Scarlet Letter, The, is a famous novel by the American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. The novel, published in 1850, is considered a masterpiece of American literature.
Like Hawthorne’s other major fiction, The Scarlet Letter explores themes of morality, sin, and redemption. The central theme of the novel is the idea that suffering comes from sin. Hawthorne believed that sin—adultery in The Scarlet Letter—results from the isolation of the sinners. Isolation leads to suffering, and suffering leads to further sinning and further suffering. The spiral continues until the sinners either destroy themselves or seek forgiveness and rejoin their community.
The Scarlet Letter is set in Puritan Boston during the mid-1600’s. The central character is Hester Prynne, an independent and spirited young woman who bore an illegitimate daughter named Pearl. Hester must wear a scarlet letter A on her dress to symbolize her shame as an adulteress. Hester refuses to identify the father of her child.
The other two major characters are Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth. Dimmesdale is a popular young minister who is Pearl’s father, a man struggling with the burden of his guilty secret. Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, seeks revenge for his wife’s adultery, an obsession that eventually consumes him. Hester represents the force of love, Dimmesdale the spirit, and Chillingworth the mind.
Hawthorne introduced The Scarlet Letter with an essay titled “The Custom House.” In this prologue, the author sketched the novel’s background and his experiences as a customs official while writing the book.
See also Hawthorne, Nathaniel.
