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Scarlet Letter Chapter Summary

1454 Words6 Pages

In this chapter, a crowd of bearded men and women are standing outside of the door to what is probably the prison. The narrator, who is the man who found the documents in the custom house, discusses the vision of the perfect world the Puritans who settled there and how they ironically built a prison and a cemetery as the first buildings when they arrived in the new world. A beautiful rose bush stands, out of place, by the prison door.
Holding an infant, a Woman named Hester Prynne is forcibly transferred from the prison to a scaffold, where she is to be publicly criticized. Women in the crowd make disparaging comment on Hester who committed adultery and has born a child whose father is unknown. Women also criticize a letter “A” with gold and …show more content…

With his knowledge about remedies, he becomes a doctor. Therefore, he tries to cure Dimmesdale, who has been suffering from health problems. As time has passed, the townspeople doubt Chillingworth’s identity, which they think he might be a Satan.
While Chillingworth and Dimmesdale are having conversation, they hear the laughter of Pearl who is dancing in the graveyard. As Pearl and her mother leave, Dimmesdale tells Chillingworth that Hester is less miserable for scarlet letter. With full of suspicions, Chillingworth leaves the room and comes back while Dimmesdale is asleep. As he takes off Dimmesdale’s shirt, he expresses feeling of wonder, joy, and horror.
Even though Chillingworth knows the truth of Dimmesdale, he does not reveal his feelings and continues questioning Dimmesdale. When Chillingworth is gone, Dimmesdale starts torturing himself with a whip and he fasts. Keep suffering, Dimmesdale, eventually, decides to go to the scaffold where Hester was due to her sin.
Dimmesdale stands on the scaffold and screams because of his pain on his chest (breast). As he stays on the scaffold, he starts laughing continuously and hears Pearl’s voice. Returning from the deathbed, Hester and Pearl meet Dimmesdale. While they hold hands on the scaffold, Chillingworth approaches to …show more content…

While they are walking in the forest, Pearl keeps asking about the “Black Man” and the connection with the scarlet letter. Feeling disturbed, Hester tells Pearl to go away and play.
In the forest, Hester confesses Dimmesdale that Chillingworth is her husband. Feeling irritated, Dimmesdale scolds Hester for his suffering, but soon forgives her. Defining Chillingworth as a worse sinner than both Hester and himself, Dimmesdale worries about Chillingworth exposing their relationship to the public. Therefore, he suggests Hester moving to Europe to live as a family.
Hester and Dimmesdale have decided to move to Europe for their child and themselves too. Feeling joyfulness, Dimmesdale throws the scarlet letter away from Hester’s bosom. Hester, knowing that Dimmesdale will be a father of Pearl, tells him that both he and Pearl should be able to know each other as a father and a daughter. Hester calls Pearl, being cautious due to the

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While Dimmesdale was being interrogated verbally but mentally as well by the malevolent physician Roger Chillingworth. The physician was becoming very aggravated by the pastor’s replies and therefore left. Dimmesdale looked out of the window and saw Chillingworth standing at the same location as Pearl, the devil spawn. Chillingworth left something on the grave then proceeded to his room. The ailing pastor forced his failing body to walk to the grave.

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Dimmesdale is the biggest jerk of The Scarlet Letter. From the beginning of the book, Dimmesdale is a hypocrite. Although it is implied that he preaches against premarital sex as a Puritan pastor, Dimmesdale commits adultery with Hester. After getting Hester pregnant, he avoids visiting Hester and his daughter for seven years.

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When Chillingworth visits Hester in prison, he claims that “his [the adulterer] fame, his position, his life, will be in my hands” (53). Chillingworth makes a vow to Hester that he will find the man who enticed her and will destroy the individual’s life and soul. As the novel progresses, Chillingworth establishes himself as the town doctor and Dimmesdale develops a mysterious illness that perplexes and worries the townspeople. His illnesses leads to Roger Chillingworth becoming his medical advisor, “as not only the disease interested the physician, but he was strongly moved to look into the character and qualities of the patient, these two men...came gradually to spend much time together” (84). Chillingworth takes advantage of the fact that Dimmesdale needs medical attention and establishes himself as a friend, with the intention of finding out personal information about Dimmesdale.

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Hester finds community service, whereas the minister's sin-related repercussions cause him immense distress and a physical and emotional breakdown. Chillingworth steps in as the go-between to help Hester and Dimmesdale realize what they are going through. He evolves into someone even nastier than he was before. He devises a plan to undermine Hester's reputation, which was already in jeopardy. Tarnishing Hester’s reputation was Chillingworth’s way of getting back at Hester for the humiliation that she caused him.

