The Scarlet Letter

In Chapter 11, "The Minister's Vigil," Dimmesdale does practice self-flagellation in which he essentially whips himself with a scourge: usually a handle to which is attached many small, leather...

The first two things any community makes, according to the narrator of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, are a cemetery and a prison. This is an indication, of course, of two things that...

In chapter 10 of The Scarlet Letter, "The Leech and his Patient", Chillingworth tries everything he can to extract from Reverend Dimmesdale the truth about the ailment that has been consuming him...

Chillingworth, or Roger Prynne, enacts psychological warfare on Arthur Dimmesdale because he feels that Dimmesdale has cuckolded him. Chillingworth is jealous of the love that Hester has for...

In Chapter XIV, a chapter in which Chillingworth and his wife, Hester Prynne, discuss the Reverend Dimmesdale, Hester's punishment, and Chillingworth's machinations, the narrator says, "In a word,...

This quote reflects the heart of Arthur Dimmesdale, and it's important to back up a bit to see what else is going on in this section: On the third day from the present, he was to preach the...

Chillingworth asks Hester to promise that she will never betray his identity to anyone. In the interest of fairness, since she has chosen to keep the name of her lover secret, Hester must likewise...

Physically- In chapter 14, titled "Hester and the Physician" we find Hester and Chillingworth finally getting together up close and almost personal. It is here, when Hester has the best...

As a final note marking Hester's grave, this line does indeed reveal the contrasts in the text and summarize the entire novel. In order to understand how, it is important to understand the meaning...

Hester has become a real boon to her community: when someone is sick, Hester is there to help; when someone is in need, Hester provides. "None so ready as she to give of her little substance to...

In Chapter Five, "Hester at Her Needle," the narrator tells us that, "Except for that small expenditure in the decoration of her infant, Hester bestowed all her superfluous means in charity, on...

In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Pearl is the daughter of Hester Prynne and a product of Hester's adulterous relationship with a minister, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester Prynne...

You'll remember that in The Scarlet Letter, when Hester commits adultery, she refuses to name the father of her unborn child. It is Dimmesdale that argues, after Pearl's (the baby's) birth, that...

In chapter 12 there is only one mention of Arthur Dimmesdale's chest, and it is after the meteor is witnessed by the villagers, when he stood at the scaffold with Pearl and Hester in what is...

Toward the end of the novel, after Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale have determined to run away together, Hester sees Mistress Hibbins in town. Mistress Hibbins says a number of things that...

Hester has convinced herself that she should remain in New England, despite all the bad things that have happened to her. After enduring the public shame and humiliation of being exposed as an...

In a rather ironic ending, Pearl, the "elf-child" becomes the most human in the final scaffold scene. Having inherited property from Chillingworth, she has become the "richest heiress of her day,...

The incarnation of Hester Prynne's and Arthur Dimmesdale's sins of passion, Pearl stands more as a symbol than a character. She is a mixture of emotions, laughing at one moment, sullen at another....

By the end of chapter 9, the narrator tells us that that people in Boston had begun to notice that Roger Chillingworth's face had changed dramatically since he came to town, but most especially...

As Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are talking at a window of the home they share, Pearl sees the two men and says to her mother, Hester, Come away, mother! Come away, or yonder old Black Man will...

Here are some more examples of figurative language: The Scarlet Letter Metaphor - Often Hawthorne compares happenings and objects to abstract qualities. In Chapter 1, the symbolic rosebush at the...

The letter "A" in The Scarlet Letter is a symbol that is often debated in the literary world. Most readers feel that the "A" stands for adultery, and that was Hawthorne's intention when we wrote...

The opening paragraph of the chapter provides a great place to begin to analyze mood: A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments, and gray, steeple-crowned hats [...] was assembled in front...

In Chapter 12 of The Scarlet Letter, while Dimmesdale, Hester and Pearl are standing at night on the scaffold, Dimmesdale having asked the other two to join him there after the pain he bears made...

He doesn't know for sure, at first. But as he spends more and more time with Dimmesdale, he notices symptoms that lead him to conclude that Dimmesdale is tortured with something. He is sickly; he...

