Hester appeals to Dimmesdale in desperation, and the minister persuades the governor to let Pearl remain in Hester's care.īecause Dimmesdale's health has begun to fail, the townspeople are happy to have Chillingworth, the newly arrived physician, take up lodgings with their beloved minister. Hester, hearing rumors that she may lose Pearl, goes to speak to Governor Bellingham and ministers Wilson and Dimmesdale. Her conduct starts rumors, and, not surprisingly, the church members suggest Pearl be taken away from Hester. As she grows older, Pearl becomes capricious and unruly.
The shunning of Hester also extends to Pearl, who has no playmates or friends except her mother. She is troubled by her daughter's unusual fascination with the scarlet "A". She lives a quiet, somber life with her daughter, Pearl, and performs acts of charity for the poor. Hester agrees to Chillingworth's terms, although she suspects she will regret it.įollowing her release from prison, Hester settles in a cottage at the edge of town and earns a meager living with her needlework, which is of extraordinary quality. Chillingworth threatens to destroy the father of Hester's child if Hester ever reveals the fact that Chillingworth is her husband. He accepts Hester's refusal, stating that he will find out the man's identity anyway. Chillingworth demands to know who fathered Hester's child, but Hester refuses to divulge that information. He and Hester have an open conversation regarding their marriage and the fact that they were both in the wrong. After she returns to her prison cell, the jailer brings in Chillingworth, now a physician, to calm Hester and her child with his roots and herbs. The Reverend John Wilson and the minister of Hester's church, Arthur Dimmesdale, question her, but she refuses to name her lover. He chooses a new name, Roger Chillingworth, to aid him in his plan. He angrily exclaims that the child's father should also be punished for his immoral act and vows to find the man. When the husband sees Hester's shame, he asks a man in the crowd about her and is told the story of his wife's pregnancy. When commanded and cajoled to name the father of her child, Hester refuses.Īs Hester looks out over the crowd, she notices a small, misshapen man and recognizes him as her long-lost husband, who had been presumed lost at sea. As Hester approaches the scaffold, many of the women in the crowd are angered by her beauty and quiet dignity.
Her sentence requires her to stand on the scaffold for three hours, exposed to public humiliation, and to wear a scarlet "A" for the rest of her life. In Puritan Boston, Massachusetts, a crowd gathers to witness the punishment of Hester Prynne, a young woman who has given birth to a baby of unknown paternity. In this painting, The Scarlet Letter by Hugues Merle (1861), Hester Prynne and Pearl are in the foreground and Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth are in the background.