the man. He chose a new
name, Roger Chillingworth,
to aid him in his plan.
Hester refuses to name her
lover. After she returned to
her prison cell, the guard
brought in Roger
Chillingworth, a physician,
to calm her and her child
with roots and herbs.
While treating Hester and
Perl, Roger told Hester that he would not be with her
unless she confesses to him the name of her partner (baby
daddy) Hester agreed to Roger’s terms even though she
suspected she will regret it.
Hester settles in a cottage at the edge of town and earns
a meager living with her needlework. She lives a quiet,
somber life with her daughter, Pearl.
Hester sadly walks through town.
Hester Prynne was sent to Boston by her husband, Roger
Prynne, who was supposed to join her. While awaiting her
husband, she found comfort in Rev.
Arthur Dimmesdale. Then she gave birth
to their daughter, Pearl. Because she had
no husband, she was convicted of
adultery and imprisoned. Then Roger
appeared and he wanted to know the
child’s name.
She is troubled by Pearl’s unusual character. As an infant,
Pearl was fascinated by the scarlet "A". As she grows
older, Pearl becomes capricious and unruly. Perl’s conduct
starts rumors, and, not surprisingly, the church members
suggested Pearl be taken away from Hester. Hester,
having heard the rumors that she may lose Pearl, went to
speak to Governor Bellingham. With him are Reverends
Wilson and Dimmesdale. When Wilson questioned Pearl
about her catechism, she refused to answer, even though
she knows the correct response, thus jeopardizing her
guardianship. Hester appeals to Reverend Dimmesdale in
desperation, and the minister persuaded
the governor to let Pearl remain in Hester's
care.
Because Reverend Dimmesdale's health
had begun to fail, the townspeople were
happy to have Roger, a physician, take up
lodging with their beloved minister. Being
in such close contact with Dimmesdale,
While in the stocks, Hester looked out
Dimmesdale
into the crowd. She noticed a small,
Roger began to suspect that the Dimmesdale illness is
misshapen man and recognizes him as her long- lost
the result of guilt. He applied psychological pressure
husband, who had been presumed lost at sea. When the
to the minister because he suspected Dimmesdale to
husband sees Hester's shame, he asks a man in the crowd
about her and was told the story of his wife's adultery. He
be Pearl's father. One evening, pulling the sleeping
angrily exclaimed that the child's father, the partner in the Dimmesdale's vestment aside, Chillingworth saw a
adulterous act, should also be punished and vowed to find
symbol that represents his shame on the sleeping
minister's pale chest.
Pearl is a
complicated
symbol of an act
of love and
passion. Her
personality is
described as
intelligent,
imaginative,
inquisitive,
Pearl pyrnne
determined, and
even obstinate at times. Pearl functions first as a
reminder of Hester's passion.
Hester realized this in the first scaffold scene
when she resisted the temptation to hold Pearl in
front of the scarlet A wisely judging that one
token of her shame would but poorly serve to
hide another.
As Pearl grows into a lovely, sprite like child,
Hester feels that her daughter's strange behavior
is somehow associated with Pearl's conception
and birth. Pearl is also the conscience of
Dimmesdale when Hester stands with her on the
scaffold, Pearl reaches out to her father,
Dimmesdale, but he does not acknowledge her.
Pearl asks the minister to stand with them in the
light of day and the eyes of the community.
When he denies her and she washes away his
kiss, apt punishment for a man who will not take
responsibility. She repeats her request for
recognition during the Election Day procession.
In her intuitive way, she realized what he must
do so to find salvation. In the end, it is
Dimmesdale's actions that “save" Pearl, making
her truly human and giving her human
sympathies and feelings. On the scaffold just
before his death, Pearl kisses him and "a spell
was broken." At that point, Pearl ceases to be a
symbol.
The great sense of grief, in which the wild infant
bore a part, had developed all her sympathies
and as her tears fell upon her father's cheek,
they were the pledge that she would "grow up
amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do
battle with the world, but be a woman in it.
While Pearl functions mainly as a symbol, she is
allowed to become a flesh and blood person at
the end. She is a combination of her mother's
passion and intuitive understanding and her
father's keen mental acuity.
Chillingworth is far from
attractive. He is small,
thin, and slightly
deformed, with one
shoulder higher than the
other. When he arrives in
the colony and learns of
Roger Chillingworth
Hester's situation, he
leaves her alone nearly seven years as he singlemindedly pursues Dimmesdale.
He does see his role in her downfall. Because he
married her when she was young and beautiful
and then shut himself away with his books, he
realizes that their marriage did not follow "the
laws of nature." He could not believe she was so
beautiful, could marry a man "misshapen since
my birth hour."
He deluded himself that his intellectual gifts
dazzled her and she forgot his deformity. He
realized that from the moment they met, the
scarlet letter would be at the end of their path.
His love of learning and intellectual pursuit
attracts Dimmesdale. Chillingworth lives in a
world of scholarly pursuits and learning. Even
when he was married to Hester, a beautiful,
young woman, he shut himself off from her and
single-mindedly pursued his scholarly studies
and he decides to pursue Hester's lover and
enact revenge, he pursues this purpose with the
techniques and motives of a scientist. Moving in
with Dimmesdale he pokes and prods. His
hypothesis is that corruption of the body leads to
corruption of the soul.