The Scarlet Letter Characters
Hester Prynne
Character Analysis
Hester Prynne is like a Swiss Army Knife. She constantly makes herself useful, and she is powerful. She uses her innate talents and gifts to transform the meaning of her punishment, and she ultimately becomes a legend in her Puritan society. She is sharp as a knife, adventurous (she crosses the big blue ocean alone, leaving her family behind to live on the frontier), and she is a self-sufficient single mother in one of the gloomiest, most austere moments in America’s history. She finds a way to support her daughter in a time when women were expected to either serve men through marriage or to serve God. She pretty much rocks our world.
At the start of the book, Hester is a young woman with a newborn baby. She has been alone in New England for the past two years because her husband, a wealthy scholar from England, sent her ahead to the Massachusetts Bay Colony while he took care of business at home. The arrival of a baby was sufficient evidence to convict her of adultery. It is difficult to know what kind of person Hester was before the book begins. However, the book opens with her sudden acknowledgment of shame as she stands before a crowd of citizens and realizes, for the first time, that she wears a scarlet A on her dress for all to see her guilt.
For seven years, Hester is weighed down with the burden of guilt and humiliation over her sin and over the public nature of her punishment. Yet, she makes the curious choice to stay in the community where everyone scorns her. Although the narrator never explains why she chooses to remain, he does suggest that people tend to stay near the places where they’ve experienced a significant event that has changed their lives.
Hester chooses to give to the poor, despite her own poverty and despite the fact that the poor also look down on her as a sinful woman. This could be a part of her personal penance, but her generosity also suggests that she is a woman with naturally charitable instincts. She works so diligently and is so kind to others that people begin to reinterpret the scarlet letter. They note that Hester is very capable, and that there is clearly goodness in her – the kind of goodness that protects people from evil.
At the end of seven years, Hester comes to understand that her failure to identify Roger Chillingworth publicly as her husband has cost her lover, Dimmesdale, much anguish and guilt. She realizes that her sin has been tripled: not only did she commit adultery and sin against her husband, but her sin has twisted and corrupted her husband’s soul as he seeks revenge. What’s more, her failure to warn the Reverend Dimmesdale has led to his downfall.
Hester’s conscience is acute, and she feels deeply the wrong she has done to others. However, it is also true, as the narrator points out, that in her isolation, Hester has been wandering in a moral wilderness. Thus, when Dimmesdale claims that he does not have the strength to evade Chillingworth’s evil plan, it is easy for her to suggest that they escape together. This denial of society’s basic mores is evidence that the "scarlet letter" has not done its work, claims the narrator.
(We’d like to point out here that the narrator is somewhat inconsistent. First, he judges Puritan style punishments to be too harsh, then he suggests that Hester Prynne has changed the meaning of the scarlet letter through her diligence and hard work. Yet, the narrator next tries to convince us that Hester has been wandering in a moral wilderness, after all, and that the past seven years of isolation have prepared her for this moment where she quickly jumps on sin’s bandwagon.)
Ultimately, after the death of both Dimmesdale and Chillingworth, Hester is able to escape her identity as a fallen woman. She and Pearl spend many years in the Old World (England). Yet, when she returns to Boston at long last, she voluntarily takes up the scarlet letter A.
There are many possible interpretations for why she does this, but the narrator offers the opinion that Hester returns because the Massachusetts Bay Colony is where "real life" has occurred for her. "Here had been her sin; here, her sorrow; and here was yet to be her penitence." (24.11). So we are able to see Hester’s spirit grow and change over the course of her life.
Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale
Character Analysis
Reverend Dimmesdale is one troubled (and multi-faceted) man. A brilliant speaker, a kind man, a wise reverend – everyone loves this guy. He’s pretty much a rock star in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (and that doesn’t seem like such an easy feat in Puritan society). Howsoever, he was also Hester’s illicit lover and the father of her child, Pearl. He remains silent about his sin, even while he publicly urges Hester to reveal the name of her lover.
