by Nathaniel HawthorneCharacters:
Hester Prynee, the disgraced woman.
Arthur Dimmesdale, the sinning minister.
Pearl, Hester's little daughter.
Roger Chillingworth, Hester's husband.
The Novel:
Roger Chillingworth, aged Amsterdam scholar, sends his young, pretty wife two years before him to Boston in the New World. She and young minister Arthur Dimmesdale fall in love and meet clan-destinely in secret places, resulting in the birth of Pearl.
The husband arrives in Boston and finds his wife Hester on the pillory in the public square, her babe in his arms. A big scarist letter "A" (Adulteress) hangs on her breast. She is given this punishment for her sin and for refusing to reveal her lover's name.
Hester is driven to live at the edge of the town, and she becomes the object of contempt and insult. She takes care of her child and devotes herself t acts of mercy. Chillingworth, in the guise of a physician, follows clues and discoveries the Rev. Dimmesdale as his wife's seducer.
The irate husband tortures the minister with little acts of moral vengeance and degradation. After seven years, the minister is on the verge of madness and death. Pitying him, Hester pleads that they escape to Europe; instead the sinning minister makes apublic confession on the pillory. Hester stays beside him and he dies in her arms.
Comment:
This novel reveals the narrow puritanism of early Boston days, during which people never forgave violations of their moral code. This Hawthorne novel has a very simple plot, yet its simplicity gives its dramatic intensity. There is vivid potrayalvof a Puritan community that reveals to us how people lived, loved, hated and punished in early American days.