The Scarlett Letter- Blog 8

I wish I was more surprised by the ending of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. When Pearl would not accept Dimmesdale of kiss him, I could tell that it just wasn't meant to be between them. I was excited to read that Dimmesdale had finally admitted his sins though. He might not have thought that he was going to heaven because of his sins, but at least his soul would finally rest in peace. And Pearl, who always had a sense about people, knew that Arthur Dimmesdale had needed to be free from his sin. "Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken. The wild infant’s sympathies had been developed by the enormous grief she had grown up around," (Hawthorne 197). Maybe all the questions didn't get answered, and maybe all the gaps will not get filled. But this novel about guilt, alienation, and a lot of relationships and secrets has a lot to be said about it. One being that sometimes conformity to the majority is not always the best option. Another and very important point being that keeping secrets often hurt us more than help us, and sometimes we have to be willing to admit mistakes to get past them.