Chapter 18

Chapter 18 is important because it is where Hester and Dimmesdale decide to go to Europe and Hester also removes the scarlet letter from her bosom. They both have a feeling of joy because they can now be in a place much better and not have to face the humiliation that they have in Boston. Hester tells Dimmesdale that being away will reunite the family that they always wanted and that Dimmesdale and Pearl will have the father and daughter bond they always wanted. 

Passage
"But Hester Prynne, with a mind of native courage
and activity, and for so long a period not merely estranged, but outlawed, from
society, had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation as was
altogether foreign to the clergyman. She had wandered, without rule or guidance,
in a moral wilderness...The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where
other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her
teachers,—stern and wild ones,—and they had made her strong, but taught her much
amiss."
This quote is significant because it shows that the isolation that Hester is in, has taken her into a world were nobody guides, nobody gives her advice or tells her what and what not to do. The scarlet letter represented something she did that most puritan woman in the town did not dare to do. Hester was the one who taught the
other why they should not do what Hester did because they will face the same consequences she faced.