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Throughout the book Chillingworth reminds Hester of her wrong doing an example of this is when the novel states, “As he spoke, he laid his long forefinger on the scarlet letter, which forthwith seemed to scorch into Hester’s breast, as if it had been red-hot. ”(Hawthorne 64) Chillingworth's efforts to please himself by making Hester feel guilty for her actions during his absence sways the way many things happen in the book, like at the end when he decides to join the voyage that Dimmesdale and Hester planned to escape

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Guilt is in everyone. Guilt is often to be seen within everybody, for it is a force that does not fail to capture even the mightiest of people. Guilt behaves as a reminder to let one know privately that he/she has committed a bad deed, after awhile people begin to give in and confess. However, there are those who refuse to accept the actions they have previously taken and hide it. Similarly, the act of act of concealed guilt apparent in the supposed antagonist, Roger Chillingworth, of The Scarlet Letter.

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In Chapters Fifteen and Sixteen, of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester recognizes her true hatred of Chillingworth just before she finds Pearl, playing at the beach, and creating a green letter A on her own chest out of seaweed. Later, Hester goes to hopefully “run into” Dimmesdale in the forest to reveal to him the truth about Chillingworth’s identity. Pearl comes along, and as they wait, she curiously asks her mother about the Black Man. When Pearl sees Dimmesdale’s figure appear in the distance, she asks whether the approaching person is in fact the Black Man himself, which Hester rejects. Pearl, however, ponders if Dimmesdale clutches his heart, as he does, because the Black Man has left his mark on him, similar to how the

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The Consequences of Sin Sin is defined as “an offense against religious or moral law”. The idea of sin and being ostracized for your sins was extremely relevant during the Puritan period when religion was the greatest component of daily life. The Puritans believed that they had entered a covenant with God and therefore any sin, such as crime and adultery were considered a breach of their covenant with God. This view led to the church punishing people who committed sin in order for God not to punish the church as a whole. The consequences and effects of sin is shown through the character development in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter.

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Mentally, his guilt strains his mind, which causes his physical deterioration, and the weakening of his body. As Dimmesdale finally admits his sin to the townspeople, his guilt is lifted, and he is able to release himself from his captivity. Though he deteriorated both mind and body from his guilt, by telling the townspeople of his sin, it was as if “a spell was broken” (238). He no longer needed to force himself to hide his sin, which was what was hurting him. By finally dealing with his sin in a similar way to Hester, Dimmesdale was able to free himself of his self-imposed captivity and

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He silences Hester in order to protect his reputation and lies about abandoning her. Dimmesdale demands Hester to reveal who her lover is but she doesn’t have enough courage to say that it is him. He too abandons Hester with their child. Chillingsworth checks in on Hester and her child as a physician in chapter four, The Interview.

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The Scarlet Letter Dimmesdale's Transformation

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Dimmesdale starts living with Chillingworth so the doctor can keep the feeble minister ‘healthy’; the doctor, reversely, tries to make Dimmesdale feel conflicted about his morals which leads to Dimmesdale obsessively whipping himself “...on his own shoulders” and“... fast[ing]...in order to purify [his] body… rigorously...until his knees trembled beneath him[self]...” (132). He is enveloped in his sin, and cannot escape it unless he tells the truth. In fact, Dimmesdale could not stop thinking about his sin which “...continued to give Mr. Dimmesdale a real existence [which] was the anguish in his inmost soul” (133).

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Dimmesdale and Chillingworth both have secrets that make them look and act differently, their secrets affect their character and how they do their job. Dimmesdale is the father of Pearl but he doesn 't want to face the same humiliation as Hester did for his sins. Because of his secret he self punishes and fasts, he also preaches better than he did before although his health is failing. Chillingworth’s secret is that he was the husband of Hester while he was away, before she cheated on him. Chillingworth gets uglier and uglier driven by the need to get revenge on Pearl’s father.

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“(Hawthorne 109). His moral stage continues to be at stage 1 “Obedience and Punishment Orientation” because his selfishness still makes an overall reflection on his personality. He is more concerned about his own feelings than everyone around him opposed to his morality at the beginning of the novel. He expresses signs of jealousy because Pearl called out for him. Next, at the beginning of Chapter 18 after Hester has declared to Dimmesdale that Chillingworth is her real husband and he becomes upset, eventually he forgives her and sees Chillingworth as the real sinner.

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Some of the differences between these two characters are also what makes them alike, as well as setting them apart from the rest of the characters in the book. Hester and Dimmesdale’s need to repent and face their punishments in their own ways leads the reader through the book with surprises at every turn. The characters face challenges from holding in a secret, and facing a punishment all relating to the same actions taken before the book begins. Hester, the mother of Pearl ,as well as the main character, was

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He was the last person that people would think as a sinner. Dimmesdale was sin when he was committed adultery with Hester. He broke the law of church, but he was afraid to face the punishment and indifferent attitude from he masses. As a faithful follower, Dimmesdale also afraid the punishment of God, so he flog himself with a whip. The physical and spiral torture and the control of Chillingworth stranded him in a world that he cannot contact with others.

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