Hester and the Physician

Felix Octavius Carr Darley|Nathaniel Hawthorne

ca. 1884 · Pen and black ink · Drawings and Prints

Darley illustrates Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter, A Romance" (published 1850). The drawing was reproduced in 1879 as the sixth print of twelve "Compositions in Outline." Set in seventeenth-century Boston, the story explores the consequences of a liason between Hester Prynne and the Puritan pastor Arthur Dimmesdale. When Hester becomes pregnant, she refuses to identify her child's father, is imprisoned, and forced to wear a red letter "A" on her dress (to mark her as an adultress). This image responds to an encounter in chapter 14 between Hester and her estranged husband, an elderly professor whom she thought lost at sea. Instead, he endured a long captivity by Native Americans and, upon release, reached Boston on the day of Hester's public humiliation. This prompted him to assume the name Roger Chillingworth, to practise medicine, and to plot revenge on his wife's lover. Convinced that he has discovered the latter's identity, Hester here begs Chillingworth to be merciful. See 14.111.1,.3–.5 for other Darley drawings from the set.

Artist

Felix Octavius Carr Darley|Nathaniel Hawthorne

Date

ca. 1884

Medium

Pen and black ink

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of W. A. White, 1914