Examples Of Forgiveness In The Scarlet Letter

The book ended without telling us if they were all forgiven or not. We don’t know if they were reunited in heaven or if any of them even made it in. We know the people didn’t forgive them, at least not Dimmesdale, but did God? Obviously none of us really know except Hawthorne, the author, but we can take an educated guess based off the rest of the book. So let’s think more about the topic of forgiveness in this story. Let’s start off with Hester Prynne. She cheated on her husband and had a child and then kept everyone’s secrets throughout the rest of the story. But she did stand on the scaffold for three hours in front of the whole town with her child, and she did wear the scarlet letter for almost a decade. She tried to give back to the community and help people in the town out a bit. God probably forgave her. Chillingworth lied about his identity pretending to be this amazing doctor with past experience so that he could move into a house with Dimmesdale, Hester’s baby daddy, and get revenge on the …show more content…
He stood in the crowd as Hester was publicly shamed, and watched her walk around with the scarlet letter on hearing parents and kids whisper about her in the streets. At the end of the story he told everyone the truth and he also showed them the scarlet letter that he also had underneath his shirt. Shortly afterward he died in front of them, his ex lover, and his child age seven. “I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood.” He said this on the same scaffold that Hester stood on back when Pearl was a baby. But he also told Hester in front of everyone that “it was thenceforth vain to hope that we could meet hereafter, in an everlasting and pure reunion.” So I do not believe Dimmesdale was forgiven or that if he was he was not reunited with