-
Not to be confused with
The
Scarlet Letters
.
This
article is about the novel. For the films, see
The Scarlet Letter (film)
.
The Scarlet Letter
is an
1850 romantic work of fiction in a historical
setting, written
by
Nathaniel Hawthorne
. It is
considered to be his
magnum
opus
.
Set in
17th-century
Puritan
Boston
during the years 1642
to 1649, it tells the story of
Hester
Prynne
,
who conceives a
daughter through an adulterous affair and
struggles to create a new life
of
repentance
and dignity.
Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of
legalism
, sin,
and guilt.
[1]
The story starts during the summer of
1642, near
Boston,
Massachusetts
,
in a
Puritan
village. A young
woman, named Hester Pry
nne, has been
led from the town
prison
with her infant daughter in her
arms,
and
on
the
breast
of
her
gown
rag
of
scarlet
cloth
that
the
shape
of
a
letter.
It
is
the
uppercase
letter
A
.
The
Scarlet
Letter
be a symbol of her
sin
—
a
badge of
shame
—
for all to see. A man,
who is
elderly and a stranger to the
town, enters the crowd and asks another
onlooker what's happening. The second
man responds by explaining that
Hester
is
being
punished
for
adultery.
Hester's
husband,
who
is
much
older
than she, and whose
real name is unknown, has sent her ahead to
America
whilst settling affairs in
Europe. However, her husband does not arrive
in
Boston
and
the
consensus
is
that
he
has
been
lost
at
sea.
It
is
apparent
that,
while waiting for her husband, Hester has had an
affair, leading
to the birth of her
daughter. She will not reveal her lover's
identity,
however,
and
the
scarlet
letter,
along
with
her
subsequent
public
shaming
,
is the
punishment for her sin and secrecy. On this day,
Hester is led to
the
town
scaffold
and
harangued
by
the
town
fathers,
but
she
again
refuses
[2]
to identify her child's
father.
The elderly onlooker
is Hester's missing husband, who is now practicing
medicine and calling himself
Roger Chillingworth
. He
reveals his true
identity to Hester and
medicates her daughter. They have a frank
discussion where Chillingworth states
that it was foolish and wrong for
a
cold,
old
intellectual
like
him
to
marry
a
young
lively
woman
like
Hester.
He expressly states
that
he thinks that
they
have wronged
each other and
that he is even with her
—
her lover is a completely
different matter.
Hester refuses to
divulge the name of her lover and Chillingworth
does
not
press
her
stating
that
he
will
find
out
anyway.
He
does
elicit
a
promise
from her to keep his
true identity as Hester's husband secret, though.
He settles in Boston to practice
medicine there. Several years pass.
Hester supports herself by working as a
seamstress, and her daughter,
Pearl,
grows into a willful, impish child, and is said to
be the scarlet
letter come to life
as both
Hester's
love and her punishment.
Shunned by
the community,
they live in a small cottage on the outskirts of
Boston.
Community
officials
attempt
to
take
Pearl
away
from
Hester,
but
with
the
help of , an eloquent
minister, the mother and daughter manage to stay
together.
Dimmesdale,
however,
appears
to
be
wasting
away
and
suffers
from
mysterious heart
trouble, seemingly caused by psychological
distress.
Chillingworth attaches
himself to the ailing minister and eventually
moves
in
with
him
so
that
he
can
provide
his
patient
with
round-the-clock
care.
Chillingworth
also
suspects
that
there
may
be
a
connection
between
the minister's
torments and Hester's secret, and he begins to
test
Dimmesdale to see what he can
learn. One afternoon, while the minister
sleeps, Chillingworth discovers
something undescribed to the reader,
supposedly
an
burned
into
Dimmesdale's
chest,
which
convinces
him
that
his
suspicions are correct.
[2]
Dimmesdale's psychological anguish
deepens, and he invents new tortures
for
himself.
In
the
meantime,
Hester's
charitable
deeds
and
quiet
humility
have earned her a
reprieve from the scorn of the community. One
night,
when
Pearl
is
about
seven
years
old,
she
and
her
mother
are
returning
home
from a visit to the
deathbed of
John Winthrop
when they encounter
Dimmesdale
atop
the
town
scaffold,
trying
to
punish
himself
for
his
sins.
