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The Scarlet Letter
Terms
Allegory – a narrative in which objects, persons, and actions in the story are symbolic and have
meanings that lie outside the narrative itself
Epigraph – an inscription on a building or statue; a motto or quotation setting forth a theme
Frame story/Framework narrative – a story within a narrative setting or framework; story within a story
-Example: the Customs house is the frame story
-The youngest person whose worked at the customs house for the shortest amount of
time is fired, even though the rest of the workers are lazy and don’t do anything
-He finds a tattered “A” in the attic along with papers on Hester while at his job
-Once he gets fired, he decides to write a book
Microcosm – a world in miniature that epitomizes the larger one
-In the book, Boston is the microcosm of the Puritan colony
Novel – a work that aims to be realistic
-The author works from observed facts of life towards his truths
-A novel must have verisimilitude
Retrospective plot – a plot where the major event took place before the novel begins
-The whole story is about the events of the novel thrust into action by this major event
-The events of the novel occur in response to this major action that already happened.
-In the novel, Hester has already had her affair and her baby
Romance – a work concerned with the truths of the “human heart”
-It connects with a by-gone era, a time in the past, through the imagination
-It begins with truths and uses the facts of the story to illustrate these truths
-It doesn’t aim to be realistic
-It carries a moral at the end
Satire – a worth that ridicules human institutions or the foibles of individuals or mankind to inspire
improvement or remodeling
Symbols/symbolism – something that has meaning in and of itself, but that points to another meaning
outside itself
Theocracy – a commonwealth or state under a form of government in which God or a deity is
recognized as the supreme civil ruler
-God’s laws are interpreted by religious authorities
-run by priests claiming divine commission
Verisimilitude – the appearance of truth in a work to make it seem believable
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-It’s achieved in presenting details in such a way to make them appear to be true
-The Scarlet Letter is not realistic, but it seems truthful  It has verisimilitude
Ambivalent – indecisive
Patriarchal – based on the power of males
Mutability – subject to change
Ostensible – perceived, apparent, superficial
Peril – danger or risk
Pall – cloth that covers a coffin
About the Novel
Why did Hawthorne set his romance in the Puritan era?
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He wanted to evoke the era of the 1st generation of Puritan settlers who hoped to establish a
“City on a Hill,” a community of faith surrounded by a moral wilderness. To ensure their success,
the Puritans adhered to strict laws of conduct and demanded conformity of its citizens
To evoke Boston in the 17th century during the 1st generation of settlement, Hawthorne
compresses the time into a few years
He creates a settlement that was isolated so that it would be a microcosm of the world
The Puritans of the 17th century thought in pre-scientific ways. They believed in witchcraft,
magic, and other supernatural phenomena.
Hawthorne used this magical world to heighten the effect and to show that the Puritans saw
their existence in purely symbolic ways (typology)
Hawthorne was personally interested in the Puritans because he felt they had left an indelible
mark on the character of America
What did the Puritans believe?
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Scripture provides guidelines to the way individuals, government, and church should behave.
Human beings were put on earth to honor God and follow God’s calling.
Human nature is evil and only God’s grace can save us from damnation (Doctrines of the
depravity of man and covenant of grace)
The community has a responsibility to punish sinners harshly for the good of their souls
Hawthorne criticizes the Puritans by looking at them through 19th century eyes:
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These Puritans seldom talk of God
“Providence” in the novel is used differently from the way the Puritans used the term
There are no biblical references
There are no references to grace and the elect
The Puritans didn’t believe in public confession
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The Story
The 1st 8 chapters are about the Puritan community and Chapters 8-12 are about Chillingworth and
Dimmesdale:
-The community is represented Governor Bellingham, Wilson, and the mass of Puritans
-Nobody is distinguished from the mass of Puritans to emphasize that they’re all
conformed and there’s no individuality
-Their mission was to find the father
-By the end of chapter 8, Wilson says that they’ll leave it up to “providence” (=God) and leave
Hester alone to live her life, and instead, Chillingworth takes up the mission of finding the dad.
