# In mid-seventeenth century Boston, a young
wife gives birth to a child that is not her husband's.
She confesses her sin but finds that honesty is sometimes punished far worse than lying.
The story's narrator, who works at the Salem Custom House, claims to have found both this
story and a letter "A" made of red cloth hidden in the Custom House.
The story begins in Boston, June 1642, townspeople gather outside the door of the prison.
It's a grim sight except for the bright red roses growing beside the door.
A young wife named Hester Prynne walks out through that door, carrying her three-month-old
daughter, Pearl.
Hester is charged with adultery, for her husband has been missing at sea for two years.
Hester wears a red letter A on her chest but the women watching say she should have been
punished more harshly.
Hester is led to the pillory, a wooden stand where criminals are held up to public ridicule.
She holds Pearl very tightly and the child begins to cry.
Hester sees an elderly, misshapen man watching her in the crowd.
She refuses to name the child's father even when the pastor, Reverend Dimmesdale, demands
to know.
The townspeople insist they see a devilish glow coming from Hester's scarlet letter.
Back in Hester's prison cell, the elderly stranger turns out to be her missing husband.
He calls himself Roger Chillingworth and gives her medicine for herself and the baby.
She's suspicious, but he says she shouldn't worry.
He wants her alive to suffer for her crime.
Chillingworth says he'll learn the father's name eventually.
In the meantime, he wants Hester to say nothing about him being her husband.
She agrees.
Hester is released and goes to live with Pearl in a cottage on the edge of town, supporting
herself with needlework.
She is shunned and ridiculed, and soon feels others should have letters sewn to their garments
for the crimes they've committed but lied about.
Pearl grows to be a pretty but headstrong seven-year-old.
Some people insist she is the offspring of demons, and even Hester believes the child's
face appears devilish whenever Pearl looks at the scarlet letter.
Hester hears that authorities want to take Pearl away for a better upbringing.
Hester says Pearl is her happiness and punishment all in one and keeps her from straying again,
so the child is allowed to stay with Hester for now.
Then Hester meets Mistress Hibbens, the governor's sister and a worshipper of the "Black Man,"
Satan.
She invites Hester to a gathering to worship the devil, but Hester refuses – for Pearl's
sake if nothing else.
Chillingworth notes that Reverend Dimmesdale constantly suffers chest pain.
The two unmarried men share a home for a time, though Chillingworth sometimes has an ugly,
evil look on his face and his bad influence is haunting Dimmesdale.
They discuss how most people feel better after confessing sin, but Dimmesdale only clutches
his chest again.
Later, when Dimmesdale falls asleep reading, Chillingworth lifts the book from his chest
and looks beneath the man's shirt – and gets the proof he's been looking for.
Chillingworth begins plotting his revenge on Dimmesdale, who's been revealed as Pearl's
father.
But the reverend is already torturing himself into serious illness with the guilt he's carrying.
Hester knows that Dimmesdale's conscience torments him, and that Chillingworth is his
enemy.
She decides to help Dimmesdale if he can.
The townspeople respect for Hester for her repentant behavior.
But her humiliation and shunning have hardened her against ever feeling gentleness again,
as a woman should.
The loss makes her feel suicidal.
She even considers taking Pearl with her, though she finally decides against this.
Perhaps helping the suffering Dimmesdale will allow her to save herself, as well.
Chillingworth tells Hester she may be allowed to remove the scarlet letter soon.
She refuses, saying that when she is worthy it will fall off on its own.
His appearance has changed from a decent man to one with a dark and evil heart, the tormentor
of Dimmesdale for the last seven years.
Hester blames herself for Chillingworth's transformation, since she betrayed him.
Hester says she's ready to publically reveal that Dimmesdale is Pearl's father, since her
silence has let Chillingworth ruin the man's life.
She asks him again to forgive Dimmesdale, but he refuses.
Hester and Pearl encounter Dimmesdale walking through the woods.
Pearl asks if he holds his hand over his heart because the "Black Man," Satan, left his mark
there.
Hester silences Pearl but feels pity for Dimmesdale, who looks more haggard and ill all the time.
Hester and Dimmesdale ask each other if they've found peace.
Hester only looks at her scarlet letter.
Dimmesdale says no, that as a minister he is a hypocrite.
Realizing that guilt is destroying him, Hester tells Dimmesdale that Chillingworth is actually
her husband.
Hester offers to go away with Dimmesdale and start a new life.
She pulls off the scarlet letter and throws it down on the forest floor.
He accepts, and the sun finally comes out.
Pearl joins them, wearing leaves and flowers.
But Pearl soon rejects Dimmesdale's company and wants to be only with her mother – and
wants her to put her scarlet letter back on, so that everything is as it's always been.
Hester books passage on a ship back to England for the three of them.
They will leave in four days, after Dimmesdale's final sermon on Election Sunday.
Yet Dimmesdale is unnerved about this decision to leave with Hester and Pearl and wonders
if he hasn't made a deal with the devil after all.
Election Sunday is a day of thanksgiving, but Pearl is acting wilder than ever.
Then the captain of the Bristol ship informs Hester that Chillingworth has also booked
passage for the same voyage.
Dimmesdale is looking far more alive than he was in the forest.
Hester, Pearl, and Mistress Hibbens all notice the change in him.
The Mistress tells Hester that though Hester might wear her scarlet letter on the outside,
a sinner like Dimmesdale wears his on the inside.
Both of them are marked.
Dimmesdale delivers a fiery sermon, but afterwards seems drained and even dying.
He gets on the scaffold with Hester and Pearl and says he knows of something far worse than
Hester's sin.
Dimmesdale rips open his shirt to display a red letter A, carved into his own chest
– and then he collapses and dies.
The narrator of the story concludes that it's better to be honest, even about the worst
sins, than to hide wrongdoing.
Roger Chillingworth dies not long after and leaves his property to Pearl, making her very
wealthy.
Pearl and her mother leave for England.
But many years later, Hester returns alone to her old cottage.
She still wears her scarlet letter, but this time as a badge of honesty rather than shame.
Hester spends her remaining years helping other women with the wisdom she's gained.
When Hester dies, she is buried next to Dimmesdale.
Her gravestone has a scarlet letter engraved on it.