American Literature books summary

his sin, release it from his heart. However, all he could manage to say

was that he was a terrible sinner, which only inspired his congregation

more because they saw him as virtually flawless. He fasted, prayed, and

kept vigils in order to purge himself, but the sin upon his soul haunted

him without end.

Chapter 12: It was midnight and Reverend Dimmesdale was so tortured by his

sin that he took himself out and stood upon the scaffold that Hester had

stood. He planned to stay there all night suffering from his own shame.

At one point he cried out hoping in his mind to wake the whole town so they

could see him standing there, so his sin could finally be revealed and his

mind eased. However, no one in the town was awakened by his cry. At one

point from his perch, he saw the Pastor John Winston walking towards him,

but the man was wrapped up tightly in his cloak and did not notice the

Reverend on the scaffold.

His mind wandered to what he would look like in the morning when his body

was frozen with cold, and at the image of himself in his mind, he laughed.

His laugh was returned by a sprightly laugh in the darkness that was none

other than Pearl’s. He cried out to her in the night, and to Hester. They

appeared having been out measuring a robe for a man who had died that

evening. At the Reverend’s request, they came to stand upon the scaffold

with him and they joined hands in their sin. Pearl asked the Reverend

repeatedly if he would come stand with them on the scaffold the next day at

noon, but the Dimmesdale refused. Out of the darkness, Mr. Chillingworth

appeared, and the Reverend spoke his fear and hatred of the man. He asked

who he really was, and because of her oath, Hester kept her silence. Pearl

whispered gibberish to him in revenge for him not standing with them the

next day on the scaffold. The Reverend looked up into the sky and saw a

meteor trail that looked like a large red ‘A’ leering at him. Mr.

Chillingworth told him to come home and he left the scaffold with the

evilly happy physician.

Chapter 13: Seven years had passed since little Pearl’s birth. The letter

on Hester’s chest to the village people had become a symbol of her good

deeds. It set her apart from the general population, but many looked on

her as a sister of charity. When someone was in need she was always the

one by his or her side. Many people in town said the A stood for able.

She had changed. She was an empty form, void of the passion and love that

people were able to see in her before.

Her luxurious hair was always hidden from the sight of the people. After

the minister’s vigil, Hester found a new cause for sacrifice, a new

purpose. She decided to talk to the old physician, her former husband, and

try to save his victim from further mental torture. After making her

decision, she came upon him as he was walking the peninsula.

Chapter 14: Hester instructed Pearl to go run and play and she went to a

pool and saw herself there. Hester accosted Mr. Chillingworth and he began

telling her of all the good things the people in the town had said about

her. The leaders in the town at the last council meeting had even thought

about admitting Hester to take the letter off her bosom. Hester told him

that if the Lord meant her to take it off her chest that it would have

fallen off long ago. While they began talking, Hester took a good look at

him. In the past seven years he had aged well, but there was a strikingly

different look about him. He wore a guarded look of an eager angry man who

was out for revenge.

They began talking about the minister and Mr. Chillingworth reveals that

had it not been for his care, the minister would have died long ago.

Hester asks if he has not had enough revenge since he was able to torture

the minister every day by burying into his heart. He answers no, that it

will never be enough. Hester tells him that she plans on revealing his

secret to the minister and he tells her that neither of them are sinful and

evil, they just must lead the lives that they were given because of her

sin. They say farewell, and Hester leaves him to gathering herbs.

Chapter 15: Hester watches him for a while from a distance disgusted at the

evil she sees in him. She turns to find little Pearl who was playing with

all the different things in nature. When Pearl goes back to her mother,

Hester sees that the child has made a letter A out of seaweed and placed it

on her chest. Hester asks the child if she knows what the letter her

mother wears means. Pearl answers that it is the same reason the minister

keeps his hand over his chest.

That is all she knows however, and she asks earnestly why she wears the

scarlet letter, and why the minister places his hand over his heart. Ever

since she was little, Pearl had a certain fascination with the letter that

tortured her mother even more. Hester decided it was better to not

unburden her sin upon her child and told her daughter that it meant

nothing. After that day however, Pearl would ask her mother two or three

times a day what the scarlet letter meant.

Chapter 16: : Hester learned that the Minister had gone into the woods to

visit a friend who lived among the Indians. She learned when he was

expected to return, and when the day came, she and Pearl went into the

forest so she could catch him on his return and speak with him in private.

