He Bids You Look Again at Hesters Scarlet Letter

"Is non this meliorate [said Dimmesdale to Hester on the scaffold] than what we dreamed of in the forest?" (Chapter 23)

The power of the scaffold in The Scarlet Letter is almost amply manifested by the redemption and salvation of Mr. Chillingworth – i of the most menacing and evil characters in all of literature! Just Chillingworth manages to brand information technology up upon the scaffold, and even to kneel down for a moment, when a prayer is said for him. In this low-cal, every bit I hope to demonstrate, The Scarlet Letter is a tale about repentance, forgiveness, rebirth and redemption.

Henry James, the famous novelist, wrote a annotation nearlyThe Scarlet Letter of the alphabet in which he chosen it "the finest piece of imaginative writing all the same put along" in the U.s.. His primary criticism of the novel was that it independent "a great deal of symbolism…I think, as well much." The signal, however, is that symbolism is very important to understandingThe Scarlet Letter, and in this curt notation I volition make much of two very of import symbols used by Nathaniel Hawthorne in the novel, namely, the scaffold and theforest. I volition maintain that the scaffold, formally a penal instrument of penalisation, shame and humiliation, is ultimately a symbol of salvation, and the wood a symbol of freedom from conventional moral restraints. Especially by the use of these two symbols, I promise to demonstrate that all iv of the primary characters inTheReddish Alphabetic character – Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Mr. Roger Chillingworth and Pearl – were saved (and by saved I am referring ultimately to the Christian meaning of that term, although it has other meanings as well).

Let me get straight to my main signal (knowing that you are already familiar with the facts of the novel): no one is saved inThe Ruddy Letter unless he climbs up upon the scaffold. In other words, the pathway to redemption and salvation in the novel is directly connected to the scaffold. Dimmesdale flees the scaffold, or mounts information technology in a cowardly and imaginary mode under the cover of darkness, when no one tin meet him, and thus suffers incredible interior pain throughout the course of the novel due to the darkening of his sin (and Hawthorne's psychological description of Dimmesdale'due south acute suffering is quite remarkable). Hester Prynne, by contrast, who was forced to undergo the public humiliation of standing on the scaffold (every bit described in the opening chapters) fairs much improve. Her mental well-beingness and fortitude is impressive, and her growth in virtue as described past Hawthorne in Chapter 13 results in her beingness called a "Sister of Mercy." All the same, at that place is a temptation within Hester's soul that attracts her to the illusion of salvation offered by the forest (and one can naturally sympathize with her allure to the type of (seemingly) liberating moral calculus offered past the forest given the Puritanical oppression she has heroically endured).

"Such was the sympathy of Nature—that wild, pagan Nature of the forest, never subjugated by homo law, nor illumined by higher truth—with the bliss of these two spirits! Dearest, whether newly born, or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create a sunshine, filling the center and so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world. Had the forest still kept its gloom, it would have been bright in Hester's optics, and brilliant in Arthur Dimmesdale's!" (Affiliate xviii).

But as shortly as Dimmesdale leaves the forest and reenters the civilized globe he is attacked by diabolical temptations so vehement that he is on the verge of saying blasphemous, vile and wicked things to people passing by (most of whom are associated with his congregation).  At some point, upon returning dwelling, Dimmesdale must sense or discern that his spiritual life is under set on ("…am I given over utterly to the fiend?" he wondered on his walk home) and that no amount of miles between himself and Boston can ever really solve his underlying issues of guilt and concealment. This is clearly assumption on my part, but information technology seems to exist confirmed after when Dimmesdale says to Chillingworth, "Ha, tempter! Methinks yard fine art too late," which evidences the Reverend'south alter of heart (and one theory is that Dimmesdale'southward alter of heart was the outcome of his grooming for his Election Day sermon, but in any event Hester recognizes a definite change in him on Ballot 24-hour interval before he delivers the sermon). Thus, the true path to freedom for Dimmesdale volition be to mount the scaffold of guilt and confession, to "unconceal" to all what he has been hiding for vii years. It is on the wooden beams of the scaffold that he tin can unveil his eye to the crowd, and reveal publicly his true state of affairs.

I thus turn to the final, dramatic scene on the scaffold that takes place after the procession on the twenty-four hour period of the Governor'due south inauguration, following Reverend Dimmesdale's very moving Election Day sermon, iii days afterwards the coming together of Hester and Dimmesdale in the forest. In the lengthy but crucial quotes gear up forth below (from chapter 23) you can see clearly that Dimmesdale, Hester, Pearl and Chillingworth all make it on to the scaffold, which I have referred to as a symbol of salvation in the novel. Here nosotros find Dimmesdale being helped by Hester and Pearl to mount the scaffold of his terminal confession (1 might even say, in proper context, being helped to acquit his cantankerous).

