Summary The group of men approaching Hester and Pearl include Governor Bellingham, the Reverend John Wilson, the Reverend Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth, who, since the story’s opening, has been living in Boston as Dimmesdale’s friend and personal physician. The governor, shocked at Pearl’s vain and immodest costume, challenges Hester’s fitness […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 8 – The Elf-Child and the Minister

Summary Hester has heard that certain influential citizens feel Pearl should be taken from her. Alarmed, Hester sets out with Pearl for Governor Bellingham’s mansion to deliver gloves that he ordered. More important, however, Hester plans to plead for the right to keep her daughter. Pearl has been especially dressed […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 7 – The Governor’s Hall

Summary During her first three years, Pearl, who is so named because she came “of great price,” grows into a physically beautiful, vigorous, and graceful little girl. She is radiant in the rich and elaborate dresses that Hester sews for her. Inwardly, however, Pearl possesses a complex character. She shows […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 6 – Pearl

Summary Her term of imprisonment over, Hester is now free to go anywhere in the world, yet she does not leave Boston; instead, she chooses to move into a small, seaside cottage on the outskirts of town. She supports herself and Pearl through her skill as a seamstress. Her work […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 5 – Hester at Her Needle

Summary Back in her prison cell, Hester is in a state of nervous frenzy, and Pearl writhes in painful convulsions. That evening, when Roger Chillingworth enters Hester’s prison cell, she fears his intentions, but he gives Pearl a draught of medicine that eases the child’s pain almost immediately, and she […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 4 – The Interview

Summary Hester recognizes a small, rather deformed man standing on the outskirts of the crowd and clutches Pearl fiercely to her bosom. Meanwhile, the man, a stranger to Boston, recognizes Hester and is horror-struck. Inquiring, the man learns of Hester’s history, her crime (adultery), and her sentence: to stand on […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 3 – The Recognition

Summary The Puritan women waiting outside the prison self-righteously and viciously discuss Hester Prynne and her sin. Hester, proud and beautiful, emerges from the prison. She wears an elaborately embroidered scarlet letter A — standing for “adultery” — on her breast, and she carries a three-month-old infant in her arms. […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 2 – The Market-Place

Summary In this first chapter, Hawthorne sets the scene of the novel — Boston of the seventeenth century. It is June, and a throng of drably dressed Puritans stands before a weather-beaten wooden prison. In front of the prison stands an unsightly plot of weeds, and beside it grows a […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 1 – The Prison-Door

Summary Hawthorne begins The Scarlet Letter with a long introductory essay that generally functions as a preface but, more specifically, accomplishes four significant goals: outlines autobiographical information about the author, describes the conflict between the artistic impulse and the commercial environment, defines the romance novel (which Hawthorne is credited with […]

Read more Summary and Analysis The Custom-House – Introductory

Hester Prynne A young woman sent to the colonies by her husband, who plans to join her later but is presumed lost at sea. She is a symbol of the acknowledged sinner; one whose transgression has been identified and who makes appropriate, socio-religious atonement. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale Dimmesdale is the […]

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