The Scarlet Letter | Chapter 24 Summary and Analysis | Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Course Hero's video study guide provides in-depth summary and analysis of the plot, characters and themes of chapter 24 of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter.

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My notes for this chapter:
Dimmesdale showed his chest and people saw the scarlet letter. The people think different things on how the scarlet letter got on his chest/ had different theories. 1) on the same day Hester got the scarlet letter A, he tortured himself. 2) Roger Chillingworth, had caused it to appear, through the agency of magic and poisonous drugs. 3) Others, who appreciated his sensibility, the symbol was the effect of remorse, gnawing its way out of his conscious. 4) some say they didn’t see the letter.
“immediately after Mr. Dimmesdale’s death, in the appearance and demeanour of the old man known as Roger Chillingworth. All his strength and energy—all his vital and intellectual force—seemed at once to desert him, insomuch that he positively withered up, shrivelled away and almost vanished from mortal sight, like an uprooted weed that lies wilting in the sun. This unhappy man had made the very principle of his life to consist in the pursuit and systematic exercise revenge” (Hawthorne177). Chillingworth is consumed by his revenge, shrivels up and vanished. Without his victim, he has no reason to live. Hawthorne adds mercy to Chillingworth's death and explains that love and hate have a lot in common, and perhaps in the next life, both the spurned husband and the minister will rest in peace.
Pearl became the richest heiress. Chillingworth had property in England and Boston and when he died, he gave his property to Pearl. They go away, probably to England.
No one really knows what happens to Pearl, but assume that she is happy and married and has children. “that Pearl was not only alive, but married, and happy, and mindful of her mother; and that she would most joyfully have entertained that sad and lonely mother at her fireside” (Hawthorne 179).
Hester returns to their cottage one day and wears the scarlet letter again because “here had been her sin; Here, her sorrow; and the hero was yet to be her penitence” (Hawthorne 179). People looked at the scarlet letter with reverence.
Hester becomes a symbol of comfort and compassion, as people come to her for her council.
Upon her death, she is buried in the cemetery near the prison door where she first was incarcerated. And she is buried next to Dimmesdale. Their graves are slightly apart, but they share a tombstone that says "On a field, sable, the letter A, gules” (Hawthorne 180). They could not be together in life, but in death they are together.

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Please explain to me, how it is possible to write a book so boring that the biggest event of the story is a dude ripping his shirt to reveal his chest.

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0:59 personal and public truth
0:39 chillingworth leaves pearl fortune, richest heiress in america
The scarlet letter is not a story about sin and guilt but their effect on people's importance of staying true to their moral compasses
1:25 sign of A, hwster and dimmesdale share an a on their tombstone, they are linked in death as they were in life by the symbol of their sin

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