Ch. 15- Hester and Pearl
- Hester hates RC (159)
- Had the scarlet letter made her repent? (159) bottom
- Pearl- eelgrass “A” (161)
o Curious of mother’s letter and why D holds his chest
- Hester’s repentance- through Pearl, not through Providence (163)
Ch.16- A Forest Walk
- Hester wants to tell D that RC, her husband, saw them (164)
- Sunshine not coming upon Hester- dark vs. light, good vs. evil, truth vs. lies (165)
- Black Man and Hester- the scarlet letter is his mark (167)
- D comes along and Pearl continues to wonder why he holds his chest
- Pearl seems to be only one to connect Hester and D together
- *Forest= place of evil; it is unfavorable to the citizens
Ch.17- The Pastor and His Parishioner
- Hester and D meet- so long since seeing one another that they question existence
- D has found no peace (172)
- Hester putting blame for everything on RC (173)
- Hester sympathizes for D understanding the struggle he has been through, and confesses about RC (174-175)
- “dark transfiguration” overcame them (175)
- Hester loves D?
- “that old man’s revenge has been blacker than my sin” (176)
- landscape and nature (176)
- D worried RC will snitch, so Hester says they should runaway to Europe and start anew (178-179)
Ch.18- A Flood of Sunshine
- Dark forest -> Hester’s moral compass (180)
- “the breach which guilt has once made into the human soul is never […] repaired” (181)
- D agrees with the plan and everything seems to become renewed:
o Enjoyment on their faces- “Do I feel joy again?” (182)
o Hester threw down her hair and threw off scarlet letter, got back her beauty
· Pearl was bred from evil, maybe that’s why the forest/nature found a liking for her (185)
· Dark vs. light first time sunshine shone on them when she took off letter
Ch. 19- The Child at the Brook-Side
- Hester and D acting like couples playfully bickering about who gave Pearl’s features (186)
- Pearl unites them (186)
- FIRST EX.: Hester feels a remoteness from Pearl (187)
· D explains the brook is “the boundary between two worlds” (187)
- Pearl “spazzes” when she sees no scarlet letter (189)
- Hester puts it back on an all the sadness is back (190)
- “Pearl would show no favor to the clergyman” (191)
- Pearl washes off D’s kiss, OUCH (191)
- This brook symbolized a story of sadness that will never find any joy, all of them were reflected in the brook (192)
Ch.20- The Minister in a Maze
- Hester knew people from the Spanish Main to take the family away to Europe (193)
- D plans to end career on good note with Election Sermon (193)
- D had an “unaccustomed physical energy” (194)
- D changes:
o “I am not the man for whom you take me” (195)
o “refrain from uttering certain blasphemous suggestions” (196)
o “unanswerable argument against the immortality of the human soul” (196)
o “germ of evil” (197)
o “wicked words to a know of little Puritan children” (198)
o “heaven-defying oaths” (198)
o “That self was gone. Another man had returned out of the forest” (200)
- D thinks he has made a contract with Devil and Mistress Hibbins agrees (199)
- “the infectious poison of that sin had been thus rapidly diffused throughout his moral system” (199)
- D doesn’t want anymore meds from RC (201)
- “the physician knew then, that, in the minister’s regard, he was no longer a trusted friend, but his bitterest enemy” (201)
- new internal conflict for D: his routine good habits vs. his sudden evil impulses
Ch.21- The New England Holiday
· “Hester was actually dead, in respect to any claim of sympathy, and had departed out of the world, with which she still seemed to mingle” (203)
· Hester anticipates to rid of her “A”, she waits for the “wine of life” (204)
· “Will the minister be there? […] What a strange, sad man is he!” (205)
· the Bostonians were formerly Englishmen, and tried to bring home their former culture under the restriction of Puritanism, therefore the gloomy mood (206-207)
· “We have yet to learn again the forgotten art of gayety” (208)
· RC shows up looking elegant (209)
· Everyone avoids Hester: “It was a forcible type of the moral solitude in which the scarlet letter enveloped its fated wearer” (210)
· RC IS COMING ON THE TRIP, TOO!!! (210)
Ch.22- The Procession
· “It was an age when what we call talent had far less consideration than now, but the massive materials which produce stability and dignity of character a great deal more” (212) something like iceberg principle
· D had never shown such energy, but seemed as if he was away in his thoughts (213-214)
· “Men of uncommon intellect, who have grown morbid, posses this occasional power of mighty effort, into which they throw the life of many days, and then are lifeless for as many more” (214)
· SECOND EX.:”[D] seemed so remote from her own sphere”
· this rejuvenated D is unrecognized by Pearl (215)
· Mistress Hibbins- she knows they went into the forest, and says that D is a servant of the Black Man (217) and that the Black Man will reveal the mark on his chest to the world (217)
· She also says Pearl = “lineage of the Prince of the Air” (217)
· Election Sermon is given- D sounds majestic, yet there is suffering heard in his voice (218)
· The scaffold- “her whole orb of life […] was connected with this spot, as with the one point it gave it unity”, family stood there
· RC will take D onto the ship himself, without Hester and Pearl having to. Yikes.
· Everyone is looking at Hester and her “A” and form a circle around her, it seems as if the time has come for everyone to realize there is a mark also on D. The next chapter is called “The Revelation”.
Other Notes
- Odyssey and power of Gods- there is a greater power controlling them
- Dimmesdale has lost his understanding of God being final judge as he used to, unlike John Proctor.
- He thinks he can get away from his sin.
- Everyone is leaving Hester’s “sphere”, she feels a remoteness even from Pearl and D
- Dark vs. light
- The Forest = Evil
- Pearl’s purpose is to unite them by their sin and is their reminder
- RC is looking to ruin their plans
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