The Scarlet Letter 55

The Scarlet Letter

Chapter Twenty

Entry Fifty-Five


The heading of the chapter (The minister in a maze) lets the reader assume that Arthur Dimmesdale is no longer a pastor. He buried his belief in God in the darkness of the forest when he promised Hester to flee from Boston. After he returned to town, he meets an old man with who he has a short conversation. He abandoned God so radically that

"it was only by the most careful self-control that the former could refrain from uttering certain blasphemous suggestions that rose into his mind, respecting the communion-supper."

It is very sad to see that a man who used to define himself through his belief in God suddenly turns away from Him and even feels like he has to mock at Him. I don't understand why Dimmesdale still wants to sermonize at the election. He should do it because of his love to God, and not because he doesn't want to be seen as unreliable or undependable. He obviously does not know who he is and what he wants (he is in a maze of his own thoughts). When he meets another parishioner, a woman who used to turn to him to hear God's wise advice, he can't even recall any of the verses he studied for years in the bible. Another woman tried to talk to him this day. In this moment, evilness takes over his soul. He really thinks about abusing her feelings toward him to make her enter Satan's hell. Hawthorne says it is the devil leading him what Dimmesdale interprets as Hester's power coming out of him. Suddenly he discovers evil parts in his character.
Now that he turned away form God, he offered the devil (still Chillingworth) to enter his mind. Before this, Chillingworth was never able to take over his soul completely because he couldn't compete against Arthur's love to God, but now that there is an empty space (apparently his love to Hester is not strong enough) he made entering his mind very easy.
Hawthorne watches this development with shame ("...we blush to tell it..."). He can't believe that Dimmesdale was seduced to easily.
But fortunately, the minister realizes that there is something wrong with him. While he was coming to the conclusion that it must be the devil taking over him, Mistress Hibbins (maybe) walks by. In the previous chapter he saw Pearl as the old witch Hibbins. Is it possible that Pearl made him go crazy and evil to teach him a lesson? He shall be honest to the society, to Hester and Pearl and to himself. Supportive to this theory is that Mistress Hibbins wears big and impressive headdress, just like Pearl did in the forest: She decorated her hair with different flowers. On the other side, it is likely that Chillingworth is misleading him.

“(Mistress Hibbins:) The next time, I pray you to allow me only a fair warning, and I shall be proud to bear you company. Without taking overmuch upon myself, my good word will go far towards gaining any strange gentleman a fair reception from yonder potentate you wot of!”

She speaks of the Black Man in the forest with the book with which he collects signatures written with one's own blood. So she is aware of the fact that he is watching the forest, always there and controling what happens there.