The Scarlet Letter: ThemeTracker

The LitCharts ThemeTracker is a mini-version of the entire LitChart. The ThemeTracker provides a quick timeline-style rundown of all the important plot points and allows you to track the themes throughout the work at a glance.

	Custom House	The narrator finds the scarlet letter and Jonathan Pue’s story in the Custom House. The narrator loses his job at the Custom House, and is pleased to now have the time to devote to writing The Scarlet Letter.
	1	A crowd of Puritans gather outside a prison near Boston. The narrator calls the prison a “black flower of civilized society” and then describe a wild rose bush growing next to the prison.
	2	Waiting for Hester Prynne to emerge, some Puritans comment that her pastor, Reverend Dimmesdale, must be ashamed to have her in his congregation. Hester emerges from prison carrying the infant Pearl and wearing a scarlet letter A. She looks proud and beautiful. Hester is “shamed” by being forced to stand on the scaffold. Hester thinks of the past to endure the shaming. The image of a misshapen scholar, her husband, appears to her. Hester realizes that the scarlet letter and her baby, Pearl, are her only reality..
	3	Hester recognizes Chillingworth in the crowd. Chillingworth is horrified to recognize Hester. He quickly places his fingers to his lips to silence her so that she does not identify him as her husband. Chillingworth learns from a man in the crowd that the man who fathered Hester’s child is a mystery. Chillingworth predicts that the man will be revealed. Dimmesdale demands that Hester reveal the father of her baby. Hester refuses. She is returned to her cell.
	4	Posing as a doctor, Chillingworth visits Hester in prison. Hester refuses to tell him the name of the man who fathered her child, but does promise to keep secret Chillingworth’s own identity as her husband.
	5	Three years pass. Hester and Pearl move to an abandoned cabin outside Boston. Hester works as a seamstress. The same people who employ her, continue to shun her. She gets more and more lonely.
	6	Pearl is too deviant and defiant to fit in among the other children. Pearl recognizes that the scarlet letter is associated with her isolation, and begs Hester to explain it’s meaning to her. Hester refuses.
	7	Hester learns the government plans to take Pearl from her and goes to visit Governor Bellingham. Hester also brings a pair of gloves that she has sewn for the governor.
	8	Dimmesdale and Chillingworth attend the meeting with Hester, along with Governor Bellingham. Dimmesdale intercedes on Hester’s behalf, and convinces the Governor not to take Pearl from Hester. Chillingworth notes the unusual passion with which Dimmesdale spoke to the Governor. As Hester and Pearl leave the meeting, Mistress Hibbins invites her to come to a witch’s meeting in the forest. Hester declines.
	9	Dimmesdale’s health worsens. He often walks around with his hand over his heart. Chillingworth serves as his live-in physician. While treating Dimmesdale, Chillingworth changes from a kind, elderly, and somewhat misshapen looking gentleman into an ugly, evil old man.
	10	Chillingworth suspects a secret is the cause of Dimmesdale’s bad health. Dimmesdale refuses to reveal it. One day when Dimmesdale falls asleep, Chillingworth pushes aside his shirt and sees something on Dimmesdale’s chest that gives him joy.
	11	Chillingworth suspects that Dimmesdale is Pearl’s father and resolves to make Dimmesdale as miserable as possible. Dimmesdale’s sermons, which condemn sin, grow more and more passionate, winning him great favor in the congregation. Meanwhile, Dimmesdale hates himself.
	12	One night, Dimmesdale mounts the town scaffold where Hester was shamed three years earlier. Hester and Pearl spot him as they pass by, and join him there. A meteor lights up the sky in a letter “A.” Pearl notices Chillingworth watching them, and Dimmesdale leaves with Chillingworth. Dimmesdale’s sermon the next day is his most powerful ever.
	13	Seven years have passed since Pearl was born. Hester is more accepted in the community, but still lives on its outskirts, and she contemplates suicide regularly. Hester decides she must help Dimmesdale escape from Chillingworth’s cruel treatment of him.
	14	Hester confronts Chillingworth about his abuse of Dimmesdale. Hester notes how Chillingworth has transformed into a wretched old man. Chillingworth agrees, saying that he has lost his “human heart.” Chillingworth wishes he had given Hester the love that would have saved them all from this doom.
	15	Pearl shapes seaweed into the form of an A on her chest and demands that Hester explain the scarlet letter’s meaning. Hester lies that she wears the letter for it’s beautiful thread. When Pearl doesn’t believe Hester, Hester threatens to punish her.
	16	While waiting in the forest to intercept Dimmesdale, Pearl tells Hester that she heard the Black Man put the scarlet letter on Hester. Hester agrees. Hester meets Dimmesdale walking in the forest. Because Dimmesdale is covering his heart when they meet, Pearl assumes that the Black Man has put his mark on Dimmesdale as well.
	17	Hester tells Dimmesdale about Chillingworth. Dimmesdale at first blames Hester for not telling him sooner, but then says that Chillingworth’s sin is more grave. Hester suggests that she, Dimmesdale, and Pearl escape Boston and go to Europe.
	18	Dimmesdale decides to flee to Europe with Hester. Hester throws away the scarlet letter and calls to Pearl, who is playing nearby, to come meet her father.
	19	Pearl refuses to come until Hester puts the scarlet letter back on. Pearl asks if Dimmesdale will accompany them hand-in-hand back to town. Hester says not yet. Pearl washes off Dimmesdale’s kiss.
	20	Hester books passage on a ship to England. Dimmesdale feels changes coming over him. Dimmesdale tells Chillingworth he no longer needs him. Chillingworth feigns relief. Dimmesdale sets to work on a new sermon.
	21	Among the crowd gathered for the inauguration day of the new governor, Hester learns that Chillingworth is making plans to take the same ship to England on which she has booked passage.
	22	Dimmesdale ignores Hester and Pearl as he walks by in the procession of officials. Pearl says that Dimmesdale looks totally different from how he looked in the forest. Hester tells Pearl not to mention the forest in town. Mistress Hibbins tells Hester that she knows that Hester and Dimmesdale are servants of the Black Man. She also says that the Black Man is Pearl’s father.
	23	Dimmesdale’s sermon predicts that puritan New England will flourish and become powerful. Then Dimmesdale, to Chillingworth’s dismay, calls Hester and Pearl up to the scaffold where he is preaching. Dimmesdale confesses his sin, and reveals a scarlet letter carved into his breast, before collapsing. Pearl kisses Dimmesdale. The narrator says that now Pearl will “grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it.” Dimmesdale calls out that God is merciful and thanks Him for providing the trials that led Dimmesdale to confession.
	24	Chillingworth dies with the year, and leaves his small estate to Pearl. Pearl marries for love in Europe. Hester lives for many years, still wearing her scarlet letter. When she dies, she is buried next to Dimmesdale under the same tombstone.