Blogging the Scarlet Letter: Part 10 (Chapters 19 and 20)

Ramsey is reading The Scarlet Letter and blogging about his experiences. Past posts are collected here.

Chapter 19 – The Child at Brook-Side

Before we move forward with The Scarlet Letter, the book nerd in me needs to point out that the title of this chapter could double as the title of a forgotten novel in the Anne of Green Gables series.

Okay, that’s out of my system.

This chapter picks up right where the last one left off. Hester calls Pearl over to meet Dimmesdale in their post-“let’s-run-away-together-and-leave-all-this-behind” glow. (Until the end of this paragraph, I would request that you think of Pearl as a puppy, just for my amusement.) Pearl edges closely, very hesitantly, staying close to the brook, where she was playing. As Hester continues to call her over, Pearl points at Hester’s chest, where the scarlet letter used to be.

Hester asks Pearl to hand her the letter, to which the lovely Pearl basically says, “you do it!” Hester then tromps over, picks up the letter (probably giving Pearl the side-eye the entire time) and pins the scarlet letter back on her chest. Like magic, all of the warmth and beauty drains from Hester as she reverts to the sad, letter-wearing woman she once was. Pearl runs into her mother’s arms and kisses her and then kisses the scarlet letter as well, just in case we’ve forgotten how much of a jerk she can be.

Hester is still in a good mood, despite the foolishness she’s just had to endure, and asks Pearl to hug Dimmesdale as well. Pearl is not into this. And quite honestly, can you blame her? After all, she doesn’t know that this man is her father. In her eyes, her mom is asking her to kiss some strange, weak-looking, sickly priest that she only kind of recognizes from his appearances during some of the most stressful moments of her life. Dimmesdale settles for kissing her on the forehead.

Pearl’s no dummy, though. It’s pretty clear to her that the adults have made a plan. A big plan. And nobody asked her for her opinion. She’s probably getting the feeling toddlers do when one parent says to another, “someone needs a b-a-t-h”; she's not sure exactly what's going on, but she knows something's up. She asks her mother if Dimmesdeale is going to “go back with us, hand in hand, we three together, into the town?”

When Dimmesdale tells her that he will not go back with them “hand in hand” into the town, Pearl stands up and runs back to the brook, where she attempts to wash his kiss off her forehead.

Say what you will about her, but the kid knows how to make a point.

Chapter 20 – The Minister in a Maze

Have you ever had a bad mood that goes on for hours at a stretch? You walk around all day feeling sorry for yourself as things just seem to get worse and worse, until finally, something pulls you out of your terrible grump. Maybe you unexpectedly see somebody you love, or maybe you hear a funny joke, or maybe whatever it was that was bothering you resolves itself. Your day is saved, and now that you’re out of your funk you’re in a better mood than where you started.

That’s kind of where Reverend Dimmesdale is at right now, except instead of a bad morning, he had a bad seven years, and he's finally snapped out of it thanks to his and Hester's secret scheme.

Dimmesdale walks out of the forest and into town with a completely different attitude now that he and Hester have decided to head back over to the motherland. Hester has already made plans to board a ship to take them to England in four days (Hawthorne says that she knows about the ship's departure through her charity work, which is fine, but it really makes me curious about what kind of charity she’s doing for a ship’s crew…) and Dimmesdale wants to just shout this in everybody’s face. This guy has a brand new outlook on life and he doesn’t care who knows it. Well, he kind of cares. Somewhat. He cares a lot, actually. It’s still a secret.

How different is Dimmesdale feeling? Here are some examples: when an elderly woman asks him for spiritual advice, a perfectly reasonable thing for someone to ask a priest, he almost gives her an “unanswerable argument against the immortality of the human soul.” Luckily, instead of completely destroying her faith, he gives her the answer she was hoping for. Walking by a group of children, Dimmesdale has to stop himself from teaching the group of kids “wicked words.” Hawthorne doesn’t specify, but I bet wicked words during this time were things like “shucks” and “pregnant.”

So, as you can see, Dimmesdale’s in a good mood. Or maybe “good” isn't the right word. “Weird” seems more accurate. Or maybe it's fair to say he's in a “dangerously good” mood.

When he gets home, Dimmesdale tells Chillingworth that he doesn’t need his medical attention anymore. Chillingworth is suspicious, but he doesn’t ask if the reverend knows that he’s actually married to Hester. Full of sassy energy, Dimmesdale goes into his room and picks up the sermon that he had started to write for Election Day (which was a religious holiday during this time, and, I'd wager, the most boring religious holiday of all time).

But guess what. The new Reverend Dimmesdale doesn’t believe a word that the old Rev. D. wrote on this notepad. The minister picks up his old sermon and, in the most dramatic fashion possible, gets rid of it by throwing it into the fireplace.

And so the tradition of dramatically throwing things into fireplaces in literature begins.

Need to catch up on past Blogging the Scarlet Letter posts? They are collected here.