In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hawthorne ultimately concludes the book by using rhetorical devices. The inevitable fate of Roger Chillingworth, Hester Prynne, and Reverend Dimmesdale eventually clash and a fatal disaster occurs. Chillingworth's evilness has met up with him. As all is revealed to the public, one’s intuition is proven to be more powerful than expected. As they all gather at the public square on Election Day, Hester and Pearl observe from afar as the parade goes by. Hester is unable to recognize Dimmesdale as “he seemed so remote from her own sphere, and utterly beyond her reach” (Hawthorne, 144). Even little Pearl “felt the remoteness and intangibility that had fallen around the minister” (Hawthorne, 145). Dimmesdale’s lack of feebleness made him look like a completely different person that …show more content…
While Reverend Dimmesdale blocked out the world around him, “the spiritual element took up the feeble frame and carried it along, unconscious of the burden” (Hawthorne, 144). Hawthorne uses irony to describe the huge burden that Dimmesdale had to carry since he did not admit to being the father of Pearl. Though he often put his hand over his heart no “imagination would have been irrelevant enough to surmise that the same scorching stigma was on both of them?” (Hawthorne, 149). While it is ironic that Hester and Dimmesdale bear the same physical mark- the scarlet ‘A’, the truth is revealed that the mysterious lover and father of little Pearl is Reverend Dimmesdale himself. The one thing that had been keeping the two apart was the fact that Dimmesdale was in a high social position. Hester is now realizing that she cannot save Dimmesdale nor the idea of them having a life together. Their “fate (could) be heard, nearer, nearer, nearer” creating a feeling of tension and anxiousness as fate slowly encroaches upon them (Hawthorne,