imagined utopia. As she mounts the scaffold for public display with her infant daughter Pearl in her arms and an elaborately embroidered scarlet letter A on her breast, scornful women call for worse, more violent punishments. From the beginning then, the stern law of the aged Puritan magistrates and the jeering townsfolk are juxtaposed with the reader’s own sense of compassion for the suffering woman and her newborn child. It is at this point, as well, that the reader is made aware of the complex structure of the character relations. While on the scaffold, Hester sees her estranged husband, Roger Chillingworth, who has been, for a time, learning medicinal arts from...
(The entire section is 843 words.)
Summary (Masterplots, Fourth Edition)
On a summer morning in Boston, in the early days of the Massachusetts Colony, a throng of curious people gather outside the jail in Prison Lane. They are there looking for Hester Prynne, who was found guilty of adultery by a court of stern Puritan judges. Condemned to wear on the breast of her gown the scarlet letter A, which stands for adulterer, she is to stand on the stocks before the meetinghouse for three hours so that her shame might be a warning and a reproach to all who see her. The crowd waits to see her ascend the scaffold with her child—the proof of the adultery, Hester’s husband being absent—in her arms.
At last, escorted by the town beadle, the woman appears. She moves serenely to the steps of the scaffold and stands quietly under the staring eyes that watch her public disgrace. It is whispered in the gathering that she is spared the penalty of death or of branding only through the intercession of the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, into whose church she brought her scandalous sin.
While Hester stands on the scaffold, an elderly, almost deformed man appears out of the forest. When her agitation makes it plain that she recognizes him, he puts his finger to his lips as a sign of silence.
Hester’s story is well known in the community. She is the daughter of an old family of decayed fortune; when she was young, her family married her to a husband who had great repute as a scholar. For some years, they lived in...
(The entire section is 1460 words.)
The Scarlet Letter opens with an expectant crowd standing in front of a Boston prison in the early 1640s. When the prison door opens, a young woman named Hester Prynne emerges, with a baby in her arms and a scarlet letter "'A" richly embroidered on her breast. For her crime of adultery, to which both the baby and the letter attest, she must proceed to the scaffold and stand for judgment by her community.
While on the scaffold, Hester remembers her past. In particular, she remembers the face of a "misshapen" man, "well stricken in years," with the face of a scholar. At this moment, the narrator introduces an aged and misshapen character, who has been living "in bonds" with "Indian" captors. He asks a bystander why Hester is on the scaffold. The brief story is told: two years earlier, Hester had preceded her husband to New England. Her husband never arrived. In the meantime, she bore a child; the father of the infant has not come forward. As this stranger stares at Hester, she stares back: a mutual recognition passes between them.
On the scaffold, Boston's highest clergyman, John Wilson, and Hester's own pastor, Rev Dimmesdale, each ask her to reveal the name of her partner in crime. Reverend Dimmesdale makes a particularly powerful address, urging her not to tempt the man to lead a life of sinful hypocrisy by leaving his identity unnamed. Hester refuses.
After the ordeal of her public judgment, the...
(The entire section is 1433 words.)
Summary and Analysis
Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis
Our attention is focused on the door of Boston’s prison-house on a day in June 1642. The building, a concession to the fact that crime exists even among a people dedicated to perfecting themselves, is itself very ugly. The only hint of beauty is a rose bush blooming at one side of the door. The narrator suggests that it sprang from the footstep of Anne Hutchinson, a woman persecuted for her religious beliefs and held in this same prison. The narrator further suggests the moral of his story, like the solitary rose, may be the only bright spot in the forthcoming tale of human sorrow.
Discussion and Analysis
In this short opening chapter, Hawthorne dramatically sets the stage for the entrance of his main characters while also setting the tone for his story, “a tale of human frailty and sorrow” whose only bright spot is the moral lesson we may learn from it. Hawthorne was aware that readers of his times expected stories to be balanced with happiness and sadness, and he is preparing them for the tragic events about to unfold.
(The entire section is 183 words.)
