-~- DIALECTICAL JOURNAL #21 -~-

"But before Mr. Dimmesdale had done speaking, a light gleamed far and wide over all the muffled sky. It was doubtless caused by one of those meteors, which the night-watcher may so often observe burning out to waste, in the vacant regions of the atmosphere. So powerful was its radiance, that it thoroughly illuminated the dense medium of cloud betwixt the sky and earth. The great vault brightened, like the dome of an immense lamp. It showed the familiar scene of the street, with the distinctness of midday, but also with the awfulness that is always imparted to familiar objects by an unaccustomed light." ((Chapter 13/PAGE 135))


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The strong light bears a new understanding about the little Puritan town. Later, it is revealed that the people believe that the meteor was Governor Winthrop's soul ascending to heaven. The 'A' emblazoned on it also brings a new meaning to the 'Adulterer/Adultery' title upon Hester and changes it to 'Angel'.


Since the light bears such a positive meaning for everyone in the town, it reflects on the town/society with a change as well. If Hester has transformed from a sinner to an Angel or Able by the interpretations of this natural occurrence, the town has underwent a similar alteration in the next couple of sentences after the excerpt:

 'The wooden houses, with their jutting stories and quaint gable-peaks; the doorsteps and thresholds, with the early grass springing up about them; the garden-plots, black with freshly turned earth; the wheel-track, little worn, and, even in the marketplace, margined with green on either side;--all were visible, but with a singularity of aspect that seemed to give another moral interpretation to the things of this world than they had ever borne before."

Note, the nature references above: the freshly-turned earth, early grass springing up, margined with 'green' on either side. The beauty of nature that seems desolate and practically non-existant within the culture is revealed when the gleaming light of the meteor shines through the township.