Her devotion to serving the sick and needy has given her access into almost every home, and people now interpret the A as meaning "Able" rather than "Adultery. Why does Hester refuse to remove the scarlet letter? Because the damage has already been done, removing it wouldn't do anything to help her. Chapter 16 of ''The Scarlet Letter'' is set in the forest where Hester Prynne goes, accompanied by her daughter Pearl, hoping to meet Arthur Dimmesdale.
While in the forest, Hester and Pearl use their imaginations to pass the time as they wait for the minister to appear. The letter's meaning shifts as time passes.
What does Hester decide to do at the end of Chapter 13? Category: books and literature fiction. Dimmesdale had no idea of his true identity and his former connection to Hester. Hester decided that she had a responsibility to Mr. Dimmesdale that necessitated the breaking of her silence and informing him of the truth about Roger Chillingworth. Why does Hester talk to Chillingworth?
What does Hester realize while on the scaffold? Why does Hester decide to break her promise to Chillingworth? Who is the black man in the scarlet letter? What does Hester tell Chillingworth she has to do? Why does Hester feel an obligation toward Dimmesdale?
What did Hester reveal to Dimmesdale? Why does Hester keep Chillingworth's secret? She is also loyal and trustworthy like when she promises the minister not to reveal his identity. Hester is a good person because she never argued about her punishment and never blamed Arthur Dimmsdale for not confessing.
Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays Hester as a person with a kind heart that doesn't let her sin turn her into a bad person. Arthur Dimmsdale is the young puritan minister that the people dearly love but the more they love him, the more his guilt grows. He fears about what the Puritan society would think of him that is why his attempts to confess fails many times.
His sin is slowly killing him by giving him health problems like a bad heart. He eventu ally confessed and I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. The other character is Roger Chillingworth who is the husband of Hester.
He is a old man and very cruel. I think he is a coward because after being missing for two years he ironically shows up in time to see Hester humiliated.
He is a revengeful person and did all he can to find out who was the other sinner. When he found out that it was the minister, he became his physician and kept tormenting him. He plays the villain of the story.
The last main character is Pearl. She is the daughter of Hester and the constant reminder of the sins her parents had committed. Pearl is rebellious and happy most of the time. She is the example of romanticism in the story. She is wild, free, and loves nature since she is secluded from everyone but her mother. When Pearl says "the sunshine does not love you.
With nothing now to lose, in the sight of mankind, and with no hope, and seemingly no wish, of gaining any thing, it could only be a genuine regard for virtue that had brought back the poor wanderer to its paths. Hester Prynne was not in quite the same position as she had been in the earlier years of her shame. Years had passed. Hester, with the scarlet letter glittering on her breast, had long been a familiar sight. The townspeople now thought of her with the sort of respect afforded prominent people who do not interfere with either public or private affairs.
It is a credit to human nature that it is quicker to love than hate, unless its selfishness is provoked. Even hatred itself will gradually give way to love, unless that original hatred is continually irritated.
She never fought against public opinion. Instead, she submitted without complaint to the worst it could offer. She did not claim that the public owed her any compensation for her suffering. She never begged for sympathy. And she was widely admired for the sinless purity of her life during the many years of her public shame.
None so self-devoted as Hester, when pestilence stalked through the town. In all seasons of calamity, indeed, whether general or of individuals, the outcast of society at once found her place. She came, not as a guest, but as a rightful inmate, into the household that was darkened by trouble; as if its gloomy twilight were a medium in which she was entitled to hold intercourse with her fellow-creatures. There glimmered the embroidered letter, with comfort in its unearthly ray.
Elsewhere the token of sin, it was the taper of the sick-chamber. It had shown him where to set his foot, while the light of earth was fast becoming dim, and ere the light of futurity could reach him.
Her breast, with its badge of shame, was but the softer pillow for the head that needed one. Hester resolves to ask Chillingworth to stop tormenting the minister. One day she and Pearl encounter him near the beach, gathering plants for his medicines.
Divine providence, she says, will make it fall from her chest when it is time for it to do so. In a spasm of self-awareness, Chillingworth realizes how gnarled and mentally deformed he has become. He recalls the old days, when he was a benevolent scholar. The two engage in an argument over who is responsible for the current state of affairs. Identity emerges as an important theme in this section of the novel. The ways in which a society tries to define a person are often at odds with the way that individual defines him- or herself.
As the community reinterprets the scarlet letter, Hester once again has an identity thrust upon her by her fellow townspeople.
The meaning of the letter can vary with the desires and needs of the community, because the letter does not signify any essential truth in itself.
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