Chapter 2 Summary and Analysis
Women in the crowd: Puritan women who comment on Hester’s punishment
The town beadle: the official who publicly pronounces Hester’s punishment
Hester Prynne: a young Englishwoman who, although her husband has been absent for two years, has given birth to a daughter
Pearl: Hester’s infant daughter
After the narrator tells of earlier punishments carried out upon the scaffold, our attention is focused upon several Puritan women in the waiting crowd and their reactions to Hester’s punishment. One suggests that the women, if they had the power, would have given harsher judgments; another suggests a hot branding iron should be placed on Hester’s forehead. A young wife suggests pity, but she is countered by another who demands Hester’s death.
Hester is now led into the sunshine after her three-month imprisonment. She is carrying her child and wearing a scarlet letter “A” attached to her bodice with gold embroidery. Her first impulse seems to be to cower, but she walks with grace and beauty to the scaffold and begins three hours of public humiliation. As she stands upon the scaffold, her mind retraces her life from a poverty-stricken childhood in England to her arranged marriage to an old, misshapen scholar, to her arrival alone in Salem, and to her present predicament.
Discussion and Analysis
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Chapter 3 Summary and Analysis
Dr. Roger Chillingworth: Hester Prynne’s husband who had sent her ahead to Salem. He has been shipwrecked and held hostage by the Indians for nearly two years. Dr. Prynne assumes the name of Chillingworth when he sees his wife being punished for adultery.
Governor Bellingham: political leader of Salem
The Reverend Mister Wilson: eldest clergyman of Salem who wishes Hester to reveal the identity of the father
The Reverend Mister Dimmesdale: young minister who has had an affair with Hester Prynne
From the scaffold Hester recognizes someone on the edge of the crowd. Her husband, who has been held hostage by the Indians, has arrived at the settlement to be ransomed. He now recognizes his wife, whom he signals to be quiet. Through conversation with a man from the town, Dr. Prynne learns that the identity of the father of Hester’s child is still unknown. He vows to find the man’s identity and make it known.
Near the end of her three-hour stay upon the scaffold, the authorities direct Hester to reveal the father’s identity. The Reverend John Wilson is first to demand she cooperate, noting that the young Reverend Dimmesdale was opposed to forcing Hester to speak out. Governor Bellingham joins Wilson in beseeching Dimmesdale to convince Hester to speak. Dimmesdale delivers an impassioned plea to Hester to consider her actions and how they...
(The entire section is 547 words.)
Chapter 4 Summary and Analysis
Master Brackett: the jailer
Hester and her child are visibly upset when they are returned to the prison, and Master Brackett decides they would benefit from a doctor’s care. Now living within the jail while the authorities pay his ransom to the Indians is such a man, Roger Chillingworth.
When left alone with Hester and her child, he gives a potion to calm the child. Hester drinks a potion herself after hearing Chillingworth say that he could wish no better vengeance upon than she wear the scarlet letter for the rest of her life. Chillingworth accepts part of the blame for their shame; he, a misshapen scholar, should not have married such a young and passionate woman. They agree that each has wronged the other.
Chillingworth pressures Hester to reveal the identity of the father and, when she refuses, vows to find him. Hester is sworn to keep Chillingworth’s true identity a secret so that he may move more easily about the settlement to find the guilty party. He also wants to avoid the shame of having an unfaithful wife.
Discussion and Analysis
“The Interview” reveals Chillingworth to have a reasonable side to his nature. He may be angry but he will not revenge himself upon the innocent child or a woman already being punished—in fact, he takes a portion of the blame for Hester’s disgrace upon himself for thinking that he,...
(The entire section is 322 words.)
Chapter 5 Summary and Analysis
After her ordeal upon the scaffold, Hester Prynne, free to leave the colony, chooses to remain and takes up residence in an abandoned cottage on the outskirts of the town. To support herself and her child, Hester becomes a seamstress, famous for her needlework, though she is not allowed to sew wedding garments.
