One night, dimmesdale walks to the same scaffold that hester and pearl stood on years ago. Hester has met the black man, and the scarlet letter is his mark. During her first three years, pearl, who is so named because she came of great price, grows into a physically beautiful, vigorous, and graceful little girl. Hester says shell teach pearl what shes learned from wearing the scarlet letter. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. The truth was, that the little puritans, being of the most intolerant brood that ever lived, had got a vague idea of something outlandish. Chapters 712 analysis the scarlet letter written by. Summary and analysis chapter 8 the elfchild and the minister. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of the scarlet letter. Pearl is filled with a sense of defiance and deviance, and does not fit in among the other children of the community. The governor asks hester how she can justify keeping pearl. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of the scarlet letter and what it means. The old woman claimed that lots of people had written their names in the black mans book, including mistress hibbins, and that the scarlet letter was the black mans mark on hester.
After a few months, hester is released from prison. Another view of hester seven years have passed since pearls birth. Because pearl came from hester and adultery, she is thought as bad, but she is not. Read a plot overview of the entire book or a chapter by chapter summary and analysis. Bellingham sees the letter as the symbol of sin the puritans mean it to be, not the symbol of individuality hester has made it.
Dimmesdale imagines that he has a scarlet letter on his chest, and everyone from the town is watching and humiliating him. By renaming himself upon his arrival in boston, chillingworth has hidden his past from everyone except hester, whom he has. Hester and the physician hester informs chillingworth, who has become the embodiment of evil, that she will tell. She is radiant in the rich and elaborate dresses that hester sews for her. Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast,at her, the child of honorable parents,at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman, at her, who had once been innocent, as the figure, the body, the reality of sin. Hawthorne uses several examples of alliteration in the beginning of the chapter. A summary of chapters 12 in nathaniel hawthornes the scarlet letter. Inwardly, however, pearl possesses a complex character. The narrator describes pearl as the human manifestation of hester s sin. Hester pays a visit to governor bellinghams mansion. Brief chapter summaries of the scarlet letter for study or. The struggle to realize how something so small and innocent could symbolize something devastating theme.
Litcharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in the scarlet letter, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. The governor says that the letter is her badge of shame. See a complete list of the characters in the scarlet letter and indepth analyses of hester prynne, roger chillingworth, arthur dimmesdale, pearl, governor bellingham, and mistress hibbins. This imagining scares dimmesdale and leads him to yell into the night bringing him. In the crowd that surrounds the scaffold, hester suddenly spots her husband, who sent her to america but never fulfilled. In the scarlet letter, why is pearl often compared to an elf. Hawthorne uses several examples of alliteration in the beginning of the. Her assistance to the poor and other charitable acts have caused some to regard the a as meaning able instead of adultery chapter 14. A summary of chapters 56 in nathaniel hawthornes the scarlet letter. Man had marked this womans sin by a scarlet letter, which had such potent and disastrous efficacy that no human sympathy could reach her, save it were sinful. An important part of pearls character is the way that she is developed as being somehow. The group of men approaching hester and pearl include governor bellingham, the reverend john wilson, the reverend dimmesdale, and roger chillingworth, who, since the storys opening, has been living in boston as dimmesdales friend and personal physician.
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