The narrator indicates that Dimmesdale is one of those individuals who secretly practices self-flagellation (basically, beating himself) to punish himself for his sin. This suggests that he is susceptible to shame, but secretive about it; he prefers to punish himself rather than to be punished by others. It also leaves open the question that emerges later: did Dimmesdale create the mark on his chest himself, or was it put there by the Black Man (Satan), or did it emerge on his skin because of the struggle occurring in his soul?
Dimmesdale is a hypocrite through much of the book. He remains the respected and saintly minister on the outside, but his conscience eats away at him until he can hardly stand himself. He wants people to see him for who he really is. Though he tries to confess his sins to the congregation, they do not take him seriously, because he is never specific about the sins he has committed.
For seven years, Dimmesdale is silent, and his health declines as a result. Today, we would maybe say he’s depressed, and that his depression is so bad that it becomes fatal. In Christian theology, sin leads to death unless an individual accepts God’s free gift of forgiveness (this is the concept of grace). In Dimmesdale’s case, unconfessed sin literally drives him to his demise
For a few moments, really just two days, we see Dimmesdale turn away from his former commitment to Christian ideals and morality. His decision to run away with Hester leaves him open to all sorts of suggestions from the Black Man. Ultimately, however, Dimmesdale’s better self reasserts itself. Although he has taken seven years to reach the point where he recognizes he is destroying himself with his guilt, the moment does finally arrive.
The Reverend Dimmesdale represents a weak man who sins but fails to accept public condemnation for his sin. His subsequent hypocrisy, however, eats away at him until his health fails. Recognizing that death is imminent, he chooses to purify his soul at the last minute by confessing his sin publicly and revealing the scarlet letter A that has appeared on his chest over his heart. The symbol on his skin suggests that, though we may hide our sins as best we can, they will always surface and be revealed.
Pearl
Character Analysis
Pearl is kind of like Jack-Jack at the end of The Incredibles. Remember how, upon being kidnapped, Jack-Jack transforms into some crazy things, like a mini devil with sharp teeth and horns? While Pearl never undergoes that significant of a physical transformation, she is a very moody girl. A mood ring would get a workout if it ever had to predict her emotions. Hester learns very early on that her daughter has a mind of her own:
After testing both smiles and frowns, and proving that neither mode of treatment possessed any calculable influence, Hester was ultimately compelled to stand aside, and permit the child to be swayed by her own impulses. Physical compulsion or restraint was effectual, of course, while it lasted. As to any other kind of discipline, whether addressed to her mind or heart, little Pearl might or might no be within her reach, in accordance with the caprice that ruled the moment. (6.4)
“Caprice,” is the key word here – it means the tendency to be unpredictable. You never know what Pearl is going to say or do, and she always does exactly what she wants. But can we blame Pearl for being such a live wire? She was born in a prison. Her mother is the most scorned person in all of Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the reason why she is the most scorned person is that she had a child (Pearl) out of wedlock. Pearl has no friends aside from her mother. She is alone and has been alone since day one. This isolation gives her a unique perspective on her society’s cultural and social customs.
Pearl is a smart cookie. But not book smart – more like creepy, can-read-your-mind, Matilda smart. Her perceptiveness can verge on clairvoyance (or, in other words, psychic-ness) at times, but often we readers are grateful to her for voicing our very thoughts or for getting down to the heart of the matter. Although the gossips of the town repeatedly suggest that Pearl, as an illegitimate child, is evil at heart or the daughter of demons, she’s really just seems to be a high-spirited girl, extra sensitive to what is going on in the hearts, minds, and spirits of others. She is often referred to as a fairy, an elf, “an airy sprite,” “a spirit,” or (sometimes) “an imp of evil.”
Pearl has a deep connection to the scarlet letter. She does not understand why Hester wears the letter A but she is very used to it – in fact, she has never known her mother without it. It gives her comfort. She sometimes teases her mother about the letter or about how society views her, but she loves and supports her mom.
She’s really good at goading and prodding the adults around her. With her incredible intuition, she can pick up on dishonesty and on people’s fears and lies. She’s kind of like a walking lie detector. Sometimes, she’s not so friendly and takes pleasure in rubbing things in. When Hester tries to remove the scarlet