With Pearl now at age seven, Hester has changed herself. She has become more active in society and although she is not welcomed completely, she is an aid to those in need. She is harsher than she once was and thinks it is time for Chillingworth to expose his identity to the minister.

Idont think Pearl has been given a fair chance, granted she is an odd child, she is always questioned on whether she is human or demonic. Even her own mother is not comfortable around her and it seems to be a reaccuring subject.

One day Pearl and Hester run into Chillingworth at the beach, where he is gathering herbs for his medicines. She walks up to him but before she can say anything he snears at her and mockly states that he has heard of her improvement in society and talk of allowing her to remove the letter from her chest. He is returned with Hesters remark that no human can remove it from her but only a devine power can do so.

While they stood at the top of the scaffold, a meter shines bright and Dimmesdale thinks he sees it as a red 'A' in the sky. About this time, Pearl points a someone who is standing far off, Dimmesdale recognizes him as Chillingworth. Dimmesdale asks Hester who he is and how she knows him. She refuses to tell but Pearl states that she knows but when he bends down for her to tell him, she mearly whispers child gibberish, stating that she is punishing him for not standing with them at the scaffold the next day.
The next day at church, the church sexton hands Dimmesdale his glove that he had left on the scaffold saying that it must have been satan playing games. He also tells the Reverand about a meteor that was said to fall last night in the shape of the letter 'A' but most are interpretting it as 'a' for angel and a sign that Winthrop has reached Heaven but this does not comfort Dimmesdale.

Reverand Dimmesdale begins to see visions (of Hester and Pearl) and starts to disbelieve the universe. He begins torturing himself physically and mentally.
He decides to stand and hold a vigil on the scaffold in the middle of town, where Hester had stood with Pearl. He goes there, half delusional, screams in pain from the mark upon his chest, although no one hears him, he still thinks of what it would be like if the whole town saw their holy minister upon the scaffold of sin. Wilson passes him but doesnt seem to notice, for he is leaving the death bed of Govener Winthrop. The minister begins to contemplate with fear if all the people of his congregation was to come and watch him, to see their sinless minister was in fact the man upon the scaffold.
Overwhelmed with both the horror and irony of this, he begins to laugh, responded by the airy playful laugh of his daughter Pearl. he had not realized but Hester and her were standing there for they had been at the deathbed providing the burial robe that has been requested of the seamstress. He asks if they will come and stand with him, and they do. The three stand upon the scaffold together, and a rush of energy surges through the minister. Then Pearl asks him if he will stand there with her mother and herself at noon the next day but he refuses. He says that they will stand together at judgement day but not in front of the public of this world.

When I began reading next, it started off with Dimmesdale sleeping, an unusual deep sleep. Even now the sleep is suspicious to me because of Roger Chillingworths knowledge of natural herbs, in addition, right after he fell asleep Mr. Chillingworth entered the room and exposed Reverand Dimmesdales heart. There he found something that both shocked and disgusted him, a mark, that the autor doesn't espose to the reader but one can infer that Arthur Dimmesdale is in fact the father of Pearl Prynne.
After this incident, there is a hostility towards Dimmesdale from Chillingworth; I mean I don't blame him I'd be pretty pissed too if a man that had become a friend of mine was in fact the very man that took my wife away from me and sent her into the depths of sin. I can't tell whether or not Dimmesdale is aware of the events that took place while he was asleep of if Chillingworth ever confronted him on the subject.

The next Chapter, 'the interior of the heart,' deals a lot with Dimmesdale and his greif and guilt or what he did. He continuely talks about how he wishes he had the strength to get up at his pulpit and scream his sin out to the congregation but even when he says to them that he is not perfect and has many of his own sins to account for, all they do is praise him the more for if a soul as white as his is guilty then they must be terrible in the sight of God. They worship the ground he walks on, which makes him even sicker.

At the end of the meeting at the governers hall, Reverend Dimmsdale sticks up for Hester and Pearl, winning the men over for her case. As long as nothing else comes up.
The next chapter talks about Roger Chillingworth and his relationship with Reverand Dismmsdale. Chillingworth becomes Dimmesdales physician when Dimmesdale gets really sick. For a while hes beeen fasting and has been really pale and sickly, he even frequently cluthes his chest as if he has severe heart pain. Eventually they form a friendship in which they share a lot with each other but the problem is that Chillingworth senses something about the Reverand that is hidden and he cant seem to figure it out.
Because he can't find a cure and wants to research Dimmesdale deeper, the town leadership urges the two to move in together.
The two move into a widows house near the cemetary, Dimmesdales room faces the cemetary and has tapestries of biblical scenes while Chillingworths room contains a laboratory.
While living with him Roger infers that Reverand Dimmesdales problems were not from physical sickness but an inner torture of his soul.

