The Scarlet Letter: Part 4: 19-24

Avoiding her mother’s calls, the insightful Pearl seems to grasp that the scarlet letter is more than just a burden, but it is also apart of Hester’s identity. Whether this is conscious insight or not on Pearl’s part, I do not know, but I think it’s a crucial part to observe in the novel.  I think it’s equally important to note that Pearl refuses to acknowledge Dimmesdale as her father because he still refuses to claim her and her mother in public- it’s in the forest that Hester and Dimmesdale decide to start a new life together, elsewhere with their daughter and become a real family. It’s towards the end of the novel that everything seems to come full circle; it’s almost as if history is repeating itself but in a new life. The election day seems to be a counter part to the beginning in the first chapter; Hester even seems to be preoccupied with her inner thoughts as she was in the initial chapters, except this time they are thoughts looking towards the future instead of the past.  Hester becomes worried, though, when she discovers that Chillingworth has booked passage for the ship heading to Europe, as well. After Dimmesdale delivers his best sermon ever, he calls Hester and Pearl to the Scaffold with him-the very thing I wanted him to do from the beginning. It’s here that he admits his sin and finally claims both Hester and Pearl, despite Chillingworth’s efforts to stop Dimmesdale. After revealing the “A” on his chest and before dying, Pearl kisses her father on the forehead, claiming him at last. Reading this section, my reaction was “Nooo.” While I admit the story is more impactful with Dimmesdale’s death, as a reader I wanted Hester, Pearl, and Dimmesdale to have the cliché happy ending. In the aftermath, the audience learns of Chillingworth’s death, Pearl’s marriage to a wealthy European in later years, and Hester’s eventual return to her cottage. The final part that I think is most important in this is that Hester and Dimmesdale are buried next together, sharing one gravestone with the letter “A” upon. Even they are not placed too close together, I think the shared gravestone symbolizes the unity of the burden they both secretly carried for each other. I got the impression that if Hester and Dimmesdale had been honest with each other from the beginning and had embraced their sin together, they may have been able to learn to forgive themselves and each other sooner. They may have even achieved the happy ending they had envisioned in the forest.