Wearing the scarlet letter has several effects upon her. Even as Hester does charity work, she has to endure insults from the poor and the sick she is helping. She finds herself often at the center of sermons and public lectures and jeers. Sensing different reactions from certain men and women, she imagines the letter has given her the power to see the hidden sins of others.
Discussion and Analysis
This chapter is the first of several throughout the book in which Hawthorne focuses on a single character or relationship without using dialogue or advancing the plot very much. Here the first three years of Hester’s predicament are summarized.
The narrator suggests that Hester remains in Salem for three reasons: she feels compelled to stay in the place where a great event marked her life; she is closer to the man who fathered her child; and lastly, she feels that “here . . . had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment.”
While Hester’s skill at the needle fills a need within the community and allows her to perform...
(The entire section is 275 words.)
Chapter 6 Summary and Analysis
Pearl: Hester’s perplexing child
The narrator devotes this chapter to the first three years of Pearl’s life, so named because she cost her mother “a great price” (a Biblical reference). She is a child with no apparent physical defect but one who has moods of defiance and gloom mixed with great exuberance. In public, Pearl acts as if she were a child of the devil, defiantly hurling stones at the other Puritan children. Privately, Hester at first thought Pearl might be a fairy child because of her wild swings of mood. Hester later saw in Pearl’s eyes the image of an evil spirit.
Pearl has been fascinated by the scarlet letter upon her mother’s bosom. One afternoon she pelts the spot with wildflowers while Hester endures the emotional pain. In a discussion of her origin, Pearl declares she has no heavenly father.
Discussion and Analysis
Pearl seems to be the living embodiment of the scarlet letter. She is beautiful, just as the embroidered letter is, yet she brings her mother much pain. Within her personality are the mixed emotions that are contained within the letter—defiance, gloom, shame, and anger. She is as uncontrollable as the situation that the letter represents.
The devil is a continuing presence in the story, showing himself as The Black Man in the Forest, in the fiendish look of Chillingworth during the...
(The entire section is 352 words.)
Chapter 7 Summary and Analysis
Hester has heard that Governor Bellingham is considering removing Pearl from her care. There have been rumors that Pearl is of demon origin and that she would be better raised by someone more respectable than Hester. Hester hopes to convince the Governor to allow her to keep the child.
Pearl stands out from the other children because Hester has taken to dressing her in scarlet trimmed in fancy gold embroidery—the scarlet letter in another form. On their way to see the Governor, they are accosted by children hurling mud and insults. Pearl drives them off, and the two continue on.
A servant informs them that Governor Bellingham is conferring with one or two ministers and a doctor. While they wait, Pearl points to polished armor and notes the exaggerated proportions the surface gives to her mother’s scarlet letter. The Governor and three visitors then approach them from the garden as the chapter ends.
Discussion and Analysis
Themes and character traits noted in earlier chapters are continued here. Pearl is a demon-child and should be treated differently. Hester is not a person to be given any moral responsibility. Pearl, dressed in scarlet, represents the scarlet letter, in form and in spirit, as she finds little ways to pain her mother with references to the letter. Hester shows strength and determination as she faces the authorities.
An additional focus of the...
(The entire section is 284 words.)
Chapter 8 Summary and Analysis
Mistress Hibbins: sister of the Governor, reputed to be a witch
Governor Bellingham is the first of the group to come upon Pearl and expresses surprise at her brightly colored outfit. Reverend Wilson is next to react and asks if she is a Christian child. Wilson then recognizes Hester Prynne and tells Bellingham that this is the woman and child of whom they were just speaking.
The Governor explains that for the sake of Pearl’s soul, the authorities are considering removing her from Hester’s care and raising her more strictly. When Hester replies that she can better teach morality to the child because of what she has learned from the scarlet letter, they decide to question the child to see if she has been reared properly.
