Chapter 15 Summary

Hester, after leaving Chillingworth, is very bitter. She admits to herself the depth of her hate for him. He had taken her, very young, into marriage despite the lack of love in her and, in this way, courted disaster. Still in the woods, her madcap child plays with the snail-shells and horseshoes and jellyfish, finally making for herself a letter A out of some eelgrass and placing it on herself.

Pearl wants to know what it means. Hester tries to answer, but cannot. Nor will she answer why Dimmesdale keeps his hand on his heart, in the same place as society has placed the letter A on Hester's bosom. Again and again, she asks to no avail.

Chapter 15 Analysis

Hester's complete honesty fails her. She cannot tell Pearl about the true meaning of the scarlet letter. Hawthorne connects Dimmesdale's hand (held over his...