In The Scarlet Letter, one clue that may indicate that Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale is the father of Pearl is illustrated when Hester Prynne appears on the scaffold for the first time. She appears with...

By Chapter 13, Roger Chillingworth's companionship of Mr. Dimmesdale has begun to take a serious toll on Dimmesdale. When Hester speaks with Dimmesdale, she is shocked by his weakness, and she...

Hawthorne's ultimate message is that we are all sinners. Moreover, in the chapter entitled, "Conclusion," the narrator says, Among many morals which press upon us from the poor minister's...

This quotation from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter occurs in chapter ten, when Hawthorne begins to give the reader a more in-depth look at the relationship between Roger Chillingworth and...

There are two striking instances of the use of the phrase, 'black flower' in this novel. The first is in chapter 1, when the narrator refers to the prison where Hester has been incarcerated, as...

It is true that "The Custom House" is an autobiographical short story in itself, where Hawthorne looks back in time and narrates some of his memories. However, this introduction adds substance to...

The great paradox of Dimmesdale's death is found in the way in which he interprets what his life has been, and what his death will be now that it is so near. Dimmesdale thinks that God has shown...

When the cold, sinister, and aptly named Chillingworth, Hester's husband, arrives and finds her in disgrace as an adulteress, he says: Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me. My home is where...

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, the forest surrounding the Puritan settlement represents two opposing forces: evil that seeks to steal the soul and freedom that liberates the...

Chillingworth dies shortly after Dimmesdale passes away. Though one might assume Chillingworth would be happy that the man who helped cuckold him is dead, this is not the case. Chillingworth wanted...

The Rosebush is definitely worth a closer look. Note also where it grows: next to the prison. It symbolizes nature's endurance and impartiality in contrast to human affairs. In a narrative that has...

When the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale steps onto the scaffold in Chapter XXIII of The Scarlet Letter, he invites Hester and Pearl finally to join him, and Pearl cannot accuse him this time of being...

Hawthorne says, “The scarlet letter had not done it office,” meaning that it had not done its job in at least two ways. On the part of the community, quite the contrary happened, Hester Prynne had...

There is another instrument of torture that should be mentioned as well: Dimmesdale's "bloody scourge." There is quite a large section of the text that deals with Dimmesdale's scourge. Let's...

The novel The Scarlet Letter is set in the theocratic and patriarchal Puritan society of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The year is 1642, which means that this particular group of colonists settled...

When the minister asks Pearl who made her, Pearl doesn't want to tell him at first. She knows what her mother has told her -- that she was a child of God and that God had made her. But for...

Hester's punishment was to spend a little time in jail; she is released three months after the birth of her child, the child her Puritan community believes was conceived in sin since Hester's...

The Scarlet Letter is a strongly allegorical work. Hawthorne uses the setting, the "Custom House" introduction, and the red A of the title as allegorical representations of larger, more complex...

According to chapter 11, "The Interior of a Heart," Dimmesdale was more than once in want of telling the congregation that he was, indeed, a hypocrite. In a lighter view of Dimmesdale, he is...

Hester's flashback from atop the scaffold is credited to her superior memory, which was, as the narrator says, "preternaturally active." She remembers all kinds of scenes from her childhood: being...

A preternatural creature that is given to mischievous, capricious acts, an elf is a fitting description for Pearl, "the scarlet letter endowed with life." For, as the incarnation of Hester's sin,...

The significance of the title of The Scarlet Letter is that it is the symbol that Hester Prynne is ordered to wear on her chest prominently to show the world that she is a sinner. The letter itself...

Hawthorne seems, largely, to sympathize with Hester Prynne. He is incredibly critical of the Puritans, calling the women ugly and characterizing them as "self-constituted judges" that mercilessly...

On this chapter, Hester and the Physician, Hester was out in the seaside when she finally meets Chillingworth, and dares to confront him about his treatment of Dimmesdale. She requested him that,...

Nathaniel Hawthorne's quote is as follows: “Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!” At the root of this...