Pearl refuses to cooperate at first with the questioning, but finally answers Wilson’s question, “who made thee?” Though she has been taught the correct answers to all these questions of the catechism (religious instruction), Pearl replies that she had not been made but had been plucked by her mother off the bush that grew by the prison door. When the Governor says that the decision to taken Pearl away from Hester is obvious, Hester replies that Pearl is both her happiness and her torture and that she cannot lose her. She turns to Dimmesdale and demands that he intervene with the authorities. He does so, arguing that Pearl’s presence...
(The entire section is 777 words.)
Chapter 9 Summary and Analysis
Although not religious by nature, Roger Chillingworth chooses the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale as his spiritual advisor, a choice designed to pique the reader’s curiosity. Dimmesdale’s humility and his many fasts and vigils have impressed the townspeople with his holiness, but they fear that his deteriorating physical condition has brought him close to death. The elders persuade him to seek the advice of the learned doctor. Though Dimmesdale says he prefers death to Chillingworth’s medicines, he and the doctor spend long hours together talking about many subjects. To allow him to “help” the minister even more, Chillingworth arranges that the two of them should lodge in separate apartments at the home of a widow.
The narrator tells us that people of the town have differing opinions of the arrangement. Many see it as the answer to their prayers that the minister might be helped. Others see the new closeness as mysterious; rumors surface of Chillingworth’s involvement with a conjurer in England and of his taking part in magic rituals while a captive of the Indians. Most agree that his Chillingworth’s expression has grown uglier and more evil since he moved in with the minister.
Discussion and Analysis
The word “leech” refers here to a doctor because doctors used leeches to draw out “bad” blood from their patients. The appropriate double meaning of this word is apparent when we...
(The entire section is 291 words.)
Chapter 10 Summary and Analysis
Roger Chillingworth, described as a kindly man earlier in his life, is now described as a man possessed by a terrible fascination with Dimmesdale’s secrets. During a conversation with the minister about strange plants he had found growing over a grave, Chillingworth remarks that perhaps they grew from a heart buried with some hideous secret—thus suggesting that he knows Dimmesdale himself hides a poisonous secret. Dimmesdale answers that there are many people with such secrets that they dare not reveal. Their conversation is interrupted by Pearl’s laughter outside their open window. The doctor observes the girl sticking burrs from plants in the graveyard onto her mother’s scarlet letter, an act which Hester endures quietly. Chillingworth wonders about the child’s personality, and Dimmesdale offers that her personality is the result of a “broken law.” Pearl throws a burr at Dimmesdale through the open window and runs away shouting that the Black Man has hold of the minister.
The conversation returns to the idea of hidden guilt bringing more pain than publicly acknowledged guilt. Chillingworth raises the idea of physical illness being caused by a spiritual disorder and asks Dimmesdale what he is withholding. The minister refuses further discussion and rushes from the room.
Later, after the two have re-established their superficial friendship, Chillingworth comes upon the minister asleep in a chair. He...
(The entire section is 436 words.)
Chapter 11 Summary and Analysis
Certain that he had found out the identity of Hester’s lover, Chillingworth now decides that public exposure of Dimmesdale is not as good a revenge as continued emotional torture. His comments are causing much pain to Dimmesdale, but the minister, focused as he is on his own sin, does not suspect Chillingworth’s intentions.
The minister’s sense of his own sin and the pain it continually causes has transformed him into a powerful and much revered preacher. While he painfully tells himself of his unworthiness and punishes himself with vigils and fasts, the congregation thinks him to be the model of holiness. Many times Dimmesdale resolves publicly to confess his sin but is only able to state from the pulpit how utterly worthless and vile a liar he is, confessions which only make him seem holier and humbler than the ordinary person.
Privately, Dimmesdale continues to punish himself with whippings and long periods of watching and fasting. On one such night vigil, a new idea, one which may bring him a moment’s peace, occurs to him.
Discussion and Analysis
Chillingworth is now certain that Dimmesdale is the man he seeks and realizes that he can derive more pleasure from continually torturing the minister with well-directed comments, a more evil form of revenge. The minister’s sincere humility and his attempts to confess his guilt ironically win him wide admiration as a holy...
