The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne : A Detailed Summary

 

It is set in seventeenth century Boston, a city governed by strict Puritan (highly religious similar to modern Roman Catholics) Law.

 Hester Prynne is a beautiful young aristocratic woman ; a Puritan born in England, she was  married  to a studious older man she had never loved by him. She and her husband moved to the Netherlands for a time and then made plans to resettle in America. Hester is sent ahead of her husband, who then fails to arrive or to send any letters. As time passes, she begins to suspect some misfortune has happened him, perhaps a shipwreck, and that he may be dead. After roughly a year, she commits adultery with a young minister of Boston; they were actually in love.

 

Hester becomes pregnant, and her crime cannot long be concealed. She is put in prison, where she gives birth to a baby girl, Pearl. Although she is pressured by town officials to reveal the identity of the child’s father, she refuses to do so.

 

The Scarlet Letter begins with a preface in which an unnamed narrator explains the source of the novel. While working at the Salem Custom House (a tax collection agency), the narrator happens to see a manuscript accompanied by a beautiful scarlet letter "A." After the narrator lost his job, he decided to develop the story told in the manuscript into a novel entitled The Scarlet Letter.

 

Hester Prynne, the novel's protagonist, comes out of the prison carrying an infant, named Pearl, in her arms. A bright red (scarlet) "A" is embroidered on her chest. She is forced to climb up a scaffold (a wooden platform used formerly for the public execution of criminals.) to encounter public shame for her sin. While on the scaffold, Hester is terrified by identifying  her  husband, Roger Chillingworth, in the crowd. He recognizes her too, and is shocked. Chillingworth pretends not to know Hester, and learns her story from a man in the crowd: she was married to an English scholar who was supposed to follow her to Boston but never came up yet. After two years she fell into sin, committing the adultery that resulted in her baby and the scarlet "A" on her breast. Chillingworth predicts the unknown man will be found out soon, but when the beloved local Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale commands Hester to reveal the man's name, she refuses and is sent back to her prison cell. Chillingworth disguises as a doctor to get inside the prison to speak with Hester, and there forces her to promise never to reveal that his real identity as husband.

 

Three years passed. Hester is let out of prison and moves to the outskirts of Boston, near the forest. She makes a living as a dressmaker. Hester refuses to tell Pearl what the scarlet letter signifies, and Pearl becomes obsessed with the letter. Meanwhile, Chillingworth is working in Boston as a physician, though he has no formal medical training. One of his patients is Dimmesdale, who has fallen ill with heart trouble. Chillingworth moves in with Dimmesdale to care for him full-time and begins to suspect a connection between Dimmesdale's heart ailment and Hester's sin. When he discovers that Dimmesdale has carved a mark over his heart by wounding himself that resembles Hester's scarlet letter. Chillingworth realizes that Dimmesdale is the partner in sin. Chillingworth decides to torture and expose Dimmesdale.

 

Under Chillingworth's cruel care, Dimmesdale's health deteriorates. Dimmesdale's guilt for committing and hiding adultery causes him profound emotional breakdown. He even starves and whips himself as punishment. One night Dimmesdale mounts the same scaffold upon which Hester was publicly shamed. At just that moment, Hester and Pearl pass by and join Dimmesdale on the scaffold.

Hester decides to help Dimmesdale, and pleads with Chillingworth to stop tormenting him. Chillingworth acknowledges that he's become cruel and wicked, but argues that he's actually protecting Dimmesdale by not revealing his secret to the public. Hester then takes matters into her own hands: she intercepts Dimmesdale in the forest and tells him Chillingworth's true identity. She convinces Dimmesdale to flee with her and Pearl to Europe, and they make plans to take a ship the day after Dimmesdale is scheduled to deliver an important sermon. Dimmesdale delivers the sermon (the best of his life). However, he realizes he's dying and won't make it to Europe. He mounts the scaffold and asks Hester and Pearl to join him. He confesses his sin to the crowd and bares his chest, revealing a scarlet letter carved into his own skin. He dies as Pearl kisses him for the first time. 

 

After several years, Hester and Pearl leave Boston. Chillingworth dies a year after Dimmesdale, leaving Pearl a small fortune as an inheritance. Many years later, Hester returns to her cabin on the outskirts of town. She still wears her letter "A." Pearl leads a good life after marriage in Europe. Hester remains in Boston until her death and is buried alongside Dimmesdale. Their shared tombstone bears a letter "A."