106 pages • 3 hours read
The Scarlet Letter
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Chapters 13-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary: “Another View of Hester”
Dimmesdale’s condition shocks and moves Hester, who decides to speak to Chillingworth about his treatment of the minister.
Hester’s decision reflects the changes she has undergone over the last seven years. Much of Salem has come to respect her, both for the uncomplaining way in which she has borne her punishment, and for her many charitable works. She continues to give to the poor and tend to the sick, all while declining any sort of thanks or acknowledgment. Hester remains deeply conscious of the alienation the letter A symbolizes, and she becomes harder, sadder, and more thoughtful as a result.
In her isolation Hester spends much time pondering the norms and laws governing human society in general, and gender relations. She feels that existence as a woman is intolerable but holds little hope that anything can change: “[A] dark question often rose into her mind, with reference to the whole race of womanhood. Was existence worth accepting, even to the happiest among them?” (144). These thoughts depress Hester, so she’s relieved to have the chance to do some good for Dimmesdale.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Hester and the Physician”
While walking on the beach, Hester finds Chillingworth gathering plants. She tells Pearl to go play and approaches Chillingworth, who tells her that he has urged the magistrates to allow her to remove the scarlet letter. Hester denies the magistrates have the authority to do so while noticing how much Chillingworth has changed over the years: “Here was another ruin, the responsibility of which came partly home to her” (148).
Hester says her initial reluctance to keep Chillingworth’s identity a secret has proved justified; she feels she has wronged Dimmesdale by allowing him to become close to Chillingworth. Chillingworth retorts that Dimmesdale would have died years ago if it weren’t for his care, though he admits death would have been preferable to the kind of life Dimmesdale now leads.
Hester begs Chillingworth to consider himself sufficiently avenged, but he refuses, blaming Hester for his actions. Giving up, Hester tells Chillingworth that she plans to reveal his identity to Dimmesdale. Chillingworth expresses grudging admiration and pity for Hester, and Hester says she likewise pities Chillingworth for what he has become. She urges him once more to reconsider, if only for the sake of his own soul, but Chillingworth claims that fate is guiding his actions.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Hester and Pearl”
As Chillingworth leaves, Hester wonders how she ever could have considered their marriage a happy one: “[I]t seemed a fouler offense committed by Roger Chillingworth, than any which had since been done him, that, in the time when her heart knew no better, he had persuaded her to fancy herself happy by his side” (154).
Hester calls to Pearl, who has been playing at the water’s edge and constructed a letter A for herself out of seaweed. When Hester sees this, she asks whether Pearl understands the significance of her own scarlet letter. Pearl replies that Hester wears it for the same reason Dimmesdale clutches at his heart, then asks her mother to explain its meaning. For the first time it occurs to Hester that Pearl’s fascination with the letter might be intended as a “mercy and beneficence”: “If little Pearl were entertained with faith and trust, as a spirit messenger no less than an earthly child, might it not be her errand to soothe away the sorrow that lay cold in her mother’s heart” (157). Nevertheless, Hester can’t bring herself to tell Pearl the truth, denying any knowledge of Dimmesdale and saying she wears the letter as an ornament. For the rest of the day Pearl continues to ask her mother about the letter and Dimmesdale.
Chapter 16 Summary: “A Forest Walk”
To speak with Dimmesdale privately, Hester waits until he journeys out of Salem, planning to meet him in the forest as he returns. On that day she takes Pearl with her into the woods, watching as Pearl tries to catch beams of sunlight. Eventually Pearl asks her mother to tell her a story about the Black Man (i.e., the Devil). Mistress Hibbins has described to Pearl how the Black Man prowls the forest with a book, and how he “offers his book and an iron pen to every body that meets him here among the trees; and they are to write their names with their own blood. And then he sets his mark on their bosoms!” (161). According to Pearl, Mistress Hibbins also claimed that Hester’s letter is the Black Man’s sign. Hester denies visiting the forest at night but says, “Once in my life I met the Black Man! […] This scarlet letter is his mark!” (162).
Hester and Pearl eventually settle near a stream, which Pearl believes sounds sad; Hester says the brook is speaking of her own griefs. Hearing footsteps, she then sends Pearl away to play, but not before the latter notices Dimmesdale approaching and asks whether he clutches his heart because the Black Man has placed his mark there.
Chapters 13-16 Analysis
As time goes on the meaning of the scarlet letter evolves. This is true even within the world of the novel, where Hester’s consistent selflessness and compassion lead much of Salem to reinterpret the letter as a symbol of her “good deeds” (142). This reading of the letter underscores Hester’s broader character arc; the progression of the letter’s meaning from “adulteress” to “able” echoes how Hester’s charity grows out of her suffering.
Despite the apparent sincerity of Hester’s repentance, however, there’s a sense in which, as the narrator says, “[t]he scarlet letter [has] not done its office” (145). Although Hester may feel guilt over certain aspects of her affair with Dimmesdale, she doesn’t view the relationship as wholly sinful and feels no shame for continuing to love him years later. Furthermore, the narrator implies that Hester’s views on sin have diverged even more widely from Salem’s during the “long seclusion from society” that has prevented her from “measur[ing] her ideas of right and wrong by any standard external to herself” (139). This is particularly true of matters involving gender. Over the years Hester has become increasingly convinced that women’s current position in society is untenable. The novel doesn’t specify Hester’s frustrations, but given its general context and concerns, they presumably involve issues like the sexual double standard and marriage laws that treated women as a form of property. Regardless, Hester ultimately concludes that nothing less than a complete overhaul of gender relations could make women’s lives worth living: “[T]he whole system of society is to be torn down, and built up anew” (144). The magistrates who sentenced Hester to wear the letter obviously did not want or expect it to lead her to such a subversive conclusion, but the novel itself is more sympathetic, suggesting that a change in gender relations truly is necessary. At the very least, the narrator suggests, marriages ought to be based on mutual love and attraction, and he warns men like Chillingworth against persuading women to see “the calm content, the marble image of happiness” as the “warm reality” (154) of real love.
These chapters also develop the symbolism linking Pearl to the natural world. While on the beach, Pearl amuses herself by tossing rocks at a flock of birds, only to stop guiltily when she strikes one: “[I]t grieved her to have done harm to a little being that was as wild as the sea-breeze, or as wild as Pearl herself” (155). The episode suggests that Pearl is not (as many in Salem believe) immoral or evil; she experiences feelings of guilt and compassion, but they don’t necessarily correspond to any societal code of conduct. This mirrors the novel’s depiction of nature itself, particularly in the chapters set in the woods outside Salem. The forest clearly stands outside the norms and rules governing Puritan society; the narrator even uses them figuratively to evoke the “moral wilderness in which [Hester] had so long been wandering” (159) because of her ostracism. That said, the forest isn’t evil or even inherently dangerous. There’s no evidence that the witches’ covens Pearl asks about ever take place. Rather, the forest exists beyond the bounds of society in much the same way the Garden of Eden does in Christian mythology—as a place where human law is not necessary. Similarly, Pearl herself displays the “new and untransmuted vigor” (160) of someone who has not “inherited” the suffering or sin of any ancestors. Consequently, she isn’t bound by rules that were established in response to human sinfulness.
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