(The entire section is 265 words.)
Chapter 12 Summary and Analysis
On this May night the minister carries out the plan which occurred to him in Chapter 11. He will stand on the scaffold, the place of public humiliation on which Hester herself stood some seven years before. The dark of the night hides him, and he believes the town to be asleep. As he dwells on his sin and on the pain that comes from whatever is on his chest, he shrieks aloud. The only people who seem disturbed by his outburst are Bellingham and Mistress Hibbins, but their lights are soon extinguished.
In the relative calm that returns, Dimmesdale observes a person carrying a lantern on the street by the scaffold. Recognizing The Reverend Mr. Wilson, he boldly calls out to him but is not heard. A new fear arises: he will be unable to move his stiff body from the spot and will be discovered by the townspeople in the morning. He laughs aloud at the thought and is surprised to hear childish laughter answer his.
Hester explains that she and Pearl and others have been keeping a deathbed watch with Governor Winthrop and that she is going home to sew his shroud. Dimmesdale invites them to join him on the scaffold, and, as they join hands, he feels a vital warmth, a rush of new life. To Pearl’s insistence that he stand with them at noon of the following day, the minister replies that only on judgment day will they stand together. As he is speaking, the sky is lit up by a giant meteor streaking across the sky. Its light...
(The entire section is 723 words.)
Chapter 13 Summary and Analysis
Seven years have passed since Pearl’s birth. Hester is shocked at the poor physical and psychological state of Dimmesdale and resolves to do something to help his condition. Hester herself has been accepted by the community and has outwardly accepted the role she has been forced to assume. She has submitted uncomplainingly to menial tasks, to poor living conditions, and to public insults. Her charity and unfailing tenderness have earned her respect, and now most townspeople interpret the “A” upon her breast as standing for “Able.”
Inwardly, though, Hester is not the model citizen she is thought to be. The letter seems to have stolen her youth and beauty while forcing her to develop an inner strength few others could understand. She speculates on the status of women in society and what changes must occur if they are ever to achieve equality. She accepts the consequences of her actions, but she will not accept the guilt that the scarlet letter was intended to have imbued her with.
Assessing Dimmesdale’s deteriorating state and his continuing torture by Chillingworth, Hester resolves to confront her former husband. Soon she and Pearl meet Chillingworth on an isolated part of the seashore.
Discussion and Analysis
The changes in Hester over the seven years since she first stood on the scaffold are remarkable. She has changed the attitudes of the people around her with her...
(The entire section is 430 words.)
Chapter 14 Summary and Analysis
While Pearl plays in a tidal pool, Hester speaks with Chillingworth, who has been gathering plants for his medicines. When Chillingworth tells her that the magistrates are considering allowing Hester to remove the scarlet letter, Hester replies that they do not have the power to remove it. She stares at the changes that seven years of seeking revenge have caused in Chillingworth. She goes on to speak of Dimmesdale and of her promise not to reveal her husband’s identity to her lover. When Hester says that the doctor has exacted enough revenge, Chillingworth argues that he has kept Dimmesdale from the gallows, that he has kept the man, whose body lacked the spirit to withstand the pressures, alive. Here, as Chillingworth becomes very animated speaking of the years of revenge, he himself sees more clearly what he has become: a fiend whose only reason for being is revenge. Hester makes it plain that she will tell Dimmesdale the true identity of the doctor. She challenges her former husband to pardon Dimmesdale. He replies that he cannot—they are fated to play out their roles.
Discussion and Analysis
Both characters seem to accept fate, but to different degrees. Chillingworth feels he does not have the power to forgive Dimmesdale, that the minister owes him even more since the man is responsible in Chillingworth’s eyes for transforming him from a kindly scholar into a vengeance-seeking fiend. They are...
(The entire section is 287 words.)
Chapter 15 Summary and Analysis
As Hester watches Chillingworth walk away gathering herbs, she marvels at his ugliness and involuntarily admits that she hates him. Memories of their marriage lead her to conclude that the wrong he did her, marrying a girl so young, was far greater than any wrong she did him.
