The scarlet letter chapter 20 quotes. The Scarlet Letter Quotes: Chapters 11 2022-12-11
The scarlet letter chapter 20 quotes Rating:
4,7/10
1059
reviews
In chapter 20 of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, several significant quotes serve to further the plot and highlight the themes of the novel.
One of the most notable quotes in this chapter is when Hester Prynne says to Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, "Be thou strong for me! - help me to bear the burden that thou hast helped to lay upon me!" This quote speaks to the theme of guilt and the ways in which Hester and Dimmesdale have both contributed to the sin of their affair. Hester recognizes that Dimmesdale has helped to create this burden for her, and she is asking for his support in carrying it. This is significant because it shows how Hester has grown and changed over the course of the novel, becoming more assertive and independent, and no longer willing to bear the burden of their sin alone.
Another important quote in this chapter is when Dimmesdale says to Hester, "I fear it is too deeply fixed to be ever plucked away." This quote speaks to the theme of redemption and the ways in which Dimmesdale's guilt and shame have consumed him. Dimmesdale recognizes that his sin has become a part of him and that he may never be able to fully escape it. This is significant because it highlights the destructive power of guilt and the ways in which it can consume and destroy an individual.
Finally, the quote "Be it sin or no, I love thee!" spoken by Dimmesdale to Hester, speaks to the theme of love and its complexities. Dimmesdale is torn between his love for Hester and the guilt and shame he feels for their affair. This quote shows the depth of his love for her, but also the internal conflict he faces as a result of their sin.
Overall, the quotes in chapter 20 of The Scarlet Letter serve to further the plot and highlight the themes of guilt, redemption, and love. They reveal the struggles and complexities faced by Hester and Dimmesdale as they deal with the consequences of their affair and the weight of their guilt.
21 Best 'The Scarlet Letter' Quotes By Nathaniel Hawthorne
Else it may be their miserable fortune, when some mightier touch than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached even for the calm content, the marble image of happiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality. He acknowledges that he has delayed owning his past sin, and implies he has left Hester to suffer alone. She hopes that the shame that she must endure daily from the Puritans will somehow cleanse her soul. There on the table, with the inky pen beside it, was an unfinished sermon, with a sentence broken in the midst, where his thoughts had ceased to gush out upon the page two days before. A woman never overcomes these problems by any exercise of thought. Turning over their plan in his mind, he believes that going to Europe is the better choice.
Unfortunately, he still has duties as the minister, and before he can leave, he must deliver the Election Sermon. Was it worthwhile for a woman to exist? In fact, he sees things so differently that he almost becomes afraid for himself. Moreover, Dimmesdale worries that encountering her now, after his time in the woods, would somehow contaminate her, but what he fails to acknowledge fully is that the contamination has already occurred. For a thousand imaginary faults, and went about her household duties with swollen eyelids the next morning. He has been transformed from the weak and dying man who went into the forest. Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! But touching your medicine, kind sir, in my present frame of body I need it not.
He next ignores a young woman whom he has recently converted to the church because he fears that his strange state of mind will lead him to plant some corrupting germ in her innocent heart. I shuddered, and involuntarily let it fall upon the floor. It had been wrought, as was easy to perceive, with wonderful skill of needlework. . In order to free his mind from this indistinctness and duplicity of impression, which vexed it with a strange disquietude, he recalled and more thoroughly defined the plans which Hester and himself had sketched for their departure. For instance, he met one of his own deacons. Scorn, bitterness, unprovoked malignity, gratuitous desire of ill, ridicule of whatever was good and holy, all awoke to tempt, even while they frightened him.
Dimmesdale is the "wretched minister! One can infer this because her name. Initially, Hester does not know what to do with the shame that is handed to her. The narrator describes the Puritan society as very judgemental Pearl In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter, a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, deals with adultery, sin, and morals. It is pure and righteous, oblivious to human laws, therefore it is sacred. It is also for this reason that Hester remains in Boston. While Dimmesdale has effectively hidden his sin, a benefit of being a man, Hester as a woman cannot do that.
The same was true as regarded the acquaintances whom he met, and all the well—known shapes of human life, about the little town. Mine burns in secret! Dimmesdale returns to the village with a changed perspective. Hester's daughter, Pearl, is a symbol of innocence, sin, and a the scarlet letter. Again, a third instance. Glossary vicissitude unpredictable changes or variations that keep occurring in life, fortune, etc. See eNotes Ad-Free Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts. It was the same town as heretofore; but the same minister returned not from the forest.
So—with a mightier struggle than he had yet sustained—he held his Geneva cloak before his face, and hurried onward, making no sign of recognition, and leaving the young sister to digest his rudeness as she might. Although the three ultimately do not escape together, Hester has some measure of redemption, through the deaths of both Dimmesdale and Chillingworth, as well as the escape of herself and Pearl to Europe, where Pearl grows up to be in the highest levels of society. However, it is not necessarily out of pride in her sin that she remains. Hester has decided that she cannot. For her part in the murder, Turner was tried, convicted, and hanged. Dimmesdale works with great passion on his Election Sermon, putting this new energy to good use.
A strange, sad man is he, with is hand always over his heart! There dwelt, there trode the feet of one with whom she deemed herself connected in a union, that, unrecognized on earth, would bring them together before the bar of final judgment, and make that their marriage-altar, for a joint futurity of endless retribution. Three times, he meets people of his congregation, and each time he is tempted to do something terrible. The citation above will include either 2 or 3 dates. He begins to interpret the change as the work of the devil, and so he regresses to his former self. The minister stood white and speechless, with one hand on the Hebrew Scriptures, and the other spread upon his breast. So the minister had not fallen asleep and dreamed! The edifice had so very strange, and yet so familiar an aspect, that Mr.
However, leaving that mystery to solve itself, or go unsolved for ever, he drove his task onward with earnest haste and ecstasy. Perhaps it is better, Hester thinks, that Pearl should die, and then Hester herself can end her own life. The minister was glad to have reached this shelter, without first betraying himself to the world by any of those strange and wicked eccentricities to which he had been continually impelled while passing through the streets. When Dimmesdale ignores the young woman whom he encounters on the street, he clings to the values he ought, according to his newfound beliefs, to reject. We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.
It had stupefied all blessed impulses, and awakened into vivid life the whole brotherhood of bad ones. After years of being repressed and reserved, Dimmesdale now feels liberated and has the urge to start breaking all the rules that have controlled him for so long. That is why people label both Pearl and Hester as witches. It will not flee from me; for I wear nothing on my bosom yet. Hester says this quote to little Pearl.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/scarlett-letter-768x390-5c817e19c9e77c00010c218f.png)