summary: part four

Hester continues to be a faithful servant to the Puritan community, offering her services wherever needed. The town would have allowed her to remove the scarlet letter, and return as one of them, but now Hester chooses to remain apart, for she cannot be a part of the unnatural Puritan system.

She happens to come across Chillingworth in the woods one day, and is shocked and disturbed at the change in him. The motivation of revenge has turned him into a hateful and sinister figure. Resolving to warn Dimmesdale, Hester awaits him in the woods and they have their first real conversation in at least seven years, since their affair took place. She reveals that Chillingworth was her husband, and the two resolve to leave the stifling town, away from Chillingworth’s bad intentions.

There is a New England Holiday, where Dimmesdale gives his final sermon to the town, and after which he, Hester and Pearl plan to leave on a boat. The ship master mentions to Hester at the celebration that everything is set, including the addition of Chillingworth to their party. To her horror, Chillingworth found out about their departure and told the ship master he is one of their party and will be leaving with them.

After Dimmesdale’s sermon, he becomes very faint, and, perceiving that he is about to die and has one last chance at public confession, reveals to the town that he is the one who had the affair with Hester. He dies, and Chillingworth, without the purpose of revenge to fuel him, dies in the same year, leaving Pearl a large inheritance. Hester and Pearl disappear for a number of years, and then one day children playing in the woods see Hester return alone to her cottage on the outskirt of town, wearing the scarlet letter. Hester’s home becomes a refuge for other woman to come to for comfort and counsel that they cannot find in their own society. It is suggested that Pearl is living overseas, married, with a child, wealthy, and content.

At the end, it seems Hester’s life was meant to be educational, and a warning against taking Romantic aspects of Solitude and Individuality to an extreme. Living in the wilderness of human nature without community is a harsh and unnatural life, though perhaps it is preferable to living in a community that prevents the natural wildness of human nature.

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Ed. Stanley Appelbaum. New York: Dover, 1994.