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. 

The Scarlet Letter: Part 3: 13-18

As mentioned in one of my earlier entries, Hester was once a beautiful woman, but seven years has passed since the events taken place in the first chapter and Hester has somehow hidden, smoothing over the features that once characterized her. It’s in chapter 13 that we, as the audience, get to see that even though Hester has lost some of her previous qualities, she has gained some equally admirable ones since being branded with the scarlet letter. This is made evident with how the letter is interpreted as “Able” instead of “Adulterer”. What once was Hester’s burden and mark of shame has morphed into a badge of pride. While I like Hester’s character from the beginning, I found her personality to be more admirable as the story progressed. For example, when Hester confronts Chillingworth, telling him to leave Dimmesdale alone. I don’t think “old” Hester would have done, and the fact that she does seems to indicate an internal metamorphosis in her inner character to match her outer one. Chillingworth, on the other hand, shows to have let his thirst for revenge rot him from the inside out over the years, and he seems to become the “black man” that Pearl had earlier labeled him as. By this point in time, Pearl seems as curious and even more insightful as ever. Although, I have to wonder how much of it she actually understands, even though I think adults have a tendency to underestimate what children do understand. Pearl seems to be an exceptionally bright child, as she shows to understand that there is some connection between the letter “A” that her mother wears and the reason why the Dimmesdale is always clutching at his chest. In the forest scenes of these chapters, Hester and her former lover meet for the first time since the events of the story all began. I thought the forest somehow represented a symbol freedom and magic that allows Hester and Dimmesdale to be honest with each other and themselves, as well as, for their fay-like child. Hester even seems to revitalize her as she lets down her hair and rips off the letter “A”, freeing herself of her burden. The same goes for Dimmesdale-he seems to be revitalized and healed as well. We find out that this becomes an issue with Pearl.

The Scarlet Letter: Part 2: 7-12

Continuing with Pearl, I got the feeling that, while Hester loves her daughter, Pearl is part of the burdened that Hester carries; there seemed to be a mix of resentment. Perhaps, it’s because willful Pearl is such a handful, and she is a constant reminder to Hester why she alienated from others. I’m not sure if I read into that right, but that’s the feeling I got from it. When it looks as if that Pearl might be taken from Hester, Dimmesdale steps in and advocates for Hester; this was the first time in the novel that I found anything redeemable in Dimmesdale as a character. From that the story delves deeper as Chillingworth and Dimmesdale become roommates, for lack of a better word. I found the use and wordplay of “leech” in reference to Chillingworth to be interesting; as it becomes clear the doctor seems to be one of the reasons for Dimmesdale’s deteriorating health, acting as both as a leech and a plague to his patient-he strongly pursues in trying to get Dimmesdale to admit what clutches at his troubled mind and soul. I found it equally interesting that Pearl reference to Chillingworth as the “black man”- I found this to be important to the strong symbolism in the story that has a particular tendency to focus on the inner facets of the characters’ personalities. It was somewhere in this section that I began to feel sorry for Dimmesdale, when before I viewed him as a pathetic, spineless man. I was able to recognize Dimmesdale’s pain and the heavy weight that burdens his soul, as he begins to lose his mind; the instability of his mindset becomes increasingly apparent, especially when he starts seeing hallucinations of Hester and Pearl. When Dimmesdale is upon the scaffold, it looks as if he’s about to crack open and lose the last bit of his sanity, but then Hester and Pearl come along; I liked this part because they seem to pull him back a little from the darkness that’s consuming his mind. 

The Scarlet Letter: Part 1: 1-6

Hawthorne’s style seems to change in the transition from the customhouse to the main part of the novel; it feels faster and not as dry. I actually preferred this; the customhouse felt more tedious to read in comparison. I found the first chapter to be beautifully written and visual with emphasis on the symbolism throughout, especially in regard to the rosebush. While reading the first chapter, the words flowed into my mind with the visual context of a film. In particular, it reminded me of the movie artistry in Schindler’s List. While an unusual comparison, I admit, in my mind I pictured the prison and all surrounding it draped in black and white, then the rose bush coming into frame with vibrant color of red popping out-just as in Schindler’s List with the little girl’s red coat. The same visual came to mind with Hester-only the “A” on her chest reflecting of any color. Side Note: I’ve never seen any of the film interpretations, but I think read/heard about this being in one of the older films. Anyways, the second chapter seemed to carry on some of the cinematic imagery as the first, especially when she’s visualizing her past, like the descriptive attributes of her parents and even the visualization of herself and her feminine attributes that she took pride in her past-which becomes an important detail in Hester’s character later on. I found that Hester’s character becomes more admirable in the following chapters, for instance, when she refuses to rat out the name of her baby’s father. She takes on the burden of her punishment on her own, which I’m not sure many people would do in either those colonial times or even today. On the opposite, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are both are unlikable characters. Although, Dimmesdale does redeem himself later on and proves to be of stronger character, he initially seems weak and wobbly as a wet noodle. While I could understand Chillingworth’s feelings toward Hester and the mysterious identity of her lover, Chillingworth quickly sets the tone for the antagonist. When Pearl is introduced, I found her to be delightful and as colorful as the letter upon her mother’s chest. Hawthorne nailed her character as the otherworldly or “fairy-like” child. I felt that Pearl was the most interesting in the fact that she seems to see into people’s hearts with an uncanny intuitiveness for a curious child of her age. 

The Scarlet Letter: The Custom-House

While reading the custom-house, I initially believed it was from Hawthorne’s perspective before realizing that this section was a part of the whole narrative as well. I later found that the fictional, custom-house author reflected Hester’s character in a way that might have been intentional by Hawthorne to foreshadow what was to come in The Scarlet Letter; the narrator in the custom-house seems to share some of the same aspects of alienation and solitude that Hester experiences throughout her own story. Narrator points out that they share a similarity: his time spent in the custom-house will be left with little evidence and be forgotten eventually, just as Hester’s story has faded overtime- This fact seems to confirm to me that the similarities were intentional by Hawthorne. Perhaps, this is also why the narrator felt the need to write a novel about Hester, so that both he and she would be remembered in some way or another; I have to add that I found it interesting that one of the last things narrator mentions is that he finds his own memories of the custom-house becoming hazy and dusty as well.