Pearl has been playing nearby and now creates a letter “A” out of seagrass and places it on her chest. Hester, calling to her, notes the green letter and asks whether Pearl knows why her mother wears her letter. Pearl replies that all she knows is that it is for the same reason that the minister places his hand over his heart. She thinks that the reason might be known to the old doctor. Hester is tempted to take Pearl into her confidence and tell her the importance of the scarlet letter, but instead tells her child that the letter has no great importance. Pearl is not satisfied with this answer and pesters her mother until Hester threatens to put her in a dark closet.
Discussion and Analysis
Hester undergoes several dramatic changes in this chapter. First, she permits herself to express her hatred for her former husband. In a reversal of her earlier position she now feels that she has suffered the greater wrong by being coerced into marriage with Chillingworth. Next, Hester sees a thoughtful side to her daughter’s personality and speculates whether a new relationship with her is possible. Could a thoughtful young...
(The entire section is 284 words.)
Chapter 16 Summary and Analysis
After several days of attempting to meet with and tell Dimmesdale the truth about her former husband, Hester learns that he will be returning from a visit to another minister along a path through the forest. She wishes to speak with him in the openness of nature, but she is also aware of the parallel between the actual wilderness and the moral wilderness in which she feels she has been wandering.
Pearl has been playing in the patches of the sunshine that shifting clouds have caused. She teases her mother that the sunshine is avoiding her. Pearl does catch the light, but when Hester approaches and attempts to grasp it, the sunlight disappears.
Pearl asks for a story about the Black Man and repeats a story she had overheard at a house Hester had visited the evening before. In this story, among the people who have visited the Black Man in the Forest at night is Hester, who wears his mark, the scarlet letter. Hester agrees with the story; she has met with the Black Man and does wear his mark. As they talk, they approach a brook, and Pearl remarks that it sounds very sad. Hearing footsteps and anticipating Dimmesdale, Hester attempts to send Pearl off to play. The child remarks that the minister’s hand over his heart may point to the spot where the Black Man put his mark upon the minister, then skips off to play. Hester watches the minister, listless and haggard, approach the spot where the path crosses the brook....
(The entire section is 390 words.)
Chapter 17 Summary and Analysis
The meeting of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale is awkward at first. After speaking of unimportant matters, both confess that they have not found peace. The minister tells of his continued hypocrisy and wishes for one person before whom he could daily be known for the sinner he is. Hester replies that there is such a person and he “dwellest with him under the same roof.” Dimmesdale is furious with Hester for concealing Chillingworth’s identity, and allowing him to go through the horror of living with Chillingworth. Hester sees the depth of evil she has permitted and tries to explain why she allowed the deception. However, she concludes that “a lie is never good, even though death threatens on the other side.”
Dimmesdale condemns and rejects her, yet she pleads to him for forgiveness, telling him that Chillingworth is her husband.
It is Chillingworth who has committed the vilest sin, according to Dimmesdale. He has sought continual revenge in a calculated manner; the two lovers, while sinners, did not set out to hurt anyone.
Dimmesdale wonders what course Chillingworth’s revenge will now take and asks Hester for help. “The judgment of God is on me. . . . It is too mighty for me to struggle with!” She demands that he be strong and formulates a plan. The minister can leave the Puritan settlement and restart his life in the wilderness or in Europe. When he replies that he has not the...
(The entire section is 408 words.)
Chapter 18 Summary and Analysis
The narrator explains the source of Hester’s boldness. Ostracized by the community, she has learned to think for herself, free of the strict boundaries proscribed by the Puritans. In contrast, Arthur Dimmesdale is a representative of that system, a priest, and therefore bound all the more by it. When Dimmesdale agrees to leave with Hester, they both feel a resurgence of hope. Hester symbolically tears off the scarlet letter and tosses it into the bushes. Rather than landing in the brook which could carry it away, the scrap of cloth lands among the fallen leaves on the edge of the water.
