 Hester meets Dimmesdale in the forest to tell him who
Chillingworth is and about his diabolical plan.
 Dimmesdale “put forth his hand, chill as death, and
touched the hand of Hester Prynne.”
 This grasp allows them to “[inhabit] the same sphere”
Reference this back to the 2nd chapter when the scarlet
letter isolated her in “a sphere” by herself. This is the
first touch, by someone other than Pearl, that Hester
has received in seven years.
 Dimmesdale asks, “Hester, hast thou found peace?”
 Hester responds by looking down at her A and smiling
 She then asks Dimmsdale, “Hast thou?”
 There is no redemption for “his polluted soul”
 “Hester, you wear the scarlet letter openly – mine
burns in secret”
 Hester is the only one he can look in the eye, “that
recognizes me for what I am”
 Dimmesdale has his hand over his heart at the end of
Ch 16;
 Clutches his chest at the news that his enemy “dwellest
with him under the same roof!”
 Define the word “misanthropy” as Hester was in the
past less sensitive to the damage done to Dimmesdale
by her secret, “perhaps in the misanthropy of her own
trouble, she left the minister to bear what she might
picture to herself as a more tolerable doom.”
 “O Arthur, forgive me!” In all things else, I have
striven to be true! Truth was the one virture I might
have held fast.”
 Truth and being true to oneself is a theme of The
Scarlet Letter. Think about all the various lies and
secrets throughout the book and the damage they
cause.
 “I might have known it!” “I did know it!” “the secret
told me in the natural recoil of my heart at the first
sight of him” The intuition of the Trancendentalists
and Romantic writers at play
 Dimmesdale says “Woman, woman thou art
accountable for this! (blame the woman) I cannot
forgive thee!”
 Hester’s new found independence cries, “Thou shalt
forgive me!” Let God punish! Thou shalt forgive”
 Hester grabs Dimmesdale to her bosom and will not
let him go. “All the world had frowned upon her – for
seven lonely years…” Hester has had enough!
 They hesitate leaving the forest as Hester will “take up
again the burden of her ignominy, and the minister
the hollow mockery of his good name!”
 True love: “seen only by his eyes, the scarlet letter
need not burn into the bosom of the fallen woman!
“seen only by her eyes, Arthur Dimmesdale, false to
God and man, might be, for one moment, true!”
 “Think for me, Hester! Thou art strong. Resolve for
me!”
 “The judgment of God is on me…It is too might for me
to struggle with!”
 “Be thou strong for me!” “Advise me what to do.”
 “I am powerless to go!”
 “Leave this wreck and ruin here where it happened”
 “Begin anew !”
 “Exchange this false life of thine for a true one”
 “Preach! Write! Act! Do anything, save lie down and
die!”
 Dimmesdale cannot go alone
 “Thou shalt not go alone!” answered Hester
 Then, all was spoken
 Hester is bold – Hester has found her voice
 She is an “outlaw” her freedom is a “moral wilderness”
 “as untamed” “vast” “intricate and shadowy – as the
forest
 The scarlet letter was her “PASSPORT” into regions
“other woman dared not thread”
 ‘SHAME, DESPAIR, SOLITUDE her teachers”
 The past seven years preparation for this very hour.
 The minister was soft, had not been hardened or
toughened by punishment – public shame and
banishment. Needs encouragement from Hester
 He began to feel free, he felt as “ a prisoner just
escaped from the dungeon of his own heart”
 He has flung his “sick, sin-stained and sorrow
blackened” (alliteration) and risen up anew!
 Hester removes her scarlet A threw it aside as a symbol
of leaving the past behind. She and Dimmesdale
would start anew overseas
 The “mystic token” “glittering like a lost jewel” the
“stigma” gone –The “burden of shame and anguish
departed from her spirit”
 She takes off her cap and wholah the long, dark
auburn hair adds softness to her features: she becomes
radiant, hair shines, eyes shines, she smiles – she has
found her womanhood-the “sudden smile of heaven,
forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the
forest”
 “Love, whether newly born or aroused from a deathlike
slumber, must always create a sunshine filling the
heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the
outward world.”
 The “sphere” that held Pearl and Hester together had
been broken when Hester removed the scarlet letter
and tossed it to the side of the river bank.
 The brook represents the boundary between the adults
and the child
 Pearl will not cross the brook to Hester without the
scarlet letter: the “hateful token” “deadly symbol”
“scarlet misery”
 Hester puts her hair back under her cap and and as if
“a withering spell in the sad letter” “her beauty, the
warmth and richness of her womanhood, departed,
like fading sunshine” “gray shadow seemed to fall
across her”
 “Will he go back with us hand in hand, we three
together?”
 “Not now, dear child”
 “Will he keep his hand over his heart?”
Alienation
 Hester – ostracized shunned by the community
 Pearl – same as Hester; does not know her father
 Chillingworth: hides his true identity and purpose
 Dimmesdale: Cannot/will not show his true self.
Alienated from community and church – feels
empty and alone even thought he is adored and
accepted by the community and church
Hester: the sinner defined by her act of adultery vs the
charitable, saintly image defined by her deeds
Chillingworth: takes on the role of a “healer” but succeeds in
contributing to the poor health and untimely death of
Dimmesdale
Dimmesdale: minister, man of God – associated with truth,
justice yet, hypocrite
Pearl: demon child, wild, unruly – seeker of truth, refuses
hypocrisy, wise
 Hester: