Too Good To Be True?

            As I read chapters 18 to 20, I felt that there was something amiss. All seemed well– Hester no longer bore her Scarlet A, Dimmesdale and Hester had been reunited, and they had plans for a new life. However, I feel as if Hester and Arthur have both changed drastically from when they first met each other. What caused me to think about this was their apparent change back into their old selves. Hester let down her hair and let a smile creep upon her face once more and Dimmesdale went skipping around town eventually bursting with new inspiration for a sermon. But we see Dimmesdale also being drawn back into the darker side of life as he exchanges words with the Mistress and desires to teach young children bad words. This is not the esteemed and pious Dimmesdale that was first described to us.

           Additionally, Hester has gone through tremulous times. Even though she no longer bears her scarlet A, that does not mean she is changed back to her previous self. At one point the narrator describes her as"… 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). She is strong indeed but her growth has come out of the shunning from the towns people, and such solitude and impudence does not come without any effect on someone. Hester is no longer fit to the structured and free-loving family life. It is something she has never experienced and is almost the opposite from how she has lived the past 7 years. Then there is Chillingworth. We know if he gets wind of this plan that he will do everything is his power to exact his revenge on the two since he just cannot move on with his life.

           I am having a hard time accepting that all is going to be well. Especially since Hawthorne seems to have an affection for the destructive and darker aspects of a novel. The characters in this novel have a tendency to fall into sin rather than morality. However bizarre this change of events has been it has only made me more intrigued with the outcome of the novel. Will Hester and Dimmesdale have this happily ever after?