Chapter 11:The Interior Of A Heart

In this chapter ,Hawthorne focuses on Dimmesdale and Chillingworth’s fake relationship. Chillingworth finds ways to take revenge and Dimmesdale gets a slight hint that something about this physician is just not right. He fears that letter on his chest might not be a secret anymore. At one point, Dimmesdale starts seeing visions. The first vision is of his mom and dad passing him by looking at him with disappointment. Then comes Hester Prynne pointing at her scarlet letter and then towards him. These constant visions make him feel delusional and makes me think whether this is the result of Chillingworth’s medications. Hawthorne has a sad tone in this chapter because Dimmesdale goes through a weird phase where he inflicts himself physically by hurting himself and holds long fasts. Think Dimmesdale goes through a series of conflicts with himself. Being a pastor I think this is the first time he had committed such a heinous sin that he doesn’t know what to do and hence its coming out like this. Putting the clergyman in a confounding state of mind.

To the untrue man, the whole universe is false,—it is impalpable,—it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself, in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist

I find this important because I feel Hawthorne says that once you’ve been deceived its hard to trust someone and you feel everything you’re surrounded by is fake. In this particular passage referring to Dimmesdale it shows that what the townspeople perceive of the pastor and what he really is far from the truth and as a result he feels he’s fake and surrounded by it.