Chapter 1
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The man-made landscape emphasizes the depravity of man: man is sinful and not
redeemable
-It’s somber, depressing, heavy, dark, gloomy, and oppressive
-1st thing they build was a cemetery and jail: all bout death and sin
-Buildings and people are sad-colored
-Focused on sin and punishment
The prison-door seems older than anything else in the New World
-This suggests that crime and punishment have been around for longer than anything
-For the Puritans, crime and sin are essential in society
These Puritans are different from the original settling Puritans
-Winthrop was all about Christian love, virtue, and happiness: the Christian God is a god of love
and forgiveness
-Now: they are all about punishment sorrow, and sin
-Hawthorne says that Winthrop and the original Puritans had hoped for a Utopia
-However, utopia means “no place” and is impossible to achieve
- This society is the opposite of utopian perfection
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Rosebush represents Hester: wild and beautiful
-How it emerged:
1) It was leftover from a time before when land was all forests
2) It sprang from Anne Hutchinson’s footsteps- she had been a prisoner who was ahead of
her time. She tried to give women more power in a patriarchal society and argued that
people don’t need ministers for a relationship with God.
-The language conveys:
-It is precious and valuable: its flowers are “gems”
-It is “wild” – natural and not associated with man (unlike the man-made Puritan
landscape)
-Nature is kind and sympathetic and has a heart – opposite of the Puritans
-The language also shows bias on the part of the narrator:
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-Calls Anne Hutchinson “sainted” which is ironic (for the puritans, the elect or the
chosen were sainted and Anne was considered a sinner) and shows his sympathies lie
with her, not the Puritans.
The story is all about human weakness and human sorrow
-At the end of the chapter, we are at the threshold of the story, like the prisoner who is about to
come out
-Hawthorne says he hopes we learn a moral lesson and are refreshed by it
Chapter 2
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Marketplace: represents the Puritan’s safe place where order resides: center of town where nothing
is hidden
-The town is gathered outside the prison door, waiting for the sinner
The people are just like the buildings:
-Chapter 1 is about the dismal, man-made landscape (the prison, the cemetery)
-Chapter 2 is about the grim, rigid, petrified (=hard like stone) people
The community is messed up:
-Society is very black and white: they have no distinction between the degrees of sin and
punishment
-Everyone is treated the same
-They’re trying to legislate morality: merging moral issues with civic laws
-Breaking a civil law is equivalent to breaking a moral law
-Treating Hester’s sin as bad as murder
-The whole town is gathered as if they’re waiting for a huge criminal and were
as serious as witnessing a hanging
-Puritans judge things that shouldn’t be judged
-The scaffold is part of a system of punishment to promote good citizenship
-The scaffold is a platform where people were usually hanged
-The men are above the scaffold, passing judgment on her
Conveys conformity in a crowd of women
Women:
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Hester
-gossips
-lady-like
-hefty, rotund
-elegant
-“country women”
-refined
-coarse: not refined
-dainty
-manly
-looks saintly (like Anne Hutchinson)
-harsh, cold, judgmental
-creative: child is a product of love
*associated with darkness
*associated with light- she radiates
*Conformity
*Individuality
Draws an analogy between Puritan leaders and terrorists
Terrorist:
Puritan leaders:
-guillotine
-scaffold
-for conformity and discipline
-for conformity and discipline
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*They’re both murderers who terrorize people into conforming
-They’re like a machine – system of oppression: squelching individuality
Hester comes out radiant: she’s passionate and spirited
-Her sin was a sin of passion- she’s associated with passion, love, and red
-The crowd expected her to come out somber and sorrowful
-She made her dress especially for the occasion – from her “fancy” which means
imagination
-She yanks her arm away from the beadle when he tries to escort her
-Associated with wildness and nature- she’s the rosebush in the midst of Puritan wasteland
-She looks like Holy Mary- sacred image of sinfulness
-criticism of puritans: they’re being so hard on a young woman with a new baby
-The crowd just stares down at her: she’d rather be mocked because she would’ve been able to
scorn back
To deal with standing walking to the scaffold, she zones out and thinks about the past
-Her past generations were part of the nobility- she’s refined and of a higher class  different
from the “country women”
-Wealth was in land, and over time, her family’s wealth (aka their land) was parceled up
over generations  her family was poor
-Because you needed a dowry for marriage and they couldn’t afford one, she had to marry an
old scholarly man
-He could look into people’s souls
-He was deformed (uneven shoulders)  associated with evil and the devil
Chapter 3
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1 of the 3 scaffold scenes
A strange man shows up who turns out to be Hester’s husband. We find out he’s been living with
the Indians for a year, raising questions on why he left Hester alone.