As they enter the forest, Pearl says that she can stand in the sunlight,

but the sunlight runs away from Hester. In response, Hester reaches out to

touch the stream of light that flocks around the little elf-child, and it

vanishes when her hand comes near. Pearl then asks her mother for a story

about the black man who inhabits the forest, which she over heard a woman

the previous evening talking about. Pearl said that people went into the

forest and signed the Black man’s book with their blood and that she heard

the scarlet letter was the black man’s mark on her mother. They traveled

into the deep into the forest and stopped next to a little brook that Pearl

began playing around. After a while, they saw the Reverend Dimmesdale come

walking slowly down the path, and Hester tells Pearl to run and play.

Chapter 17: Hester calls out to the Minister and he instantly straightens

up and looks towards her. He finds out it is she and they inquire on how

their lives have been in the last seven years. They sit down together on a

log, and ask each other if they have found peace. The minister expresses

his sadness and how he feels like a hypocrite teaching others to be holy,

when he himself has a terrible hidden sin. Hester tries to help him by

talking with him and caring for him. He thanks her for her friendship.

She then tells him of Roger Chillingsworth, how he is her husband, and out

for revenge. Dimmesdale is horrified but knew that something was wrong

with Roger Chillingworth. Hester could not take the frown that descended

upon his face, and asked him if he forgave her. He has, and she asks if he

remembers what they had. She hints that they once had a great passion and

affection for each other. Hester talks of them leaving together. Arthur

says he has not the strength to travel that far, but with Hester helping

him, they thought they could do it.

Chapter 18: Together they decide to leave the New World together and not

torture themselves further with their sin so that only God will judge them.

To them, they are damned already. Hester unhooks her scarlet letter and

tosses it by the bubbling brook. They make plans together and say that

they will leave for England on the ship that is in the harbor. Talking of

their love and their plans, they call back Pearl, for once happy and with

lifted spirits. Pearl is off in the forest playing and interacting with

the animals. When they call her back, Pearl comes slowly when she sees

them sitting together.

Chapter 19: They sat there looking at Pearl as she approached. She had

adorned herself with wild flowers and looked like a fairy child. They

rejoiced in their child as she came towards him, and Arthur was

exceptionally afraid and anxious for the interview. Pearl stopped at the

brook and stared at them. The child pointed at her mother with a frown.

Hester called out to her harshly to come and Pearl began screaming and

throwing a tantrum. Hester realized that the child was upset that her

scarlet letter was not affixed to her mother’s breast. She walked over to

where it lay on the ground and showed it to the child. She pinned it back

into place, and Pearl was pacified and happy again. They approached the

minister and the three of them held hands, and they tried to explain to her

that they were all going to be a happy family. The minister kissed Pearl’s

forehead and she ran quickly to the brook to try to wash it away.

Chapter 20: Arthur Dimmesdale walked home happily. For the first time in

seven years, there was a bounce in his step and a light in his hurting

heart. On his way, he saw some of his parishioners and he had thoughts of

corruption on his mind. He thought about the reaction he would get if he

whispered corrupting things in their ears. There are three different

people he runs into in which he feels this. He resists the temptation to

do this, and wonders why he is having these thoughts. He wonders if he

signed the black man’s book in the forest with his blood. He runs into a

woman known as the town witch, and she tells him the next time he wants to

go into the forest she would go with him. When he arrives home, Mr.

Chillingworth comes into his room, and the Reverend refuses to take anymore

of his medicine. He sits at his desk and reworks the sermon he had planned

for the following celebration.

Chapter 21: A public holiday because of the election was planned and

everyone from that and the neighboring towns attended in their best

clothing. Hester and little Pearl attended but stayed slightly apart from

the crowd. Though everyone was packed close to see the parade, there was

an empty circle around Hester because of her scarlet letter. She had gone

previously to make plans with the captain of the ship that they were going

to take to England, and she saw the captain of that vessel talking to Roger

Chillingworth. The captain then came over to her and informed her that the

physician would be attending the voyage with them. She looked towards him,

and he smiled at her evilly.

Chapter 22: The parade began and Pearl saw the minister when he reached the

front. She asked if that was the same minister who kissed her in the

woods, and Hester told her to not talk about it in the marketplace.

Mistress Hibbins approached her and began talking to Hester about the

minister. Hester denied any involvement with him, and they began watching

as he preached to the people. Pearl left her mother and wandered around.

The captain of the ship told Pearl to give her mother a message for him.

She told him that her father was the Prince of Air. She threatened him and

ran to her mother. Hester’s mind wandered and thought about how she would

soon be free of he scarlet letter and the pain associated with it.

