Summary—Chapter 21: The New England Holiday
Echoing the novel’s beginning, the narrator describes
another public gathering in the marketplace. But this time the purpose
is to celebrate the installation of a new governor, not to punish
Hester Prynne. The celebration is relatively sober, but the townspeople’s “Elizabethan”
love of splendor lends an air of pageantry to the goings-on. As
they wait in the marketplace among an assorted group of townsfolk,
Native Americans, and sailors from the ship that is to take Hester
and Dimmesdale to Europe, Pearl asks Hester whether the strange
minister who does not want to acknowledge them in public will hold
out his hands to her as he did at the brook. Lost in her thoughts
and largely ignored by the crowd, Hester is imagining herself defiantly
escaping from her long years of dreariness and isolation. Her sense
of anticipation is shattered, however, when one of the sailors casually
reveals that Chillingworth will be joining them on their passage
because the ship needs a doctor and Chillingworth has told the captain
that he is a member of Hester’s party. Hester looks up to see Chillingworth
standing across the marketplace, smirking at her.
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Chapter 21: The New England Holiday →
Summary—Chapter 22: The Procession
“Mother,” said [Pearl], “was that the
same minister that kissed me by the brook?”
“Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!” whispered [Hester].
“We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to
us in the forest.”
(See Important Quotations Explained)
The majestic procession passes through the marketplace.
A company of armored soldiers is followed by a group of the town
fathers, whose stolid and dour characters are prominently displayed.
Hester is disheartened to see the richness and power of Puritan
tradition displayed with such pomp. She and other onlookers notice
that Dimmesdale, who follows the town leaders, looks healthier and more
energetic than he has in some time. Although only a few days have
passed since he kissed her forehead next to the forest brook, Pearl
barely recognizes the minister. She tells Hester that she is tempted
to approach the man and bestow a kiss of her own, and Hester scolds
her. Dimmesdale’s apparent vigor saddens Hester because it makes
him seem remote. She begins to question the wisdom of their plans.
Mistress Hibbins, very elaborately dressed, comes to
talk to Hester about Dimmesdale. Saying that she knows those who
serve the Black Man, Mistress Hibbins refers to what she calls the
minister’s “mark” and declares that it will soon, like Hester’s,
be plain to all. Suggesting that the Devil is Pearl’s real father,
Mistress Hibbins invites the child to go on a witch’s ride with
her at some point in the future. The narrator interrupts his narration
of the celebration to note that Mistress Hibbins will soon be executed
as a witch.
After the old woman leaves, Hester takes her place at
the foot of the scaffold to listen to Dimmesdale’s sermon, which
has commenced inside the meetinghouse. Pearl, who has been wandering around
the marketplace, returns to give her mother a message from the ship’s
master—Chillingworth says he will make the arrangements for bringing
Dimmesdale on board, so Hester should attend only to herself and
her child. While Hester worries about this new development, she
suddenly realizes that everyone around her—both those who are familiar
with her scarlet letter and those who are not—is staring at her.
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Chapter 22: The Procession →
Analysis—Chapters 21–22
These chapters set the stage for the dramatic resolution
of the plot. Tension is created by the text’s establishment of a
number of conflicts between outward appearances and inward states.
We await the inevitable collision and collapse of external and internal,
public and private. In her final hours of wearing the scarlet letter,
Hester has begun to anticipate her imminent freedom from shame,
yet the crowd is quick to remind her that the letter has not yet
lost its power of public proclamation. Their transfixed stares emphasize
the badge’s persistent visibility, even though, by this point in
time, one would no longer expect it to draw much attention. Such
gazes continue to exert great force over Hester, and her feelings
of escape from them prove premature. Meanwhile, Dimmesdale’s outer
appearance of health, though it may accurately reflect his joy at
the thought of his plan with Hester, fails to convey the shadow
of past suffering that surely continues to haunt him. While he prepares
to pronounce one of the most powerful sermons of his life, his holy
words issue from an inner state of what the Puritan elders would
consider sin. All of the primary characters in the book, save perhaps
Pearl, maintain a secret, something they are hiding as they stand
in the public realm of the marketplace. The revelation of these
secrets will bring the plot to its climactic explosion.
The pageantry that marks the Election Day festivities
provides an appropriate backdrop for the plot’s suspense-building
events. The loud music, the costumes, and the display of power are
all reminders of the hypocrisy at the heart of Puritan society.
The Puritans came from and shunned Elizabethan England, a culture that
loved and yearned for ostentatious opulence. It seems that the Puritans’
repression of their own desires for extravagant displays may have
only intensified the power images have over them. The exceptionally
straightforward revelry serves to highlight the fact that the desire
for splendor has always existed. In effect, the Puritans have re-created
the aesthetic of the society from which they tried to escape.
Hester, the sailors, and the Native Americans are meaningful symbols
of subversion. Because the sailors are perceived as facing grave
terrors on the open sea, society tends to overlook their eccentric
behavior, and they can carry on in active defiance of convention. The
presence of the Native Americans, who are positioned at an even
greater distance from mainstream colonist society, adds more weight
to the novel’s social critique. Unaware of the story behind the scarlet
letter, they think its wearer is a person of great importance. Their
reaction highlights the arbitrary nature of this important sign.