"Hester Prynne," cried Dimmesdale, with a piercing earnestness, "in the name of Him, and then terrible and and so merciful, who gives me grace, at this last moment, to do what—for my own heavy sin and miserable desperation—I withheld myself from doing seven years ago, come hither now, and twine thy strength about me! Thy strength, Hester; just allow it be guided past the volition which God hath granted me! This wretched and wronged old man is opposing it with all his might!—with all his own might, and the fiend's! Come, Hester, come! Support me up yonder scaffold!"

The crowd was in a tumult…they remained silent and inactive spectators of the judgment which Providence seemed well-nigh to work. They beheld the minister, leaning on Hester'southward shoulder, and supported by her arm effectually him, approach the scaffold, and arise its steps; while nevertheless the little hand of the sin-born kid was clasped in his. Old Roger Chillingworth followed, as i intimately connected with the drama of guilt and sorrow in which they had all been actors, and well entitled, therefore, to be present at its closing scene.

"Hadst thou sought the whole globe over," said [Chillingworth], looking darkly at the clergyman, "there was no one place so secret,—no loftier place nor lowly place, where g couldst have escaped me,—salvage on this very scaffold!"

"Thanks be to Him who hath led me hither!" answered the government minister.

Yet he trembled, and turned to Hester with an expression of dubiety and feet in his eyes, not the less apparently betrayed, that in that location was a feeble smile upon his lips.

"Is not this better," murmured he, "than what nosotros dreamed of in the woods?" ***

"For thee and Pearl, be it as God shall guild," said the minister; "and God is merciful! Let me now do the will which he hath made evidently before my sight. For, Hester, I am a dying man. And then let me make haste to have my shame upon me!"

And so we finally reach the climax of the novel, Dimmesdale's powerful confession of guilt:

Partly supported by Hester Prynne, and property one hand of little Pearl's, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale turned to the dignified and venerable rulers; to the holy ministers, who were his brethren; to the people, whose great middle was thoroughly appalled, yet overflowing with tearful sympathy, every bit knowing that some deep life-matter—which, if full of sin, was full of anguish and repentance besides—was now to be laid open up to them. The sunday, merely little past its meridian, shone down upon the clergyman, and gave a distinctness to his figure, as he stood out from all the earth, to put in his plea of guilty at the bar of Eternal Justice.

"People of New England!" cried he, with a voice that rose over them, high, solemn, and imperial,—yet had always a tremor through it, and sometimes a shriek, struggling upwards out of a fathomless depth of remorse and woe,—"ye, that accept loved me!—ye, that take deemed me holy!—behold me hither, the one sinner of the globe! At last!—at concluding!—I stand upon the spot where, vii years since, I should have stood; hither, with this woman, whose arm, more than the niggling force wherewith I accept crept hitherward, sustains me, at this dreadful moment, from grovelling down upon my face! Lo, the cerise alphabetic character which Hester wears! Ye have all shuddered at it! Wherever her  walk hath been,—wherever, so miserably burdened, she may have hoped to find repose,—it hath cast a pulp gleam of awe and horrible repugnance round most her. But there stood one in the midst of yous, at whose brand of sin and infamy ye accept not shuddered!"

It seemed, at this bespeak, as if the minister must leave the remainder of his hugger-mugger undisclosed. But he fought back the bodily weakness,—and, however more, the faintness of centre,—that was striving for the mastery with him. He threw off all assistance, and stepped passionately forward a pace before the adult female and the child.

"It was on him!" he continued, with a kind of fierceness; then adamant was he to speak out the whole. "God's center beheld information technology! The angels were forever pointing at it! The Devil knew it well, and fretted it continually with the touch of his burning finger! But he hid information technology cunningly from men, and walked among you with the mien of a spirit, mournful, because and then pure in a sinful world!—and sorry, because he missed his heavenly kindred! Now, at the death-hr, he stands upwards before yous! He bids you look again at Hester'due south ruby letter! He tells you, that, with all its mysterious horror, information technology is but the shadow of what he bears on his own breast, and that even this, his ain cherry-red stigma, is no more than the type of what has seared his inmost centre! Stand any here that question God'due south judgment on a sinner? Behold! Behold a dreadful witness of it!"

With a convulsive motion, he tore away the ministerial band from before his breast. It was revealed! But it were irreverent to draw that revelation. For an instant, the gaze of the horror-stricken multitude was concentred on the ghastly phenomenon; while the minister stood, with a flush of triumph in his face, as one who, in the crisis of acutest pain, had won a victory. And so, down he sank upon the scaffold! Hester partly raised him, and supported his head confronting her bust.

Old Roger Chillingworth knelt down beside him, with a blank, dull countenance, out of which the life seemed to have departed.

"One thousand hast escaped me!" he repeated more once. "Chiliad hast escaped me!"

"May God forgive thee!" said the government minister. "Thou, too, hast deeply sinned!"

