Scarlet Letter
(Nathaniel Hawthorne)

The novels begins with the author describing his time spent working at the Salem Customs house. He describes various characters, their foibles, how he went about finding the manuscript and scarlet letter in an envelope and how- losing his job- he took the time to create a fictional novel based on a factual narrative.

The story then opens up on a scene in Boston where Hester Prynne is standing up on a scaffold with her illegitimate baby wearing a scarlet ‘A’ on her dress.. She stands alone, as she refuses to confess who her lover was. It’s then that she notices Roger, her husband whose two year disappearance led everyone to assume the man was lost at sea, standing in the crowd, motioning for her to be silent. Going by the last name Chillingworth, Roger has arrived with an Indian escort from the tribe that captured him and is now turning him in for ransom.

After hours of public shaming, Hester is placed back in the cell where Chillingworth gains access to her by posing as a doctor. They both regret that he took on such a young wife at such an advanced age, so while he holds no malice against her, he does against her lover. Hester still refuses to admit his identity, so Chillingworth threatens her into keeping his identity a secret lest he destroy her lover’s life.

Hester resides in an abandoned seashore cottage on the outskirts of town with her daughter, Pearl, and makes a living being a seamstress as the years passed. Hester is slowly ostracized by the community and is forced to live more and more alone. Pearl grows up to be a free-spirited child, which lead some of the townspeople to believe that they should be separated as one will surely be a destructive influence upon the other. With the help of her old pastor, Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester manages to keep Pearl. Hester eventually gains a positive reputation in town for her relentless charity work.

Chillingworth, present at the fight regarding Pearl’s home, notices something in Dimmesdale’s sympathy. As the young, much admired pastor is sick, Chillingworth offers to live with him to help his sickness, which the pastor is pressured into accepting. After his suspicions are fully aroused, Chillingworth then takes an opportunity to check the pastor’s chest, which the latter often holds hand over. While the narrator never explicitly states what’s on the chest, clues suggest that it’s an ‘A’ that has been self-branded.

As a form of self-penance, Dimmesdale takes to the street in the middle of the night to stand upon the scaffold where Hester stood seven years ago. Heading home after keeping next to the deathbed to one of the citizen’s both Hester and Pearl notice him there. When Dimmesdale refuses Pearl to stand with them in the daylight, they see a meteor paint a red ‘A’ in the sky which lights up the town for a bit and allows them to see Chillingworth in the distance. Unaware of who it is, Dimmesdale is immediately terrified. Hester threatens Chillingworth to cease his torture of the pastor lest she reveal the former’s identity, a threat he brushes off.

Hester decides to inform Dimmesdale of Chillingworth’s past and plans to intercept him in the woods. On the way, Pearl notices how the sunlight avoids Hester but not her. Hester catches Dimmesdale and tells her the truth about Chillingworth. They then decide to leave America for Europe. Upon making this decision, Hester lets her hair down and removes the ‘A’ from her chest. The sunlight pours down upon them. Pearl, afraid of her mother without the ‘A,’ screams until Hester places it back on herself.

While walking home by himself, Dimmesdale become unsure about his escape plans and believes them to be an act of sin.

One day before they plan to leave, the entire town is gathered in the town square as it’s election day. It’s revealed that Chillingworth becomes aware of Hester and Dimmesdale’s plan and has gained a seat aboard the same ship. Leaving the church where he has just given a sermon, Dimmesdale spots Hester and Pearl in the crowd and calls to them. Knowing he is on the precipice of death, he climbs with them up the scaffold where he admits his adultery, reveals his chest to the crowd, then dies.

Having lost his revenge, his only reason for living, Chillingworth dies within a year of Dimmesdale and leaves a large inheritance to Pearl. Both Hester and Pearl leave America for somewhere else. Years later, Hester returns alone to continue the charity work she so tirelessly did when she lived there. She becomes a source of advice for the women in the town. When she dies, she is buried next to Dimmesdale under the same headstone depicting a large ‘A’.