Hester and Pearl join him, and the
three link hands. Dimmesdale refuses
Pearl's
request
that
he
acknowledge
her
publicly
the
next
day,
and
a
meteor
marks
a
dull
red
in
the
night
sky.
It
is
interpreted
by
the
townsfolk
to
mean
Angel
,
as
a
prominent
figure
in
the
community
had
died
that
night,
but Dimmesdale sees it as meaning
adultery
. Hester can see
that the
minister's
condition
is
worsening,
and
she
resolves
to
intervene.
She
goes
to
Chillingworth
and
asks
him
to
stop
adding
to
Dimmesdale's
self-torment.
Chillingworth
refuses.
She
suggests
that
she
may
reveal
his
true
identity
to Dimmesdale.
[2]
As Hester walks through the forest, she
is unable to feel the sunshine.
Pearl,
on
the
other
hand,
basks
in
it.
They
coincide
with
Dimmesdale,
also
on a stroll through the
woods. Hester informs him of the true identity
of
Chillingworth.
The
former
lovers
decide
to
flee
to
Europe, where
they
can
live
with
Pearl
as
a
family.
They
will
take
a
ship
sailing
from
Boston
in
four
days.
Both
feel
a
sense
of
release,
and
Hester
removes
her
scarlet
letter and lets down her hair. The sun
immediately breaks through the
clouds
and
trees
to
illuminate
her
release
and
joy.
Pearl,
playing
nearby,
does not recognize
her mother without the letter. She is unnerved and
expels a shriek until her mother points
out the letter on the ground.
Hester
beckons Pearl to come to her, but Pearl will not
go to her mother
until Hester buttons
the letter back onto her dress. Pearl then goes to
her mother. Dimmesdale gives Pearl a
kiss on the forehead, which Pearl
immediately tries to wash off in the
brook, because he again refuses to
make
known publicly their relationship. However, he too
clearly feels a
release from the
pretense of his former life, and the laws and sins
he
has lived with.
The day
before the ship is to sail, the townspeople gather
for a holiday
put on in honor
of an
election
and Dimmesdale preaches
his
most eloquent
sermon ever. Meanwhile,
Hester has learned that Chillingworth knows of
their plan and has booked passage on
the same ship. Dimmesdale, leaving
the
church after his sermon, sees Hester and Pearl
standing before the
town
scaffold.
He
impulsively
mounts
the
scaffold
with
his
lover
and
his
daughter, and confesses
publicly, exposing the mark supposedly seared
into
the
flesh
of
his
chest.
He
falls
dead
just
after
Pearl
kisses
him.
[2]
Frustrated in his revenge,
Chillingworth dies a year later. Hester and
Pearl
leave
Boston,
and
no
one
knows
what
has
happened
to
them.
Many
years
later, Hester returns alone, still
wearing the scarlet letter, to live
in
her old cottage and resumes her charitable work.
She receives
occasional
letters
from
Pearl,
who
was
rumored
to
have
married
a
European
aristocrat and
established a family of her own. Pearl also
inherits all
of Chillingworth's money
even though he knows she is not his daughter.
There
is
a
sense
of
liberation
in
her
and
the
townspeople,
especially
the
women,
who
had
finally
begun
to
forgive
Hester
of
her
tragic
indiscretion.
When Hester
dies, she is buried in
one,
in
that
burial
ground
beside
which
King's
Chapel
has
since
been
built.
It was near that old and sunken grave,
yet with a space between, as if
the
dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle.
Yet one tombstone
served
for
both.
The
tombstone
was
decorated
with
a
letter
for
Hester
and Dimmesdale.
Major themes
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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]
Sin
The experience of Hester and Dimmesdale
recalls the story of
Adam and
Eve
because, in both
cases,
sin results in expulsion and suffering. But it
also results in
knowledge
—
specifically, in
knowledge of what it means to be
immortal. For Hester, the scarlet letter functions
as
passport into regions where other
women dared not tread
her society and
herself more