o Roger Chillingworth = Hester’s husband
-He’s dressed as the Indians: been living with them for a year
-She immediately recognized him because of his deformity
-He’s not interested in outside appearances: he reads inside people’s souls
-he’s keen, penetrative, and like a snake
-when he first sees her, a flash of hatred and powerful emotion crosses his face, but he
hides it
-He warns her don’t tell anyone
-He had intellect and scholarship  was also cold and unsympathetic
-We learn more about their history:
-She settled for marrying an older, ugly man because her family was poor
-After they got married, he sent her ahead of him to New England and stayed in England
and promised to come in 2 years. But she never heard from him
-His mission is to find the father of Hester’s child
-He’s reborn from Roger Prynne to Roger Chillingworth
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-Now he’s motivated by evil
The Puritans are very legalistic
-They dig out iniquity (wickedness) and put it out in the sunshine
-It’s not legally adultery because they figured her husband must be dead
-This is the only reason she’s not sentenced to death
-This is their idea of mercy and tenderness
Hester will be a “living sermon” against sin
-She has to stand on the scaffold for 3 hours while Wilson lectures about sin
Governor Bellingham:
-He’s mature and fit for a community with little imagination and hope
-He’s not fit to judge Hester – have no sympathy
John Wilson: clergyman of Boston and a scholar
-He put his intellect over his potential to be kind
-He cultivated reason, not his heart
-He’s serious and somber like a portrait: he doesn’t have the right to be passing judgment on her
Dimmesdale: father of Hester’s child
-He’s highly regarded in the community
-He’s got potential to become a church leader
-He’s very fluent, striking, with melancholy eyes
-He naturally has a lot of passion and emotions, but he suppresses it
*He’s a conflicted character
-His voice has a musical quality that goes to the heart of the audience
Dimmesdale has to interrogate Hester about the father
-John Wilson asks Dimmesdale to interrogate Hester about the father and he’s like don’t make
her tell everyone in broad daylight
-When he speaks to Hester, he puts all the responsibility on her
-Reveal the name if you want to be saves and relieve your suffering. Don’t stay quiet out
of pity for him. Your ignominy is public and open which is better for you. You’re denying
him the ability to start the process of healing and repentance. I’m not courageous, and I
can’t do it on my own.
-After Hester refuses to reveal the name and protects his identity, he gasps for breath because
he’s been spared: he’s very grateful and says she’s wonderful and generous
Chapter 4
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They send a physician (Chillingworth) to see Hester because they’re afraid she’ll hurt the baby or
herself. He uses herbs that he picked up from the Indians.
Roger Chillingworth: cold hearted
-She’s in shock when she sees him and is afraid he’ll poison her or her baby
-He doesn’t want to kill her: wants her to live so she can really suffer in shame
-He’s not as kind as he appears
-seems as if he’s talking the blame for her sin, but he doesn’t forgive her
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-He says it was his own folly: he was a fool to think he could make a young woman
happy- he’s old and deformed and should have seen it coming.
-Hester says that she was honest with him and never faked her love
-He compares his heart to a chamber:
-He brought her into her heart and wanted her to warm him
-It was her responsibility to bring him human warmth
-He has her in a position of guilt so she’ll do anything – he plays with her and tries to
manipulate the name of the father out of Hester
-He makes her promise to keep his identity a secret
-He blackmails her: if she reveals his secret, he’ll reveal hers
-He would suffer dishonor and would be a cuckled man
Chapter 5
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Why does she stay?
