What is the summary of The Scarlet Letter?
Set in Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony during the years 1642 to 1649, the novel tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and then struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity.
What does Hester do at the end of Chapter 14?
Summary: Chapter 14: Hester and the Physician Hester resolves to ask Chillingworth to stop tormenting the minister. She then informs Chillingworth that she feels it is time to tell the minister the truth about Chillingworth’s identity.
What is The Scarlet Letter a symbol of?
Besides the characters, the most obvious symbol is the scarlet letter itself, which has various meanings depending on its context. It is a sign of adultery, penance, and penitence. It brings about Hester’s suffering and loneliness and also provides her rejuvenation.
What is the theme of Chapter 14 in The Scarlet Letter?
During these long seven years, Chillingworth has become obsessed with revenge, and this deadly sin has changed him considerably. He pities Hester because he feels she is not really sinful, and any breach with God’s law has been paid many times over by her wearing of the scarlet letter.
What is the ending of The Scarlet Letter?
In the end, Chillingworth is morally degraded by his monomaniacal pursuit of revenge. Dimmesdale is broken by his own sense of guilt, and he publicly confesses his adultery before dying in Hester’s arms. Only Hester can face the future bravely, as she prepares to begin a new life with her daughter, Pearl, in Europe.
Who is Pearl Prynne?
The illegitimate daughter of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. Pearl serves as a symbol of her mother’s shame and triumph. At one point the narrator describes Pearl as “the scarlet letter endowed with life.” Like the letter, Pearl is the public consequence of Hester’s very private sin.
What does the black flower mean Chapter 14?
Prisons are black flowers because they arise out of sin, which they’re intended to contain. Similarly, Chillingworth intended to punish sin, but has instead become sinful himself.
What does pearl see in the water?
Come into the pool with me!” Pearl stepped into the pool up to her knees and saw her own white feet at the bottom. Deeper down, she could see the gleam of a sort of broken smile, floating here and there in the stirred-up water.