He withdrew his dying eyes from the former man, and fixed them on the woman and the kid.

So we come to i of the most touching scenes in the book which speaks to the remarkable transformation of the kid, Pearl, who is, in essence, given her humanity back upon the the scaffold (she who had been made essentially unreal by her father's concealment) .

"My little Pearl," said he, feebly,—and at that place was a sweet and gentle smiling over his face, as of a spirit sinking into deep tranquility; nay, at present that the burden was removed, it seemed almost as if he would be sportive with the kid,—"dear little Pearl, wilt g kiss me now? Chiliad wouldst non, yonder, in the wood! But at present chiliad wilt?"

Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies; and equally her tears savage upon her father's cheek, they were the pledge that she would abound upward amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever practise battle with the world, but be a adult female in information technology. Towards her mother, too, Pearl'south errand every bit a messenger of anguish was all fulfilled.

Finally, just before he dies, Dimmesdale says his goodbye to Hester.

"Hester," said the chaplain, "farewell!"

"Shall nosotros not encounter again?" whispered she, bending her face up downward shut to his. "Shall we not spend our immortal life together? Surely, surely, nosotros take ransomed one some other, with all this woe! Thou lookest far into eternity, with those brilliant dying eyes! Then tell me what thou seest?"

"Hush, Hester, hush!" said he, with tremulous solemnity. "The police force we broke!—the sin here and so clumsily revealed!—let these alone be in thy thoughts! I fear! I fearfulness! Information technology may exist, that, when we forgot our God,—when nosotros violated our reverence each for the other'southward soul,—it was thenceforth vain to promise that nosotros could meet futurity, in an everlasting and pure reunion. God knows; and He is merciful! He hath proved his mercy, most of all, in my afflictions. By giving me this burning torture to bear upon my breast! By sending yonder nighttime and terrible one-time homo, to keep the torture e'er at red-rut! By bringing me hither, to dice this death of triumphant ignominy before the people! Had either of these agonies been wanting, I had been lost forever! Praised be his name! His will be done! Goodbye!"

That last word came forth with the minister'southward expiring breath. The multitude, silent till then, broke out in a strange, deep voice of awe and wonder, which could not as yet find utterance, save in this murmur that rolled so heavily after the departed spirit."

Did Dimmesdale'due south prayer of mercy for Chillingworth on the scaffold piece of work? Manifestly so. Nosotros read in the novel that "cypher was more than remarkable than the change which took place, almost immediately later Mr. Dimmesdale's death, in the advent and demeanor of the erstwhile man known as Mr. Chillingworth." Is one act of bully charity sufficient to save a soul? Nosotros read that Chilingworth died "inside the year," but that in his last will and testament he ancestral (rather amazingly) "a very considerable amount of holding, both here and in England, to lilliputian Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne," all of which supported a very fine being for Pearl (who Hawthorne intimates got married and had a kid across the sea). All of this evidences a inverse eye and a saved soul for the man who had been the very embodiment of revenge.

Simply what almost Hester Pyrnne? Did she become back to the woods, then to speak, to find her conservancy in that location (on her own terms)? We know that "for many years" subsequently Dimmesdale's expiry she left New England and ventured somewhere "across the sea." Just Hester ultimately returns to New England because, as Hawthorne tells us, "there was a more real life here for Hester Pyrnne…here had been her sin; here, her sorrow, and here was withal to be her penitence." And there from her cottage, where she had and so long lived in isolation, Hawthorne tells us she ministered to the needs of women "who besought her counsel" because they were wounded in love or could find none at all. And so endsThe Scarlet Alphabetic character, and the adult female who wanted to flee New England ends her life in that location in gentle penitence, caring for other women harmed past the difficulties of life and beloved.

And the "A" on Hester stands for "Able," and the scaffold she three times stood upon for conservancy.

Thomas Fifty. Mulcahy, M.A.

Image: Hester Prynne & Pearl before the stocks, an 1878 illustration for the volume by Mary Hallock Foote (Public Domain, United statesA.)

Note/References: The disquisitional essays inThe Blood-red Letter, A Norton Disquisitional Edition were valuable (see especially the essays by Carpenter, Fogle and Stewart). Hoffman adds: "The salvation of Pearl depends upon Dimmesdale. Until he acknowledges himself her male parent she can have no human being patrimony, and must remain a Nature-spirit, untouched by the redemptive order that was broken in her conception" (p. 371). One could also argue that the salvation of Chillingworth depended upon Dimmesdale. It was Dimmesdale, also, who seems to take played a sure part in the conservancy of Hester. The unity of these four master characters on the scaffold at the end of the novel warrants additional reflection. If I were to place this tale in a specific CATHOLIC context, I might say to myself: "When is the last time you went to Confession?" The point seems articulate: confession has powerful ramifications.

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