Hester lets down her hair, and as she does so, sunlight bathes the scene. She wants father and daughter to know each other and so calls to Pearl who is standing in another patch of sunlight. During this interval she has been playing with the plants and animals about her. The narrator suggests that one version of the tale implies that a savage wolf had come to Pearl to be petted. Because she sees the minister still with her mother, Pearl comes back slowly.
Discussion and Analysis
This chapter contrasts the two characters as they plan their future actions. The great forces opposing the minister’s leaving are noted; and though he agrees to go along with Hester’s plan, we can see that it will be extremely difficult for him to do so.
As they feel an initial release from their burdens, the...
(The entire section is 452 words.)
Chapter 19 Summary and Analysis
As Hester and Dimmesdale await Pearl’s return, the minister confesses his ongoing dread of the child, the living testimony of his sin, while Hester remarks on her beauty and her fitful moods. Pearl responds to her mother’s call but remains in a patch of sunlight on the opposite side of the brook, refusing to come closer. When Dimmesdale reaches his hand up to his heart, Pearl points to the spot on her mother’s breast where the scarlet letter should be. In response to Hester’s promptings to join them, Pearl goes into a wild tantrum, pointing to Hester’s bodice. To pacify her, Hester points to the scarlet letter lying by the side of the stream and asks Pearl to bring it to her. Pearl insists that her mother pick it up. Thinking she will soon be rid of the stigma permanently, Hester does so, but placing it once more in its accustomed place makes her feel a sense of inevitable doom. Pearl spontaneously kisses her mother, then the scarlet letter itself, an act which pains Hester greatly.
When Pearl asks about the minister, standing a distance from them, Hester replies that he loves them and wants to meet her. Pearl wants to know if the love is great enough to have the minister walk back, hand in hand, with them to the village. Hester has to drag an uncooperative Pearl back to the minister. Pearl washes off his unwelcomed kiss and remains apart while the two complete the details of their escape.
(The entire section is 465 words.)
Chapter 20 Summary and Analysis
As he leaves Hester and Pearl behind on the forest path, Dimmesdale reviews the plan he and Hester have devised for escape. Hester is to secure passage for the three of them on a ship now in port and bound for England. When Hester tells him that it will probably be four days until their departure, the minister is glad. Three days from now he will preach the Election Day sermon and has decided that it is the ideal time to confess his guilt and end his career as a preacher.
The dramatic changes in his life now rejuvenate the minister, and he experiences strange transformations and impulses. He wants to tell people about the new Dimmesdale, to whisper sacrilegious ideas to a church official and an old lady, and to give impure suggestions to a young maiden obviously enamored of him. These temptations lead the minister to conclude that the plan devised in the forest was, in fact, a pact with the devil, who even now is taking over his soul. Mistress Hibbins appears at this time. By congratulating him on his meeting with the devil in the forest, she confirms his suspicions.
Dimmesdale returns to his study and resumes work on the Election Day sermon. He refuses Chillingworth’s offer of medicines to see him through the election day and returns to his task with energy. He is still writing as the morning light finds him.
Discussion and Analysis
Agreeing to Hester’s plan has dissolved...
(The entire section is 371 words.)
Chapter 21 Summary and Analysis
The settlement is crowded with visitors and townspeople interested in seeing the new governor take office. Hester, with Pearl by her side, views the scene with mixed emotions. She is looking, for what might be the last time, at the society which has been her life and her torture for seven long years. She is anticipating the freedom which will be hers in a few hours. Pearl, dressed in a bright dress, reflects in her actions the mixed emotions which her mother is hiding beneath a calm exterior. She demands an explanation for the gathering and is told all are here for the holiday procession of soldiers and officials. To questions about the minister, Hester replies that they must not greet him publicly today.