-There’s no clause in her punishment that requires her to stay
-She could be reborn with a new identity, or move to the west and the forest, where
should would feel more at home without the limits and rules of Puritan civilization
-She chooses to stay in a position of shame
-Her sin rooted her to the place: its part of her life
-humans tend to stay in the place where some huge event happened, especially a tragic
one
-Even though she had a happy infancy, she doesn’t want to go home to England because it
seemed foreign to her
-She felt connected to the father of her child
-Suppressed her hope that they’ll be connected at the final judgment because she was
trying not to get her hopes up
-She hopes that her suffering would purge her soul
Where does she stay?
-A cottage on the outskirts on the edge of the wilderness
-Symbolic: she’s an outsider – part of the community but still rejected and scorned
-She chooses the house herself: not rejecting her passion
How is she integrated in society?
-She’s a great seamstress and starts trends that others followed
-She’s the object of their scorn, but they like what she produces because it’s exquisite
-Hypocritical and ironic
-She dresses in plain clothes and is very Spartan
-But her child is the object of her own creativity
-She gives all her excess to charity
How is she rejected by society?
-She’s treated like an outsider and shunned
-They use her as a living sermon: teach and preach about her
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-Women were mean to her, children pointed at her and were scared by her, and even
the poor rejected her
-She takes it quietly, but she refuses to pray for her enemies
-Her agony continues to grow – she doesn’t get used to it
Even though she’s an outsider, she has insight into the human condition
-Her own sin allows her to see everyone’s hidden sins, imperfections, and hypocrisies
-A legend evolved that the scarlet A was red-hot with infernal fire – part of the romance novel
(its fantasy but we believe it in context of the story)
Chapter 6
All about PEARL:
 Pearl stands for freedom and is connected to the rosebush
-she is a beautiful flower sprung from guilty passion
-she’s not clad in weeds like the Puritan society
-She’s like nature: innocent, untamed
-Born outside the law and resists rules
 She’s named Pearl because she is Hester’s only treasure: Hester has paid her life for this child
 She is beautiful
-She’s radiant
 She’s compared to a woodland creature, an imp
-mischievous; live in woods
 She’s an external representation of Hester’s inner life (her thoughts and feelings)
-She inherited her mom’s spirit and passion
-She’s feisty
-The little Puritan kids see that the mom and child aren’t conformed and revile them –
Pearl responds by throwing stones at them
-She’s out of control:
-Hester can see herself in her child’s eyes
 She’s a symbol of sin
-She’s at odds with Puritan society
 Source of comfort (she’s not alone) and anguish (reminds her of her deed)
 She changes a lot: capricious, inconsistent, mutability
 She’s imaginative and perceptive:
-creates imaginary friends and plays by herself
-picks up the issue of the lack of a father
 The fear of the woods:
-The woods were unsafe, wild, trouble, lawless, irregularity, and freedom without boundaries
-The Puritans are surrounded by it: they need predictability and conformity
-Civilization was ordered and safe
-Hester is on the border between Puritan society and the wilderness
Chapter 7
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Hester goes to the Governor’s house:
1) to give him a pair of gloves he requested
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2) to confront him about the Puritans taking away her child
-They think the child should be removed because:
-If she’s a demon, Hester will be tainted by her
-If she’s good, then Pearl should be placed under proper care so she’s not corrupted by
Hester
Pearl is a living embodiment of the A
-Hester dresses her up in red  Pearl is the channel in which she can express her creativity
-she stands apart from the other kids
-Hester emphasizes the link between the child (object of her affection) and the A (object of guilt)
-Pearl is a constant reminder of Hester’s sin, just like the A
Pearl is fearless and defiant, screaming at the puritan kids who threw mud at her
*She exemplifies the emotions that Hester suppresses
The A is all that Hester can see in the breastplate of the armor  It’s her identity now
Governor Bellingham represents the Puritan magistrates
*He’s trying to recreate what he left behind in England by trying to make his home look like England
**This has deeper significance:
*****Puritans left England for tolerance and religious freedom. However, the Puritans
are imposing intolerance and religious persecution, the very things they escaped*****
-This is ironic and hints that their society might not be able to hold up
-This warning is embodied by Hester and the rosebush, the rebellious characters
The garden:
-Bellingham tried to set up a decorative garden (ornamental gardens just for beauty) like in
England, but it was hard to do and didn’t succeed. The gardener finally gave up hope.
