Journaling Activity
Element
Textual Evidence and Page #
Commentary/Conclusions
Chapter 13:
Plot Summary
“Years had come and gone. Pearl was now seven years old.”(145)
“They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength.”(146)
“Did you see that woman with the embroidered badge?’ they would say to strangers. ‘It is our Hester, the town’s own Hester, who is so kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick…”(147)
Through her benevolent deeds over the years, Hester had managed to merge herself into the society that once scorned her. They no longer speaks badly of her, but would instead brag about her kind and caring nature to strangers. The most obvious change in their perception of Hester also lies in the reinterpretation of the letter “A” on her chest, which would now signify Able, resembling the strength of her heart.
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I did know it! Was not the secret he told me, in the natural recoil of my heart, at the first sight of him.”(175)
“There is the broad pathway of the sea!”(178)
Hester finally meets her partner in crime alone in a stroll of the forest, and the conversed about each other’s pain before stumbling on the topic of Chillingworth. Hester reveals her husband’s identity to the priest, and they stumble onto a light quarrel before agreeing on a plan to escape from both him and the community to find a life in Europe with Pearl as a whole family.
Chapter 18:
Plot Summary
“The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.”(180)
“But there lay the embroidered letter, glittering like a lost jewel, which some ill fated wanderer might pick up…”(182)
“Dost thou think the child will be glad to know