The narrator describes the scenes and events of this holiday and the attitudes behind them. Many remember the wilder celebrations of England, and, while there are no skits or singing or dancing, the Puritans have lightened up their usual somber lifestyle with a procession and with some sporting competitions: in this case, wrestling and fighting with quarterstaffs. A swordfight is broken up by the town beadle, much to the disappointment of the crowd. In addition to Indians, rough-looking sailors can be seen, drinking and smoking in contradiction to the stern Puritan laws. Roger Chillingworth is seen talking earnestly with a ship’s captain, who later recognizes Hester among the crowd and approaches her. The captain tells...
(The entire section is 418 words.)
Chapter 22 Summary and Analysis
March music is heard, and even Pearl is momentarily transfixed by the sight and sound of the musicians, the military men, the civil authorities, and lastly, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale as he is escorted to the meeting-house. He walks with unusual energy, and as Hester looks upon him, she senses that he is beyond her reach. In contrast to the closeness they shared in the forest, he seems a player in a drama and she, a mere spectator. Even Pearl is unsure that she recognizes the man.
Mistress Hibbins begins a conversation with Hester about the transformation in the minister. Over Hester’s protests, the woman goes on to speak of the minister’s dark secrets and his possible revelation of them in the open air. Dimmesdale’s sermon begins, and Hester, unable to get into the meeting-house, takes a spot in the crowd near the scaffold.
The powerful sounds of Dimmesdale’s voice delivering his sermon can be heard outside in the market-place. While Hester and others listen, not quite able to make out the words, Pearl runs about, first investigating an Indian, then, a group of sailors. One, the ship captain, gives her a gold chain and asks her to carry a message to her mother: the doctor will bring the gentleman aboard, and she need worry only about herself and her child.
While she is digesting this painful news, Hester and her scarlet letter become the center of the attention among strangers who have heard...
(The entire section is 593 words.)
Chapter 23 Summary and Analysis
Dimmesdale has finished his sermon, and as people exit the meeting-house, they proclaim the wisdom in his inspired words. He has spoken of the special relationship between God and the New England communities and prophesied a great future for the people. Now the march music begins anew, and all are to proceed to the town-hall for a solemn banquet.
Even as he is honored as being at the high point of his career, Dimmesdale looks exhausted, and people fear he will fall at any moment. He rejects the offered arm of Reverend Wilson and continues on until he encounters Hester and Pearl standing by the scaffold. Governor Bellingham steps forward to offer assistance but is stopped by a look from the minister. The rest of the procession continues on, but Dimmesdale calls to Hester and Pearl.
As Pearl clasps his knees and Hester comes towards him “as if impelled by inevitable fate,” Chillingworth protests and catches him by the arm. Dimmesdale waves him off and again calls to Hester, who helps him up the steps to the scaffold. Chillingworth follows. “Hadst thou sought the whole earth over,” said he, looking darkly at the clergyman, “there was no one place so secret—no high place or lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me—save on this very scaffold!”
The noonday sun shines down upon the Reverend Dimmesdale as he announces to the entire community that one sinner in their midst has remained...
(The entire section is 842 words.)
Chapter 24 Summary and Analysis
In the days that follow Dimmesdale’s death many opinions are offered for the letter “A” that was seen on the minister’s chest. Some say he inflicted it upon himself, others say that Chillingworth caused it to appear through the use of drugs and magic, and still others speculate that personal remorse and divine judgment combined to put it upon the minister’s chest. Again, by presenting multiple versions of an incident, the storyteller allows the reader’s mind to choose the most likely version and thus to think more deeply about the idea he is presenting.
Others deny that any such mark even existed. They maintain that the minister was not guilty of any misdeed, and that he simply used his final moments to make yet another impression on his congregation. The narrator disregards this last version and tells us that the most important moral to be learned from Dimmesdale’s experience is “Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!”
Chillingworth, with his life’s purpose gone, withers away and dies within a year. The narrator speculates that hate and love may be much the same thing, and that in the spiritual world Chillingworth and Dimmesdale, two who were victims of each other, may find their hatred turned to love. The doctor leaves much property, both in the colonies and in England, to Pearl, who leaves Salem with her...
(The entire section is 650 words.)