-Puritans can’t grow the same crops as England on American soil. Only food like cabbages grew.
Rosebushes survived as well, representing freedom.
***Even though they came to America to establish a new order, they keep the old order of
oppression and no religious freedom***
*The values and properties of the New World are different  the Puritans recreate the
Old World in the New World because it won’t work
*This implies that the Puritan society itself is not working out and will fall apart
Governor Bellingham had been a lawyer but was forced to go to war out of necessity
*Another reminder that this utopia isn’t working out
Chapter 8
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Criticism of the patriarchs of society:
-They follow their own rules and like luxury items
-Puritans make decisions about people’s personal lives, but they have no right to do this
Hester fights to keep Pearl:
-The Puritans want the child to be raised as a good Puritan
-When Wilson asks Pearl who made her, she says she was plucked from a rosebush 
they’re horrified
-She says that she can teach Pearl all the lessons that she’s learned from the A
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-Pearl is Hester’s only reason for living
-She puts the focus on herself, saying that God gave her to me and she gives me happiness
Hester appeals to Dimmesdale
-Dimmesdale is more emaciated, wane, and pale
-Hester knows that the other men are poor judges of the heart because they’re heartless, but
Dimmesdale has some humanity and passion
-Dimmesdale takes Hester’s side:
-He says that something beautiful has come out of her sin
-God has sent her to help Hester, and she will be a constant reminder of her sin which is
evident even by her scarlet clothing
-If Hester raises the child as a good Christian, then the child could save the mother
-His sympathy and ability to touch people’s hearts is due to his suffering and guilt – he’s
committing a sin of deceit
-Wilson agrees and says let’s forget about it and let God handle it – we’ll leaving it up to God to
reveal the father
Mistress Hibbins-She was a real historical figure  adds to the verisimilitude
-She’s the local witch and invites Hester to a witch gathering in the woods (=wildness)
-She recognizes that Hester doesn’t fit in and sees things differently
-Hester says no because she has to take care of Pearl
***If Pearl was taken away from her, she would’ve given up and conformed into the Puritan
world (witchcraft was part of the Puritan system)  Pearl helps her see that the Puritan
community is limited and keeps her tethered and grounded
 Mistress Hibbins sees herself in the wrong and accepts that she’s different and
eccentric. She sees the world the way the Puritans see it. She’s conformed to their
worldview that anyone different and individual is bad.
Chapter 9
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Chillingworth has been reborn with dark motives – to punish the sinner (=the father)
-His old self dies because he didn’t want to be shamed and suffer with her
-His new motives are the only thing keeping him alive
-He is immediately accepted into the Puritan community because he’s a doctor and they don’t
have many doctors
-He attaches himself to Dimmesdale and literally sucks the life out of him with guilt
As a scholar, Chillingworth should be looking for absolute truth
-But he’s corrupted this search for truth and shifted his emphasis to punishing the father
The town sees Chillingworth as a blessing sent from God
-He seems to be a qualified doctor: they don’t ask questions
-They weave stories about him
-But meanwhile, Dimmesdale gets worse
-Dimmesdale tries to gently reject any medical help because he knows it’s an issue of
guilt, of confessing and coming out clean, not an issue of medicine
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-Yet his reputation keeps rising
Chapter 9 is all about how the Puritans twist reality to fit their perception
Chillingworth is fascinated by Dimmesdale
-He looks into Dimmesdale’s soul to find out his secret
Dimmesdale is fascinated by Chillingworth
-Chillingworth is an intellectual  has freedom of thought: doesn’t have to stick to what the
Puritans believe
-Dimmesdale sticks to the Puritan system of beliefs; he’s caught in it and it gets worse over time
-WINDOW: symbol of another way of looking at the world
-It allows you to see the world through different eyes.
