He next ignores a young woman whom he has recently converted to the church because he fears that his strange state of mind will lead him to plant some corrupting germ in her innocent heart. To her he nearly blurts out a devastating “unanswerable argument against the immortality of the human soul,” but something stops him, and the widow totters away satisfied. He then encounters an elderly woman who is looking for a small tidbit of spiritual comfort. Tempted to announce to all he sees, “I am not the man for whom you take me! I left him yonder in the forest,” Dimmesdale now finds things that were once familiar, including himself, to seem strange.Īs he passes one of the church elders on his way through town, the minister can barely control his urge to utter blasphemous statements. Through her charity work, Hester has become acquainted with the crew of a ship that is to depart for England in four days, and the couple plans to secure passage on this vessel. He and Hester have decided to go to Europe, since it offers more anonymity and a better environment for Dimmesdale’s fragile health. Summary-Chapter XX: The Minister in a MazeĪs the minister returns to town, he can hardly believe the change in his fortunes.
She runs to the brook and attempts to wash it off. Pearl, aware that the adults seem to have made some sort of arrangement, asks, “Will he go back with us, hand in hand, we three together, into the town?” Because Dimmesdale will not, Pearl rebuffs his subsequent kiss on the forehead. Hester tries to encourage Pearl to embrace Dimmesdale as well, although she does not tell her that the minister is her father. In her mother’s arms, Pearl kisses Hester and, seemingly out of spite, also kisses the scarlet letter. Hester has to pin the letter back on and effect a transformation back into her old, sad self before Pearl will cross the creek. She refuses to come to her mother, pointing at the empty place on Hester’s chest where the scarlet letter used to be. From the other side of the brook, Pearl eyes her parents with suspicion. Hester calls to Pearl to join her and Dimmesdale. Though Eliezer survives the concentration camps, he leaves behind his own innocence and is haunted by the death and violence he has witnessed.Summary-Chapter XIX: The Child at the Brook-Side
A few months before the concentration camps are liberated by Allied soldiers, Eliezer’s father dies. Over the course of the book, Eliezer and his father are sent from Auschwitz to a new concentration camp called Buna and then, as the Allies (the British and American troops) approach, deeper into Germany, to Buchenwald. Forced into a desperate situation, Eliezer feels a conflict between supporting his ever weakening father and giving himself the best chance of survival. There, in a camp called Auschwitz, Eliezer is separated from his mother and younger sister, but remains with his father.Īs Eliezer struggles to survive against starvation and abuse, he also grapples with the destruction of his faith in God’s justice and battles with the darker sides of himself. As a result, the entire Jewish population is sent to concentration camps. Despite warnings about German intentions towards Jews, Eliezer’s family and the other Jews in the small Transylvanian town of Sighet (now in modern-day Romania) fail to flee the country when they have a chance.
0 kommentar(er)
