The Scarlet Letter Chapter 20 Summary

Summary

Arthur Dimmesdale leaves the forest after his secret meeting with Hester Prynne and little Pearl, and at first doubts whether the encounter was real. He and Hester have arranged to escape on a ship that will sail in four days, which Dimmesdale privately sees as fortunate because it allows him to preach the upcoming Election Sermon before leaving. The memory of the forest meeting fills him with a strange new energy and a sense of radical inner change.

As Dimmesdale hastens back to town he finds familiar streets, people, and his church strangely altered in his perception: things look the same yet feel as if years have passed, because he himself has been transformed. Walking through the town he experiences repeated intrusive impulses to blaspheme, insult, seduce, or behave wickedly toward pious parishioners, children, and a sailor; he resists each temptation by force of will, clerical habit, or self-control. Mistress Hibbins, the witch-like woman, halts him, hints at his forest visit, and smiles knowingly, heightening his guilt and dread.

At home he meets Roger Chillingworth, who offers medical counsel and watches him with an intent, physician-like scrutiny that suggests suspicion and estrangement between them. Alone in his study, Dimmesdale burns the earlier pages of his Election Sermon and composes a new, impassioned version with feverish inspiration through the night, finishing as dawn comes. The chapter ends with him at his desk, pen in hand, having produced a vast new sermon that seems poured out by an altered inner life.

Key events

1. Dimmesdale confirms Hester and Pearl remain at the mossy tree after he leaves the forest.
2. They plan to sail for England in four days; Dimmesdale links the timing to his Election Sermon.
3. Dimmesdale experiences pernicious, involuntary impulses while passing townspeople and resists them.
4. Mistress Hibbins recognizes or teases him about the forest visit, intensifying his unease.
5. Roger Chillingworth visits; his watchful manner implies suspicion and distance.
6. Dimmesdale destroys earlier sermon pages and writes a new, inspired Election Sermon through the night.

Analysis

This chapter dramatizes Dimmesdale’s psychological fracture after his secret meeting with Hester. Hawthorne uses the return to familiar settings—streets, church, study—as a mirror: the external world is unchanged but the minister’s inner perception is irrevocably altered. The repeated intrusive impulses (blasphemy, cruelty, sexual corruption) function as externalized symptoms of guilt and self-betrayal; they reveal a divided self that cannot reconcile private sin with public sanctity. Mistress Hibbins serves as a liminal figure who both mocks and names the minister’s moral exposure, suggesting communal suspicion or supernatural judgment. Chillingworth’s clinical observation contrasts with Dimmesdale’s spiritual torment and hints at the physician’s growing role as an examiner of conscience.

Structurally, the chapter moves from outward journey to inner turmoil to creative outpouring: the frenzy of temptation is followed by an almost cathartic act—burning the old sermon and composing a new one—suggesting both self-reinvention and self-deception. Symbolically, the mossy tree and the forest dell remain a site of secret covenant; the Election Sermon becomes a paradoxical instrument of both public duty and private escape. The narrator’s ironic commentary on Dimmesdale’s self-knowledge underscores a key theme: the corrosive effect of hidden sin on identity and perception, and the impossibility of sustaining two faces for oneself and for the world.

Important quotes

“That is most fortunate!”

NarratorDimmesdale thinks this when he learns the ship will sail on the fourth day, which fits his plan to sermonize before leaving.

“I am not the man for whom you take me! I left him yonder in the forest, withdrawn into a secret dell, by a mossy tree-trunk, and near a melancholy brook! Go, seek your minister, and see if his emaciated figure, his thin cheek, his white, heavy, pain-wrinkled brow, be not flung down there, like a cast-off garment!”

Arthur Dimmesdale (thought)Dimmesdale feels alienated from his public identity and imagines telling townsfolk that the man they know is different from the one who just left the forest.

“Have I then sold myself," thought the minister, "to the fiend whom, if men say true, this yellow-starched and velveted old hag has chosen for her prince and master!”

Arthur Dimmesdale (thought)After Mistress Hibbins’s taunt, Dimmesdale wonders whether his bargain or sin has effectively allied him with evil.

Characters in Chapter 20

• Arthur Dimmesdale
• Hester Prynne
• Pearl
• Roger Chillingworth
• Mistress Hibbins
• Apostle Eliot