Hester and Pearl have to go into town to the governers house so that Hester can give him the gloves he requested from her, also s0 that she can discuss a certain matter regaurding Pearl and herself. On their way, there are children in the street mocking the two and screaming inappropriate things at them. Pearl, still only three, starts screaming and throwing hand gesters at them and runs towards the pack of children until they all run away and Pearl calmly walks backto her mother and smiles into her face. I admired Pearls strongwill.

Once at the governers house, a servant (who is actually a temperary slave from England paying off his passage to America) answers the door, not being from New England, he had no idea of Hester Pryne and took her embroidered letter as a mark of high rank. Once in the house Pearl begins playing with things, to get her away from the possessions Hester turns Pearls attention on the garden outside but this backfires when Pearl starts screaming that she wants a red rose from outside. She is suddenly quieted when she catchest the glimpse of new faces in the garden, which proves to be Governer Billingham, Mr. Wilson, Reverand Dimmesdale and Old Roger Chillingworth.When they come in they almost run little Pearl over and start to ask her wo she is and where she ahs come from. Once realizing this is the child they had been speaking about they confront Hester Pryne on the very subject she had intended to discuss with them. The possibility that they would be trying to take Pearl out of her mothers care.

To prove that Hester was not fit to raise her child in the right Christian upbringing, they decide to ask Pearl questions regaurding her catechisms. Mr. Wilson asks her 'who made her' and although Pearl knows well enough who made her, she decides to be a brat like many children of three are, giggles and says "I was not made I was plucked by my mother off a bush of wild roses by the prison door." The men are inferiorated by this and tell Hester Pryne she is not fit to raide her child, to which Hester replies that Pearl is both her gift and her punishment, she is the only thing that keeps her here in the world and that she will die before giving her child up.

The book keeps talking about Pearls beauty and the fire within her. Hester and her have a weird conversation... if you could call it that (Pearl is only three). Hester asks her who she is and she answers "I am your little Pearl!" and Hester asks her about her Heavenly Father to which Pearl replies "I have no heavenly father!" It was a very awkward conversation, Pearl seems to be extremely intellegent for her age. I love the fire within her but her nature and the way Hester reacts towards her is strange to me.

During Chapter 5 and 6 we are introduced to her baby, Pearl, in greater depth.

Chapter 5 stresses the seperation between Hester and the rest of the society. It tells of the children that say things they don't understand (repeating adults) about her.

Hester Pryne makes a living off of her amazing skills with a needle and thread.

Its ironic, the upperclass will hire her to make things but non the less "bite the hand that fed them."

Although Hester Prynne refused to enjoy her work herself, her little girl did reap the benefits, playing in beautiful gowns that were fit for royalty.

Hester sees something in her baby girls eyes, something that excites her but makes her uneasy. She says the only time she's at peace is when shes asleep. I'm not sure what it is shes talking about but it sounds weird.

As Pearl gets older it's a mystery as to how she understands the difference between her and the other children, how she knows there is an upspoken seperation.

Chapters 3-4

Chapter three opens up with Hester Pryne still standing on the skaffold in front of the whole town, where she spots a man of small stature and "remarkable intellegent features" in the crowd. He makes a curious gesture at her that we don't understand until Chapter 4.
The clergy and government men on the balcony above her address Hester and try to get her to release the name of the man that engaged in her sin with her, but it proves to be in vain for Hester Pryne will not tell the secret that lays in her heart.

That night when she returns to the prison, she is in "a state of nervous excitement that demanded constant watchfulness." Her baby is also in writhing pain that causes it to cry endlessly. A man by the name of Roger Chillingworth, comes to treat the her and the baby.
While he is there, there is a sense of great tension between this man and Hester. Finally, he reveals himself as Hesters husband that had told Hester to go ahead of him into the village while he traveled into the foret learning from the Indians.
To an extent he blames himself for what has happend, knowing he hasn't been a husband to her and she has been left there by herself in a new place but at the same time he tells her to keep his name as a secret in her heart, just as she has kept the name of man who has fathered her baby.

I feel bad for Hester Pryne, her pain must be unbearable. I don't agree with what she did but I definitely understand why she did it. First being married to a man, obviously not for love, and then left to her lonesome in a new town by herself. I can understand how she would have reacted when a man finally did take notice to her and treated her the way she longed for and now to be left by herself, with this scarlet letter embroidered acrossed her breast. The pain I couldn't imagine.

Starting out.

Day one, I havent really gotten far at all in the book. I didnt read the introductory, my mom read it and said it was boring, it was forty pages long. Maybe I should read it. Ive heard a lot about this book, setting high expectations for what I think about it just starting out. I dont really count this as a reflection because im seriously three pages into the book so I dont know how I could.



So far I like Hester Pryne, I like her strength amiss all the turmoil going on in her own life.
I actually find humor in how they describe the women of the era, more manly than feminine.


They only thing that im finding difficult about the book is that, not only is much of the language in old English but the literature itself is very poetic.