CHAPTER NOTES 22-24
ADAPTED FROM:Guelcher, William: THE SCARLET LETTER: STRATEGIES IN TEACHING: Idea Works
Inc., Eagan Minnesota, 1989.
Van Kirk, Susan: HAWTHORNE’S THE SCARLET LETTER: CliffszNotes. IDG Books Worldwide Inc., Forest City, California., 2000.
THE SCARLET LETTER
• Chapter 22: We get a sense right away that
Hester and Dimmesdale’s future together is
doomed.• Hester despairs over the
change in Dimmesdale: “He seemed so remote
from her own sphere, and utterly beyond her
reach.”• Compare that to three days earlier in the forest:
“How deeply they had know each other then!”
CHAPTERS 22-24
• Hawthorne uses Mistress Hibbins to foreshadow the
ending: The old witch reveals the minister’s sin will soon become public knowledge.
• Dimmesdale may have removed himself from Hester’s emotional sphere, but she has not lost her connection to him.
• She hears and recognizes his “low expression of anguish” in
his final sermon – and his unspoken plea for forgiveness.
CHAPTERS 22-24
• Chapter 23: The third and climactic scaffold
scene• Finally, Dimmesdale
lets go of everything: his honor, his love, his
family, his life.• Dimmesdale knows God
sees everything: He cannot outrun the truth
or his conscience.
CHAPTERS 22-24
• The tenets of Puritan society are present: The Church, in the form of Mr. Wilson, and the State, in the
form of Gov. Bellingham.
• Both try to help Dimmesdale: He repels them and turns to Hester
instead.• He asks Hester for
approval of this act and then places his fate in the hand of
God.
CHAPTERS 22-24
• Two other characters are profoundly affected.
• Chillingworth loses his purpose for living: “Thou
hast escaped me!”• Pearl kisses her father
and weeps. She has gained compassion,
sympathy, and the ability to interact with humans:
“The spell is broken” indicates Pearl can now live a life full of love and
happiness.
CHAPTERS 22-24
• Finale:• What did the community see on
Dimmesdale’s chest? • Hawthorne leaves it ambiguous.• What is unambiguous is the
moral lesson: “Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet
some trait by which the worst may be inferred.”
• Be true to yourself: Which characters in the story were true, and what price did they
pay for that?
CHAPTERS 22-24
• Chillingworth fades badly and vanishes: His revenge has
consumed him and made him inhuman.
• With Dimmesdale removed,
Chillingworth has nothing to sustain
him.
CHAPTERS 22-24
• Pearl’s future is not confirmed, but the reader is left to believe she lived a long and happy life, married, enjoying motherhood
and apparent wealth.• Her love and generosity toward
Hester are evident.• This only became possible
through Dimmesdale’s public confession: Pearl becomes a child of Truth, as the scarlet letter is a symbol of truth.
• The Truth now purges Pearl from the evil influence of the
devil.
CHAPTERS 22-24
• The graceful and dignified woman that Hester becomes
is a survivor through suffering.
• Her suffering allows her to give hope to those who are hopeless and help to those
who are in trouble.• Because her heart has felt
these emotions, she is able to comfort others.
• The question remains: Why does she return to the colony?
CHAPTERS 22-24
• In the end, Hester and Dimmesdale are side by
side but not quite together in the cemetery.
• However, they share a common tombstone.
• “On a field, sable, the letter A. gules.”
• On a dark field, a red letter.
• In death, they share a scarlet letter.
CHAPTERS 22-24
• Traditionally, the novel has been viewed as a gloomy, tragic book because Hester was “condemned” to the
lonely life of a “fallen woman” and a “widow” of sorts, even though her husband was still alive.
• Can we make an opposite argument that this book is actually a story of triumph?
• Consider these three strains of thought:1. Hester can use the scarlet letter as a justification for
spurning humankind and raise Pearl in the spirit of that cynicism.
2. She can fall into the trap of despair and hopelessness, feeling that the world has no place for one who has no seriously sinned (and Hester does have moments when
she feels that despair).
END THOUGHTS
3. She can, as an act of her own will, see the scarlet letter as an obligation that she has to both herself and to
humankind.• Which one does Hester choose?• In the end, Hester changes the meaning of the symbolic
scarlet letter from one of disgrace to one of honor.• The timeless, relevant message: At some point, we will
all fail in a moral or ethical expectation. • But the sin is not in the fact that we failed; it is what that
failure does to us as people.• We can either be jaded to cynicism and hypocrisy, or we
can be challenged to call up the best in us.
END THOUGHTS
• A parting thought.• Many of us live our lives presenting to the world only that which we think the world will find
most agreeable.• We disguise those elements of
ourselves which we think would bring us criticism and ostracism
from the community.• This forces us to live with the roles
that circumstances force upon us.• Better to admit to our humanity
and trust in the nature of others to forgive and overlook our failings.
CHAPTERS 22-24