-Fresh air represents fresh and new ideas, where people aren’t depraved.
-Looking at the world through Chillingworth’s eyes gives Dimmesdale a break. But the
fresh air always gets too fresh and chill, and his instinct draws him back to the
conservative standard Puritan beliefs.
***Shows Dimmesdale is conflicted and troubled (as a result: physically wasting away)
-Chillingworth and Dimmesdale have conversations in the woods and on the seashore = wild,
nature, freedom
*Dimmesdale flirts with the outside world but then comes back
Another group of Puritans saw Chillingworth as sent by the devil
-They started seeing things differently than the other Puritans who thought he was sent by God
 Shows that even when you try to impose conformity, different opinions emerge
-They had no evidence, but they could tell something was wrong with this guy
***Chillingworth has gone through a physical change: gotten uglier, more deformed  as he
preys on Dimmesdale, he deteriorates himself
The community bends that story and manipulates the fact to get the outcome they want:
-They change the story: God sent Chillingworth as a devil to make Dimmesdale’s life difficult, in
order to wage a battle between good and sin. They’re convinced Dimmesdale will win.
-But in the meantime, Dimmesdale is getting destroyed
Chapter 10
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Chillingworth is deteriorated and corrupted by his obsession with punishing Dimmesdale
-He used to be calm and in search of truth
Dimmesdale can’t recognize that Chillingworth is a foe because he is suspicious of everyone. He’s
cut off from the world by his distrust, and it makes him blind. He misinterprets Chillingworth’s
actions as kind.
Chillingworth is pressing Dimmesdale to confess and Dimmesdale is defending himself, but they do
this objectively, not personally.
o The conversation begins when Chillingworth is picking herbs from an unmarked
tombstone and says that the black weeds grew from the dead man’s heart because he
took a secret to the grave.
o Dimmesdale says that maybe he couldn’t confess
o Chillingworth: well why not? Why would you hide your sin? Why not get rid of it now?
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Dimmesdale: Well there’s no power forcing you to confess. The heart has the tendency
to hold on to its secrets until Judgment Day. A lot of people do confess: he listens to
confessions all the time. Yet some people hold in their secrets, maybe because they
want to keep it quiet.
 OR THEY DON’T WANT TO DISPLAY THEMSELVES TO BE SINFUL BECAUSE
NOTHING THEY DO AFTERWARDS WILL BE CONSIDERED GOOD, AND THEY
WON’T BE ABLE TO SERVE THEIR COMMUNITY
 **This reflects the Puritan idea of salvation. They believed that you can’t earn
salvation; it depends on the grace of God. If you’re one of the elect, you’re good
and can’t sin. But if you sin, then you can’t be good because nothing good
comes from something bad.
 Hester will think outside this box: Pearl, who is the result of her sin, is a blessing.
o Chillingworth: Let them serve their fellow man by telling the truth. Men are lying to
themselves if they believe that they’re serving God and their community by hiding their
secrets.
Hester and Pearl walk by after this conversation  they are FOILs to Dimmesdale
*Hester has not hidden her sin: she’s put it out in public and has dealt with it
*Pearl represents the freedom of a broken law
-She sees right through to the truth of things and operates outside the Puritan
worldview. She immediately sees that Chillingworth is evil.
One day, when Dimmesdale is so tired that he completely passes out in a deep sleep, Chillingworth
sneaks up on him and looks at his heart.
-He sees something that makes him really happy and wondrous. Hawthorne doesn’t tell us what
he sees, but it confirms that Dimmesdale is the guilty sinner and father of Pearl. It’s probably a
branded A.
Chapter 11
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Chillingworth changes: now he has a plan, a plot full of malice
-He’s so subtle that even though Dimmesdale feels like there’s something evil watching over
him, he can’t pinpoint it on Chillingworth
As Dimmesdale suffers more, his reputation and fame rises
-He is an extraordinary speaker:
-Other ministers can’t compare to him
-His own emotions and feelings that come from within him make him even more
human. He recognizes his own flaws and connects with the people he serves.
