The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter

The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter is the novel's climactic event, the moment when the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, at the height of his public triumph, tears away the fabric of his hypocrisy and reveals the truth that has consumed him for seven years. It is the long-deferred public confession that Hester Prynne refused to make on the same scaffold at the story's beginning, and it transforms the minister's carefully constructed life into a final, agonizing act of truth. The scene brings together all four principal characters—Dimmesdale, Hester, Pearl, and Roger Chillingworth—in a confrontation that resolves the central mysteries of the plot and seals the fate of each.

The Election Sermon and the Procession

Earlier that day, Dimmesdale had preached the Election Sermon, a discourse that his audience deemed the most powerful and inspired of his career. The sermon, on the relation between the Deity and the communities of mankind, with special reference to New England, was marked by a spirit of prophecy and a deep, sad undertone of pathos that the people interpreted as the natural regret of one soon to pass away. As he moved in the procession from the church to the town hall, Dimmesdale exhibited an unaccustomed energy, his step firm and his hand no longer resting ominously over his heart. Yet to Hester Prynne, watching from the marketplace, he seemed remote and unattainable, a figure utterly beyond her reach, and she felt a dreary influence come over her. The crowd, meanwhile, greeted the procession with a shout of enthusiasm, a mighty swell of many voices blended into one, and never on New England soil had a man been so honored by his mortal brethren as the preacher.

The Approach to the Scaffold

As the procession moved onward, all eyes turned toward Dimmesdale, and the shout died into a murmur. He appeared feeble and pale, his glow extinguished like a flame sinking among decaying embers, his face death-like, and he tottered on his path. The Reverend John Wilson stepped forward to offer support, but Dimmesdale tremulously and decidedly repelled the old man's arm. He continued walking, his movement resembling the wavering effort of an infant, until he came opposite the weather-darkened scaffold where, seven years earlier, Hester Prynne had endured the world's ignominious stare. There stood Hester, holding little Pearl by the hand, and the scarlet letter was on her breast. Dimmesdale paused, though the music still played the stately march. Governor Bellingham, anxious, left his place to assist, but something in the minister's expression warned him back. The crowd looked on with awe and wonder, some imagining that the minister might ascend before their eyes into heaven.

The Confession on the Scaffold

Turning toward the scaffold, Dimmesdale stretched forth his arms and called out, "Hester, come hither! Come, my little Pearl!" The child flew to him and clasped her arms about his knees. Hester Prynne, slowly, as if impelled by inevitable fate, drew near but paused before reaching him. At that instant, old Roger Chillingworth thrust himself through the crowd, his look dark and evil, and caught the minister by the arm, whispering, "Madman, hold! what is your purpose? Wave back that woman! Cast off this child! All shall be well!" But Dimmesdale answered, "Ha, tempter! Methinks thou art too late! Thy power is not what it was! With God's help, I shall escape thee now!" He again extended his hand to Hester, crying out in the name of Him who gave him grace at this last moment to do what he had withheld himself from doing seven years ago, and asked her to support him up yonder scaffold. Leaning on Hester's shoulder, with Pearl's little hand clasped in his, Dimmesdale ascended the steps. Chillingworth followed, as one intimately connected with the drama of guilt and sorrow. "Hadst thou sought the whole earth over," he said darkly, "there was no one place so secret—no high place nor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me—save on this very scaffold!" Dimmesdale answered, "Thanks be to Him who hath led me hither!"

The Revelation and the Death

Turning to the rulers, the ministers, and the people, Dimmesdale cried out, "People of New England! ye, that have loved me!—ye, that have deemed me holy!—behold me here, the one sinner of the world!" He spoke of the scarlet letter that Hester wore, the brand of sin and infamy at which all had shuddered, and then declared that there stood one in their midst at whose brand they had not shuddered. With a convulsive motion, he tore away the ministerial band from before his breast. It was revealed: a scarlet letter imprinted in the flesh. For an instant, the gaze of the horror-stricken multitude was concentrated on the ghastly miracle, while the minister stood with a flush of triumph in his face, as one who, in the crisis of acutest pain, had won a victory. Then he sank down upon the scaffold. Hester partly raised him and supported his head against her bosom. Chillingworth knelt beside him with a blank, dull countenance, repeating, "Thou hast escaped me!" Dimmesdale, with his dying eyes, said, "May God forgive thee! Thou, too, hast deeply sinned!" He then fixed his eyes on Hester and Pearl. To Pearl he said, "My little Pearl, wilt thou kiss me now? Thou wouldst not, yonder, in the forest! But now thou wilt?" Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief had developed all her sympathies, and as her tears fell upon her father's cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it. Dimmesdale spoke his final words to Hester, telling her to let the law they broke and the sin here awfully revealed be alone in her thoughts, and that God had proved his mercy in his afflictions. "His will be done! Farewell!" That final word came forth with his expiring breath. The multitude, silent till then, broke out in a strange, deep voice of awe and wonder.

Aftermath and Interpretations

After many days, there was more than one account of what had been witnessed. Most spectators testified to having seen a scarlet letter imprinted in the flesh on the minister's breast. Some believed Dimmesdale had inflicted the mark on himself through penance; others thought Chillingworth, a potent necromancer, had caused it through magic and drugs; still others whispered that the symbol was the effect of remorse gnawing from the inmost heart outward. Yet certain persons who professed never to have removed their eyes from Dimmesdale denied that there was any mark whatever on his breast, and claimed that his dying words had not acknowledged any connection with Hester's guilt. The authority the narrative chiefly follows confirms the view that Dimmesdale did indeed reveal the letter. The moral drawn from the poor minister's miserable experience is: "Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!"