Scarlet Letter Dialectical Journal

Before the novel itself begins, there’s first a fictional intro about the “story,” claiming it to be true. Claiming the scarlet, gold-embroidered patch of cloth shaped as an “A” was found in a customhouse attic, along with documents, and a manuscript describing the scene, two hundred years before, and this novel being the product. It then dives into the real novel, bringing us into the Puritan era, seventeenth-century Boston. We then see Hester Prynne with a scarlet letter “A” on her chest, a young woman, being brought out of the town’s prison, along with her baby, Pearl, We’re informed through a man relaying the information to an older looking man in the audience that she’s being punished for adultery. Apparently Hester’s husband had allowed …show more content…
She’s forced to wear a scarlet letter, and be subject to public shaming, not only for committing adultery, but also for keeping secret the identity of her adulterous partner. When the book opens we see one of the public shaming Hester’s forced to attend, dragged to a scaffold and questioned about her lover; however, she continues to keep secret of her baby’s father. The older man in the audience turns out to be Hester’s husband, concealing his identity and renaming himself Roger Chillingworth. He’s now involved with medicine, and moved to Boston to carry out revenge on the man Hester had an affair with. In an intense scene, the man reveals himself to Hester but makes her swear that she won’t reveal his true identity; he also begs to know the man she had an affair with, but she continues to keep it hidden. The years go on, Hester earns money through seamstress, and Pearl blossoms into a obstinate, and mischevious …show more content…
Chillingworth, being a doctor, tends to the minister, deciding his case to be so fatal that he moves in with him, allowing constant care. Chillingworth, however, is also suspicious and draws a connection between Hester’s secret, and the minister’s self-tormenting guilt, performing mental tests on Dimmesdale in order to find out if his suspicious are correct. Chillingworth then discovers something, undisclosed from the audience, on Dimmesdale’s chest while he sleeps, providing evidence towards Chillingworth’s allegations. As Dimmesdale’s guilt worsens, Hester regains the approval of the community through acts of kindness, and admirable strength. Flash forward a few years, Pearl is seven. Hester and Pearl are on their way home when they see Dimmesdale on top of the same scaffold Hester was brought on at the beginning of the book, attempting to reprimand himself for his sin. Hester and Pearl decide to stand alongside him, all holding hands. Pearl asks to be publicly seen with him, and he denies; at the same moment a meteor seemingly marks the sky with a red “A.” Hester’s able to see the rapid decrease in the minister’s health due to his guilt and anguish, and demands Chillingworth to discontinue tormenting him, he, however,

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