-Puritan members of the community want to be buried next to him; yet he fears that nothing
will grow on his grave because he’s rotten and terrible.
-Doesn’t confess because: He will do more good for the community by hiding his sin
-The more they revered him, the more he suffered
Dimmesdale goes through the motions of confessing he tells the people what he was (a sinner),
not what he did
-He doesn’t tell the whole truth
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**His life has become a sham  If you live a life of lies, nothing has meaning
He tries to make up for his guilt by: fasting, meditating, whipping himself
He has visions but he never lost his sense between reality and his hallucinations
Chapter 12
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2nd scaffold scene
-Hawthorne recreates the scene: replays all the characters
-Midnight vs. noontide (1st scene)
-Dimmesdale is trying to put himself in Hester’s position. But at the end, he goes back home
with Chillingworth, revealing that he is still stuck in the Puritan belief system
Dimmesdale is totally obscured by the darkness, so nobody could see him.  He likes this, which is a
clue that he just wants to go through the motions of confessing
- “Mockery of penitence” – it’s an imitation or ridicule of Hester’s
punishment, the punishment he should have suffered as well
Dimmesdale has many occasions where he has a choice: to confess or not
-He feels like he needs to confess, but he’s too cowardly
Governor Bellingham represents society and civil values, law, and duty
-He has the chance to say something to him, but he cowers
Mistress Hibbins represents going over to the evil side
-He rejects turning to evil as a result of his sin
Wilson represents religious society and possibility of salvation
-He has another chance to come clean but he is too weak
Pearl and Hester represent hope for redemption.
-Dimmesdale could get his life back in he accepts them. He would be made holy, happy, and
strong if he confessed. They’ve given him life.
-Pearl laughs and tries to pull away because she sees a coward when she looks at Dimmesdale.
-When Pearl asks him to stand on the scaffold at noon with the 2 of them, he says no 
rejection of the opportunity to come clean and feel rejuvenated
Winthrop dies  death of the 1st generation of Puritans
-These Puritans are a new breed: they are oppressive and obsessed with sin and punishment
Meteor:
-The universe would send signs to show its sympathy for humans
-This sign singles out that Dimmesdale is a coward, not a hero. It’s condemning him for not
accepting responsibility.
He sees the scarlet A in the sky and thinks it’s about him: he’s egotistical. Others saw it and thought
it stood for “angel” because Winthrop died.
He goes home with Chillingworth at the end.
The sexton found Dimmesdale’s glove on the scaffold, but he says Satan probably dropped it there.
-He creates another reality because he can’t imagine that Dimmesdale would be sinful
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Motifs and Themes
The Puritan perspective:
-The Puritans pride themselves in having the only right perspective.
-They believe that they could see inside people
-However, their perspective is skewed and limited.
-They can’t distinguish between appearance and reality
-They remain ignorant to the truth if it doesn’t match their perception
-They bend the story to make it fit what they perceive and misinterpret signs
-Examples:
1) While on the scaffold, Hester would look like the Virgin Mary to a stranger
-She’s the opposite: she’s not innocent, she’s a sinner
2) At the governor’s hall, the bondservant thinks Hester is a great lady
-He doesn’t know that she is scorned and looked down on
3) The Puritans think Chillingworth was sent by God to help Dimmesdale
-Chillingworth is making him worse, not better
4) The Puritans see Dimmesdale as a good and holy person who could never sin
-He sinned along with Hester and is sinning even more every day by not
revealing himself as the father
-If he’s going die, then it’s because he’s too good for this world
5) They see Pearl as a demon, so they interpret everything she did as evil
6) They see Hester as a sinner  She will change their mind and break the bonds of
Puritan society
Appearance vs. Reality

Dimmesdale:
-Appearance: seems holy, devout, pure
-Reality: is a huge sinner

Chillingworth:
-Appearance: he seems kind and generous and accepting
-Reality: he isn’t the good person he seems to be

Hester:
-Appearance: appears somber and conformed
-Reality: she still has passion and resistance in her
-Revealed through:
-Her choice of living (cottage on outskirts) and the clothes she makes for Prynn
©SarahStudyGuides