who fails because he cannot look into it and challenge its dangers. He has not confessed his sin, and so the abyss casts a pall over him that eats away at his mind and body until it finally kills him. Chillingworth has fallen into that abyss. The spiritual danger represented by the abyss has claimed Chillingworth and has turned him into an avenging spirit, an emissary from the abyss, as it were, who torments Dimmesdale every day until the preacher is destroyed.
The idea expressed by Melville is that we face dangers every day, and for Melville it is likely that he means spiritual dangers, attempts to entice us into sins and errors that will destroy us. Many characters fail to escape the abyss, though some--like Ahab--may be dragged into it in a heroic attempt to fight back. Other characters, such as Dimmesdale, are drawn in slowly and lack the will to escape. Ishmael escapes, as does Hester. They achieve a spiritual knowledge of themselves and the world that leaves them on the edge, facing new dangers, but not plunged into the darkness.
The growth of the characters of Huckleberry Finn in Huckleberry Finn and Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter takes place in both cases because they are ultimately more moral than others in their respective worlds. Both Huck and Hester have a sort of innocence that sets them apart. Hester's innocence is more ambiguous than Huck's and is embodied in the figure of darkness and light, her daughter, Pearl. Huck's innocence is tested in his journey down the river, and while ultimately he gains experience, he remains an outsider as far as his relationship with society is concerned.
Huck is portrayed as the innocent who stands outside civilization from the beginning of the novel. He makes reference first to the adventure
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