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Essay Assignment The Scarlet Letter In many novels and plays, there is a scene of revelation or realization, on which hinges much of the plot’s outcome and which usually occurs too late to benefit the recipient. Read the passage below and write a well-organized essay in which you demonstrate how this revelation affects the outcome of the novel. Do not summarize the plot. “Oh, Arthur! ” cried [Hester], “forgive me! In all things else, I have striven to be true! Truth was the only virtue which I might have held fast, and did hold fast, through all extremity; save when thy good-thy life-thy fame were put in question!
Then I consented to a deception. But a lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side! Dost thou not see what I would say? That old man! -the physician! -=he whom they call Roger Chillingworth! -he was my husband! ” Your essay will be evaluated based upon depth of thought and maturity of expression. This conversation up above is between Hester and Arthur, it is the “scene of revelation” because it turns Arthur’s feeling about Roger completely around. He thought him to be a great man who was taking care of him and was his friend. Roger was his physician/ doctor.
Roger had to start living with Arthur because of his condition. Arthur has been feeling sick and has been doing very bad because he felt terrible about not telling the truth and standing with his lover, Hester on the scaffold. After hearing that Roger Chillingworth was actually Hester’s long lost husband, he is shocked and in disbelief. Which since him and Roger have became friends it puts even more of a burden on his heart. He has scared the letter A upon his chest. Just like Hester has the Scarlet Letter on the breast of her dress. It turns out that this conversation between the two is what changes the rest of the story.
Because Roger makes Arthur feel even worse about his decisions and has a bad conscious. So later in the story Arthur gives his speech at the election day, then dies. I think that Arthur died from so much regret and sorrow that he felt in his heart. This conversation shows that whatever you do in the past will catch up to you, and that there is a consequence for every decision you make in life. They had to live through life bearing a mark either everyone could see or that he knew in his heart. They knew what they did was wrong but it didn’t stop them.