Scarlet+Letter+Chapter+20

From CR/1SLS

Chapter 20: //The Minister in a Maze//
 * DD thinks life is too good now w/ the decision to leave
 * DD, H and P will leave in 3 days and got toBristol, in secrecy, after DD’s Election Day Sermon
 * DD feels so much better that he runs through the forest and leaps” across the plashy places […] with an unweariable activity that astonished him” (225).
 * DD feels transformed not only physically, but spiritually and finds himself tempted “at every step […] to do some strange, wild, wicked thing or other” and finds himself laughing at how others would react (227). For example:
 * DD is tempted to swear/curse at the Deacon he meets
 * DD sees an elderly woman, mourning the loss of her husband and has no words of scripture to comfort her
 * DD meets a young nun and is tempted to say evil things to ruin her innocence
 * DD is tempted to teach a group of children so “very wicked words” (230)
 * DD meets Mistress Hibbins and she comments on his time in the forest and he denies everything. MH then says, “we must needs talk thus in the daytime! But at midnight, and in the forest, we shall have other talk together” (231). She doubts him and sees a clear change.
 * Once at home, DD tells CW that he needs “no more of your drugs, my kind physician” and CW know that he is now “no longer a trusted friend, but his [DD’s] bitterest enemy” (233).
 * DD then eats ravenously and writes his sermon for Election Day “with such an impulsive flow of thought and emotion, that he fancied himself inspired” (235).