Summary—Chapter 19: The Child at the Brook-Side
Hester calls to Pearl to join her and Dimmesdale. From
the other side of the brook, Pearl eyes her parents with suspicion.
She refuses to come to her mother, pointing at the empty place on
Hester’s chest where the scarlet letter used to be. Hester has to
pin the letter back on and effect a transformation back into her
old, sad self before Pearl will cross the creek. In her mother’s
arms, Pearl kisses Hester and, seemingly out of spite, also kisses
the scarlet letter. Hester tries to encourage Pearl to embrace Dimmesdale
as well, although she does not tell her that the minister is her
father. Pearl, aware that the adults seem to have made some sort
of arrangement, asks, “Will he go back with us, hand in hand, we
three together, into the town?” Because Dimmesdale will not, Pearl
rebuffs his subsequent kiss on the forehead. She runs to the brook
and attempts to wash it off.
Read a translation of
Chapter 19: The Child at the Brook-Side →
Summary—Chapter 20: The Minister in a Maze
As the minister returns to town, he can hardly believe
the change in his fortunes. He and Hester have decided to go to
Europe, since it offers more anonymity and a better environment
for Dimmesdale’s fragile health. Through her charity work, Hester
has become acquainted with the crew of a ship that is to depart
for England in four days, and the couple plans to secure passage
on this vessel. Tempted to announce to all he sees, “I am not the
man for whom you take me! I left him yonder in the forest,” Dimmesdale
now finds things that were once familiar, including himself, to
seem strange.
As he passes one of the church elders on his way through
town, the minister can barely control his urge to utter blasphemous
statements. He then encounters an elderly woman who is looking for
a small tidbit of spiritual comfort. To her he nearly blurts out
a devastating “unanswerable argument against the immortality of
the human soul,” but something stops him, and the widow totters
away satisfied. He next ignores a young woman whom he has recently converted
to the church because he fears that his strange state of mind will
lead him to plant some corrupting germ in her innocent heart. Passing
one of the sailors from the ship on which he plans to escape, Dimmesdale
has the impulse to engage with him in a round of oaths; this comes
only shortly after an encounter with a group of children, whom the
minister nearly teaches some “wicked words.” Finally, Dimmesdale
runs into Mistress Hibbins, who chuckles at him and offers herself
as an escort the next time he visits the forest. This interchange
disturbs Dimmesdale and suggests to him that he may have made a
bargain with Mistress Hibbins’s master, the Devil.
When he reaches his house, Dimmesdale tells
Chillingworth that he has no more need of the physician’s drugs.
Chillingworth becomes wary but is afraid to ask Dimmesdale outright
if the minister knows his real identity. Dimmesdale has already
started to write the sermon he is expected to deliver in three days
for Election Day (a religious as well as civil holiday that marks
the opening of the year’s legislative session). In light of his
new view of humanity, he now throws his former manuscript in the
fire and writes a newer and better sermon.
Read a translation of
Chapter 20: The Minister in a Maze →
Analysis—Chapters 19–20
Hester and Dimmesdale’s encounter serves to further complicate what
is already a morally ambiguous situation. The sun shines on the
couple when Hester removes the scarlet letter, suggesting that nature,
God, or both favor their plan. Pearl, on the contrary, cannot accept
this new, happier version of her mother. When she forces Hester
to reattach the letter to her breast, Hester’s beauty immediately
dissolves, “like fading sunshine,” making it seem as if Pearl is wrong
to make her mother reassume her old identity. But the reader has
already learned to associate Pearl with a special sort of insight, and
thus it does not seem likely that Pearl errs here. Indeed, once Pearl
rejoins her parents, it becomes apparent that she is right to be skeptical.
She asks Dimmesdale to publicly acknowledge his relationship to
her, and he refuses.
When added to the fact that the couple plans to flee to
Europe, Pearl’s instinctual displeasure with the changes that have
taken place in the forest suggests that Hester and Dimmesdale are
not operating according to a newer, better moral code but are instead trying
to find new ways to defy the same old social rules. The Puritans
fled Europe out of the desire to live in a place where they would not
need to hide their religious affiliations or fear the sanctions
of others. Within the novel, they simply seem to have re-created
the old order in the new world. Likewise, Hester and Dimmesdale
are failing in their attempt to follow a higher truth. The most
damning evidence of this is the fact that Dimmesdale is pleased
that he will be able to stay in Boston long enough to preach the
sermon for Election Day, a holiday that celebrates the forces that
have tried to destroy the former lovers. Seemingly without irony,
he finds it the appropriate conclusion to his career. The struggle
between individual identity and social identity remains an important
theme.
