106 pages • 3 hours read
Nathaniel HawthorneThe Scarlet Letter
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1850A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 17-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 17 Summary: “The Pastor and His Parishioner”
As Hester calls out to Dimmesdale, both have a strange feeling that they’ve died and are meeting in the afterlife, so they clasp hands to assure themselves they’re still living. The couple sit down, and Dimmesdale describes his torment, rejecting Hester’s attempts at comfort; when Hester praises his work as a minister, he denies that “a polluted soul” (167) can affect any good in the world, and when she reminds him of his repentance, he describes it as worthless and insincere.
At last, Hester reveals Chillingworth’s identity. Dimmesdale berates himself for not having guessed the truth and Hester for her role in his predicament. Hester embraces Dimmesdale passionately, begging for his forgiveness until he finally relents: “We are not, Hester, the worst sinners in the world” (170). Hester readily agrees, saying that their affair had a sacred aspect to it.
Hester and Dimmesdale fall silent; although the meeting is bittersweet, neither wants to return to what awaits them in Salem. At last, Dimmesdale asks whether Chillingworth plans to reveal their affair. Hester says she thinks this is unlikely, but Dimmesdale remains agitated. He asks Hester what he should do; he can see no way out but death. Hester urges him to leave Salem and take a new career or name. Dimmesdale protests that he lacks the strength to start over, leading Hester to assure him he wouldn’t have to do so alone.
Chapter 18 Summary: “A Flood of Sunshine”
Although Dimmesdale secretly hoped Hester would offer to accompany him, he now finds himself hesitating; Hester has grown less concerned with societal convention because of her ostracism, but Dimmesdale still fears casting those norms aside. Eventually, however, he agrees to flee Salem with Hester. The minute he does so, feelings of happiness and freedom overwhelm him:
“O Hester, thou art my better angel! I seem to have flung myself—sick, sin-stained, and sorrow-blackened—down upon these forest-leaves, and to have risen up all made anew, and with new powers to glorify Him that hath been merciful!” (176).
Hester likewise resolves to forget the past, unfastening the letter from her bodice and letting her hair loose from its cap as the sun shines down around them.
Hester is eager to introduce Dimmesdale and Pearl properly, and assures Dimmesdale that the girl will certainly love him as her father. She therefore calls out to Pearl, who has been gathering flowers to adorn her hair and clothing.
Chapter 19 Summary: “The Child at the Brook-Side”
As Pearl cautiously approaches, Dimmesdale admits that he has often worried someone would notice a resemblance between his daughter and himself. He also feels he has no affinity with children and fears Pearl won’t like him. Hester tries to reassure him but cautions against revealing too much or being overly demonstrative: “Our Pearl is a fitful and fantastic little elf, sometimes. Especially, she is seldom tolerant of emotion, when she does not fully comprehend the why and wherefore. But the child hath strong affections!” (180-81).
Pearl pauses on the far side of the brook, and both Hester and Dimmesdale momentarily feel as though she belongs to a different world. Hester once again encourages Pearl to come greet Dimmesdale, but Pearl simply stares at them before pointing at the missing letter on Hester’s dress. Growing impatient, Hester orders Pearl to approach, at which point Pearl begins screaming and throwing a tantrum.
Guessing the problem, Hester tells Pearl to bring the letter to her. Pearl insists that Hester pick it up herself, which she reluctantly does; Pearl then kisses both her mother and the letter. However, Pearl still hesitates to approach Dimmesdale, asking whether he will continue to hold his hand over his heart and ignore her in public. When Dimmesdale kisses her forehead, Pearl runs to the brook and washes her face, then retreats to watch her parents from a distance.
Chapter 20 Summary: “The Minister in a Maze”
As Dimmesdale returns to Salem, he wonders whether his meeting with Hester was simply a dream. To reassure himself, he goes over the plans he and Hester made to board a ship sailing for Bristol in four days. Dimmesdale considers the timing fortuitous, since he is giving a sermon in three days to commemorate the election of new magistrates. He feels healthier and more energetic than he has in years.
Slowly, however, Dimmesdale becomes aware of another change in himself: a troubling new impulse “to do some strange, wild, wicked thing or other” (190). As he walks through Salem, he is tempted to make blasphemous remarks to a deacon, to question the existence of the afterlife in front of a new widow, and to teach swear words to a group of children.
While Dimmesdale worries about the significance of these urges, Mistress Hibbins greets him, hinting that she suspects Dimmesdale of having made a deal with the Devil while in the forest. Dimmesdale denies this, but the exchange only exacerbates his anxiety: “[H]is encounter with old Mistress Hibbins, if it were a real incident, did but show his sympathy and fellowship with wicked mortals and the world of perverted spirits” (194).
Dimmesdale reaches his study only to be interrupted by Chillingworth, whose medical services he says he no longer requires. Chillingworth urges him to reconsider, reminding him of the approaching Election Day festivities, but Dimmesdale is adamant. Once alone, he rewrites his planned sermon in a frenzied state of inspiration.
Chapters 17-20 Analysis
As the title of Chapter 18 suggests, the meeting between Hester and Dimmesdale serves as a brief respite from the novel’s dark tone. What has troubled these two characters throughout the narrative is not simply a sense of guilt or shame but one of alienation: Both Hester and Dimmesdale are aware of a gap between their inner sense of who they are and the identities that society has ascribed to them. This gap, however, all but disappears in one another’s company, since they are so intimately aware of one another’s secrets: “Here, seen only by his eyes, the scarlet letter need not burn the bosom of the fallen woman! Here, seen only by her eyes, Arthur Dimmesdale, false to God and man, might be for one moment, true!” (170). Meanwhile, the forest continues to function as an Edenic (or at least otherworldly) place where typical human rules and laws do not apply. In such a setting, Hester and Dimmesdale briefly allow themselves to imagine a future that isn’t governed by societal norms.
Even before Dimmesdale leaves the forest, however, there are signs that his plan to run away with Hester will never be more than a fantasy. Pearl’s displeasure first with Hester and then with Dimmesdale is one of many moments where she functions symbolically as her parents’ consciences. While Hester may not fully agree with the societal characterization of her actions or identity, there’s no question that they’ve shaped her experiences over the years. The letter is no longer just a symbol of Hester’s adultery but also of the broader impact that the action—sinful or not—has had on her life, and so she can’t set it aside without betraying some part of who she is.
Pearl’s rejection of Dimmesdale is likewise rooted in a sense that he is not being honest with himself. Although Dimmesdale clearly wishes to leave Salem with Hester, it’s equally obvious that on some level he believes doing so is wrong. This is evident in his refusal to publicly claim Hester and Pearl as his family and also in the immediate and negative effect the decision to flee has on Dimmesdale’s character: “Scorn, bitterness, unprovoked malignity, gratuitous desire of ill, ridicule of whatever was good and holy, all awoken to tempt, even while they frightened him” (194). Significantly, the “sin” of the decision to leave doesn’t awaken any similar cruel or blasphemous impulses in Hester, which suggests that the problem lies less in the morality of the act itself than in Dimmesdale’s ongoing hypocrisy. Where Hester would be leaving Salem out of love and loyalty, Dimmesdale would be leaving out of cowardice. This is clear even in the circumstances leading up to the decision: Dimmesdale, desperate to escape but too weak to act on the desire himself, maneuvers Hester into proposing what he himself “hinted at, but dared not speak” (174).
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