Major characters in The Scarlet Letter

 

Hester Prynne 

Hester Prynne is the central and most important character in The Scarlet Letter. Hester was married to Roger Chillingworth while living in England and, later, moved to Amsterdam a city to which many English Puritans moved for religious freedom. Hester preceded her husband to New England, as he had business matters to settle in Amsterdam, and after approximately two years in America she committed adultery with the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. 

 

The novel begins as Hester nears the end of her prison term for adultery. While adultery was considered a grave threat to the Puritan community, such that death was considered a just punishment, the Puritan authorities weighed the long absence and possible death of her husband in their sentence. Thus, they settled on the punishment of permanent public humiliation. 

Hester was to forever wear the scarlet letter A on her chest. While seemingly free to leave the community and even America at her will, Hester chooses to stay. 

Hester chooses her residence in a small abandoned cottage on the outskirts of the community. While the novel is, in large part, a record of the torment Hester suffers under the burden of her symbol of shame. 

After the death of Dimmesdale and Chillingworth, Hester becomes an accepted and even a highly valued member of the community. Instead of being a symbol of scorn, Hester, and the letter A, according to the narrator, “became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too.” 

The people of the community even come to Hester for comfort and counsel in times of trouble and sorrow because they trust her to offer unselfish advice toward the resolution of upsetting conflict.

 

Roger Chillingworth

Roger Chillingworth is Hester’ s  husband. The two were married in England and moved together to Amsterdam, Later he sends Hester to America. Chiilingworth is a man devoted to knowledge. His outward physical deformity (a hunchback – back is in convex position) is symbolic of his devotion to deep, knowledge. His lifelong study of apothecary and the healing arts, first in Europe and later in America, is a sincere benevolent exercise until he discovers his wife’s infidelity, whereupon he turns his skills toward the evil of revenge. 

Chillingworth is introduced at the outset of the narrative, where he discovers Hester upon the scaffold with Pearl, the scarlet letter upon her chest, and displayed for public shame. After surviving a shipwreck on his voyage to America, he lived for some time among the Indians and slowly made his way to Boston and Hester. Upon discovering Hester’s ignominious (shame and disgrace) situation, Chillingworth declines to announce his identity and instead chooses to reside in Boston to find and avenge on Hester’s lover. When Dimmesdale becomes ill with the effects of his sin, Chillíngworth comes to live with him under the same roof. He felt something mysterious about the sudden illness of Dimmesdale and began to suspect him, Hester eventually discloses Chiilingworth’s identity to Dimmesdale. 

Chillingworth soon dies, having witnessed the death of dimmesdale.   

 

Arthur Dimmesdale 

Arthur Dimmesdale is the young, charismatic minister with whom Hester commits adultery. Unlike Hester, Dimmesdale shows no outward evidence of his sin, and, as Hester does not expose him, he lives with the great anguish of his secret guilt until he confesses publicly and soon after dies near the end of the novel. 

Dimmesdale is presented as a figure of frailty and weakness in contrast to Hester’s strength (both moral and physical), pride, and determination. He consistently refuses to confess his sin (until the end). Dimmesdale struggles through the years and lives with the burden of his sin with both the help and harm of Roger Chillingworth, until, after his failed plan to escape to Europe with Hester and Pearl, he confesses and dies. 

 

Pearl

The illegitimate daughter of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. Pearl serves as a symbol of her mother's shame and triumph. At one point the narrator describes Pearl as "the scarlet letter endowed with life." Like the letter, Pearl is the public consequence of Hester's very private sin. Yet also like the scarlet letter, Pearl becomes Hester's source of strength. Pearl defines Hester's identity and purpose and gives Hester a companion to love. Pearl is  an outcast, but she is the first and foremost a product of love, not just sin.