Election Day

Election Day is the culminating public festival of the Puritan year in The Scarlet Letter, the occasion on which Arthur Dimmesdale preaches his most celebrated sermon, reveals his sin, and dies on the scaffold, while Hester Prynne, standing in the marketplace, faces the final, most intense scrutiny of the scarlet letter before their planned flight is shattered by Roger Chillingworth's discovery.

The Festival and the Crowd

The day on which the new Governor was to receive his office brought the entire community into the marketplace. Craftsmen, plebeian inhabitants, rough figures from forest settlements in deerskins, and a party of Indians in savage finery of embroidered deerskin robes, wampum-belts, and feathers all gathered. The most striking figures were the mariners from the Spanish Main—rough-looking desperadoes with sun-blackened faces, immense beards, and gold-laced hats, who smoked tobacco under the beadle's nose and drank from pocket flasks. The Puritans, compressing whatever mirth they deemed allowable into this single holiday, appeared scarcely more grave than other communities at a period of general affliction. The people's great, honest face smiled, grimly but widely, and wrestling matches, quarterstaff bouts, and an exhibition with buckler and broadsword on the pillory platform—broken off by the town beadle—provided sport.

Hester and Pearl in the Marketplace

Hester Prynne, clad in her coarse gray garment, stood in the marketplace with the scarlet letter blazing on her breast. Her face showed the marble quietude the townspeople were accustomed to, like a mask or the frozen calmness of a dead woman's features. Yet on this day, she encountered the public gaze freely and voluntarily for what she believed would be the last time, converting long agony into a kind of triumph. Pearl, decked out with airy gaiety, was in a state of singular inquietude and excitement, flitting with bird-like movement and breaking into wild, piercing music. She ran among the crowd, looking the wild Indian in the face, flying into the midst of the mariners, who gazed at her as if a flake of sea-foam had taken the shape of a little maid. The shipmaster, smitten with her aspect, threw her his gold chain, which she twined around her neck and waist. He then gave Pearl a message for her mother: that Roger Chillingworth would bring his friend—Dimmesdale—aboard the ship, revealing that their escape plan was known.

The Procession and the Sermon

The procession of magistrates and citizens advanced to the meeting-house to the sound of military music. First came the music, then the military company in burnished steel with plumage nodding over their bright morions, followed by the civil eminence—Bradstreet, Endicott, Dudley, Bellingham, and their compeers—men of ponderous sobriety and fortitude. Next came the young and eminently distinguished divine, Arthur Dimmesdale, who exhibited an energy never before seen in his gait and air. His frame was not bent, nor did his hand rest ominously upon his heart. He seemed so abstracted that his body moved onward while his mind busied itself with preternatural activity, marshaling a procession of stately thoughts. Hester, gazing at him, felt a dreary influence; he seemed so remote from her own sphere that she could scarcely forgive him for being able to withdraw himself from their mutual world. The sermon, delivered from the sacred pulpit, was held to be the richest and most powerful ever to proceed from his lips. His voice, rich and peculiar, breathed passion and pathos, and throughout it there was an essential character of plaintiveness—the complaint of a human heart telling its secret to the great heart of mankind. The people, released from the high spell, broke into applause, declaring that never had man spoken in so wise, so high, and so holy a spirit. A spirit of prophecy had come upon him, foretelling a high and glorious destiny for the newly gathered people of the Lord, yet with a deep, sad undertone of pathos interpreted as the natural regret of one soon to pass away.

The Revelation on the Scaffold

After the sermon, as the procession moved toward the town hall for a solemn banquet, the shout that greeted them was an irrepressible outburst of enthusiasm. But Dimmesdale, now feeble and pale, tottered on his path. He repelled the support of the venerable John Wilson and made his way to the scaffold where Hester Prynne had stood seven years earlier. There stood Hester, holding little Pearl by the hand, and the scarlet letter on her breast. Dimmesdale turned toward the scaffold and stretched forth his arms. "Hester," said he, "come hither! Come, my little Pearl!" Roger Chillingworth thrust himself through the crowd and caught the minister by the arm, whispering, "Madman, hold! what is your purpose?" But Dimmesdale answered, "Ha, tempter! Methinks thou art too late!" He ascended the scaffold, leaning on Hester's shoulder, with Pearl's hand clasped in his. He addressed the people of New England, declaring himself the one sinner of the world, and tore away the ministerial band from before his breast. The multitude beheld the revelation—a scarlet letter imprinted in his flesh. Then down he sank upon the scaffold. Pearl kissed his lips, and a spell was broken; her tears fell upon her father's cheek. Dimmesdale died with the words "Hush, Hester—hush!" and "His will be done! Farewell!" The multitude broke out in a strange, deep voice of awe and wonder.

Aftermath and Significance

After many days, various accounts of what had been witnessed circulated. Most testified to having seen a scarlet letter on the minister's breast, though some denied any mark at all. The authority chiefly followed—a manuscript drawn up from verbal testimony—confirmed the view that Dimmesdale had revealed his guilt. The change in Roger Chillingworth was remarkable: all his strength and energy seemed at once to desert him, and he withered away, having made the principle of his life the pursuit of revenge. At his decease within the year, he bequeathed a very considerable amount of property to little Pearl, who became the richest heiress of her day in the New World. Hester Prynne and Pearl soon disappeared, and the story of the scarlet letter grew into a legend. Election Day thus serves as the narrative's climax, where the public festival, the private agony, and the ultimate revelation converge, transforming the scaffold from a place of shame into a site of truth and death.