Chapter 23: The minister ended his incredible speech and it was one of the

best of his life. The people were inspired and as the parade turned

therefor, everyone would exit. The minister looked exceptionally sick and

called to Hester and Pearl to come to him. Roger Chillingworth ran towards

and tried to get Hester back from the minister. He is dying and with his

last breaths he shouts his sin to the audience around and blesses Hester

and Pearl. He tells the people to take another better look at Hester and

at himself so they see the truth in them. He ripped off the ministerial

band from his chest, and the people stood shocked. The people are struck

with awe and sympathy. The doctor came over the minister, awestruck

because he will lose him and his revenge. Dimmesdale asks Pearl for a kiss

and she finally places one on his lips. Hester kneels over him and asks

him if they will not see each other again, and spend eternity together.

The reverend tells her that their sin was too large, and that is all she

should be concerned. He shouted farewell to the audience and breathed his

last breath.

Chapter 24: People swore after that day that when they saw the minister rip

off the band on his breast that a scarlet ‘A’ resided there. Many thought

that he made the revelation in the dying hour so everyone would know that

one who appeared so pure, was as much a sinner as the rest of them. Roger

Chillingworth died within the year and bequeathed large amounts of property

both in New England and in England to Pearl. This made Pearl the richest

heiress in the New World. Soon after his death, Hester Prynne and her

little Pearl disappeared. Years later Hester came back alone to live with

her sin in her cottage. Pearl was thought to be happily married elsewhere

and mindful of her mother. After her return, many people of the town went

to Hester for advice and help when they were in need. After many years she

died, and was placed next to the saintly minister. They shared a tombstone

and they would be together forever.

Character Profiles

Hester Prynne: A beautiful puritan woman full of strong passions, Hester

Prynne is the main character in the story. Employed as the village

seamstress, she is strong and caring, helping anyone she can when he or she

are in need. With a penitent heart, Hester travels through the story

becoming only a shadow of her former passionate loving self. Other than

the scarlet letter, she was a very moral woman whose only joy in life was

her daughter Pearl. Roger Chillingsworth: The missing husband of Hester

Prynne. He shows up the day that Hester is put on public display and does

not show himself as her husband. A scholar and a man of medicine, his soul

purpose in his life becomes revenge against the man who helped his wife

sin. By the end of the story, he is shown to be an evil character.

Pearl: Looked on as the devil’s child, Pearl is the only one in the story

that is purely innocent. She is passionate, intelligent, and energetic.

Pearl is in touch with nature and with her mother’s feelings. Ever since

she was born, Pearl had a fascination with the scarlet letter that is a

constant reminder for Hester of her sin.

Arthur Dimmesdale: The minister of the town that the people adore, Arthur

was the secret lover of Hester Prynne. He was a sickly man who took his

sin very seriously. He spent the seven years since his indiscretion with

Mistress Prynne trying to repent. He wore down his body with his penitence

and his sin ate away his soul. In the end, he frees himself from his guilt

by admitting to everyone his sin.

Metaphor Analysis

The Rose Bush: A rose bush that grew outside the prison was a symbol of

survival, that there is life after the prison where Hester spent he

beginning of the story.

The Scarlet Letter ‘A’: The letter that Hester was forced to wear upon her

bosom, the scarlet letter was not only a symbol of her adulterous sin, but

of the women herself. The letter masks her beauty and passion as the story

goes until it is what she is known.

The Black Man in the Woods: the peoples symbol for the devil. The woods in

those times were a very scary place, and they thought that people that went

into it came out evil and corrupted.

Theme Analysis

The Scarlet Letter is a story that illustrates intricate pieces of the

Puritan lifestyle. Centered first on a sin committed by Hester Prynne and

her secret lover before the story ever begins, the novel details how sin

affects the lives of the people involved. For Hester, the sin forces her

into isolation from society and even from herself. Her qualities that

Hawthorne describes at the opening of the book, i.e. her beauty, womanly

qualities, and passion are, after a time, eclipsed by the ‘A’ she is forced

to wear. An example of this is her hair. Long hair is something in this

time period that is a symbol of a woman. At the beginning of the story,

Hawthorne tells of Hester’s long flowing hair. After she wears the scarlet

letter for a time, he paints a picture of her with her hair out of site

under a cap, and all the wanton womanliness gone from her.

Yet, even with her true eclipsed behind the letter, of the three main

characters affected, Hester has the easiest time because her sin is out in

the open. More than a tale of sin, the Scarlet Letter is also an intense

love story that shows itself in the forest scene between Hester and the

minister Arthur Dimmesdale. With plans to run away with each, Arthur and

Hester show that their love has surpassed distance and time away from each

other. This love also explains why Hester would not reveal the identity of

her fellow sinner when asked on the scaffolding. Roger Chillingworth is

the most affected by the sin, though he was not around when the sin took

place. Demented by his thoughts of revenge and hate, Hawthorne shows Mr.

