What happens in Conclusion of The Scarlet Letter?
Chapter 24, "Conclusion," wraps up Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter by pulling together the fate of Dimmesdale after his confession on the scaffold. The narrator shares various eyewitness accounts regarding what, if anything, appeared on Dimmesdale's chest at the moment of his death—some claim to have seen a scarlet letter burned into his skin, while others argue there was no such mark. Chillingworth, having lost his purpose, fades away and dies within the year, leaving his substantial estate to Pearl. Pearl and Hester go their separate ways: Pearl heads to Europe, seemingly marries into a noble family, and sends Hester gifts and letters that hint at a life filled with wealth and happiness. Hester returns to Boston of her own accord and begins to wear the scarlet letter again, this time willingly. She takes on the role of a quiet counselor for women dealing with sorrow and moral dilemmas. Upon her death, she is buried close to Dimmesdale's grave; they share a single tombstone adorned with a scarlet letter on a black background. The narrator concludes with the novel's well-known moral: "On a field, sable, the letter A, gules."
Analysis
Hawthorne's "Conclusion" serves as a cooling off point for the novel, providing a coda that avoids neat resolutions while still addressing narrative loose ends. The conflicting eyewitness accounts regarding Dimmesdale's chest create a brilliant sense of uncertainty: Hawthorne weaves unreliable narration into the community itself, pulling the reader into the same interpretive confusion that has defined the scarlet letter from the very beginning. The letter, which started as a mark of public shame, undergoes a transformation here: Hester takes it back willingly, changing it from a sign of disgrace into a symbol of personal identity and hard-earned authority. This reversal embodies the novel's central irony in its structure.
Pearl's future—filled with prosperity, marriage, and Europe—acts as a tonal balance, a hint of worldly redemption that Hawthorne keeps intentionally vague, almost like a fairy tale, so it doesn’t overshadow Hester's more serious resolution. Chillingworth's swift downfall reinforces a key theme of the novel: vengeance is a parasitic force that ultimately destroys its host once its target is lost.
The closing image—"On a field, sable, the letter A, gules"—shows Hawthorne at his most succinct. By depicting the letter in the stark language of heraldry, he elevates it to a permanent status while stripping it of human warmth, leaving the reader with a symbol that is both a monument and a puzzle. The chapter's tone shifts from narrative to elegiac to concise, each change indicating a greater distance from the author's intimacy.
Key quotes from Conclusion
“On a field, sable, the letter A, gules.”
The novel's final sentence, inscribed as the device on the shared tombstone of Hester and Dimmesdale, distilling the entire narrative into a single heraldic image.
“The scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world's scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too.”
The narrator describes how Boston's community perception of Hester—and of the letter itself—has shifted by the time she returns to voluntarily resume wearing it in her old age.
“It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom.”
Reflecting on Chillingworth's swift death after Dimmesdale's, the narrator meditates on the symbiotic, almost indistinguishable nature of the two men's bond.