Chillingworth to be a devil or as a man with an evil nature. He himself

commits one of the seven deadly sins with his wrath.

By the end of the tale that surpasses seven years, Hester is respected and

revered by the community as a doer of good works, and the minister is

worshipped for his service in the church. Only Mr. Chillingworth is looked

upon badly by the townspeople although no one knows why. Through it all,

Hawthorne illustrates that even sin can produce purity, and that purity

came in the form of the sprightly Pearl. Though she is isolated with her

mother, Pearl finds her company and joy in the nature that surrounds her.

She alone knows that her mother must keep the scarlet letter on her at all

times, and that to take it off is wrong.

Through the book the child is also constantly asking the minister to

confess his sin to the people of the town inherently knowing that it will

ease his pain. Hawthorne’s metaphor of the rose growing next to the prison

is a good metaphor for Pearl’s life that began in that very place. The

reader sees this connection when Pearl tells the minister that her mother

plucked her from the rose bush outside of the prison. Finally, for all the

characters, Hawthorne’s novel illustrates how one sin can escalate to

encompass one’s self so that the true humans behind the sin are lost. This

is what makes Hawthorne’s novel not only a story of love vs. hate, sin vs.

purity, good vs. evil, but all of these combined to make a strikingly

historical tragedy as well.

Top Ten Quotes

1) «It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom that

may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of

human frailty and sorrow.» 2) « ‘People say,’ said another, ‘that the

Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to

his heart that such a scandal has come upon his congregation.’» 3) « ‘If

thou feelest to be for thy soul’s peace, and that they earthly punishment

will there by be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak

out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer.’» 4) «But she named

the infant ‘Pearl,’ as being of great price- purchased with all she had-

her mother’s only pleasure.» 5) «After putting her fingers in her mouth,

with many ungrateful refusals to answer Mr. Wilson’s question, the child

finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked

by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison door» 6) «

‘He hath done a wild thing ere now, this pious Mr. Dimmesdale, in the hot

passion of his heart!’» 7) «Such helpfulness was found in her- so much

power to do and power to sympathize- that many people refused to interpret

the scarlet ‘A’ by it’s original signification. They said that it meant

‘Able’; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a women’s strength.» 8) «‘That

old man!- the physician!- the one whom they call Roger Chillingworth!-he

was my husband!’» 9) «Pacify her, if thou lovest me!» 10) « ‘Hester

Prynne’ cried he, with a piercing earnestness ‘in the name of Him, so

terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace, at this last moment, to do

what- for my own heavy sin and miserable agony- I withheld myself from

doing seven years ago, come hither now, and twine thy strength about me!»

Slaughterhouse Five

Chapter One. Summary:

The narrator assures us that the book we are about to read is true, more or

less. The parts dealing with World War II are most faithful to actual

events. Twenty-three years have passed since the end of the war, and for

much of that time the narrator has been trying to write about the bombing

of Dresden. He was never able to bring make the project work. When he

thinks about Dresden's place in his memory, he always recalls two things:

an obscene limerick about a man whose penis has let him down, and "My Name

is Yon Yonson," a song which has no ending.

Late some nights, the narrator gets drunk and begins to track down old

friends with the telephone. Some years ago he tracked down Bernard O'Hare,

an old war buddy of his, using Bell Atlantic phone operators. When he

tracked his old friend down, he asked if Bernard would help him remember

things about the war. Bernard seemed unenthusiastic. When the narrator

suggests the execution of Edgar Derby, an American who stole a teapot from

the ruins, as the climax of the novel, Bernard still seems unenthusiastic.

The best outline the narrator ever made for his Dresden book was on a roll

of toilet paper, using crayon. Colors represented different people, and the

lines crisscrossed when people met, and ended when they died. The outline

ended with the exchange of prisoners who had been liberated by Americans

and Russians.

After the war, the narrator went home, married, and had kids, all of whom

are grown now. He studied anthropology at the University of Chicago, and in

anthropology he learned that "there was absolutely no difference between

anybody," and that "nobody was ridiculous or bad or disgusting." He's

worked various jobs, and tried to keep up work on his Dresden novel all

this time.

He actually did go to see Bernard O'Hare just a few weeks after finding him

over the telephone. He brought his young daughters, who were sent upstairs

to play with O'Hare's kids. The men could not think of any particularly

good memories or stories, and the narrator noticed that Mary, Bernard's

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