Based on the book The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Author Bio Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4 th in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. Elizabeth Clarke Manning and Nathaniel Hawthorne were his parents. He was a descendent of early Puritan settlers, this helped to enlighten his writing throughout his life. Nathaniel attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. He anonymously published his first novel in 1828, Fanshawe. After his graduation, he continued writing stories and sketches. Some were combined into his novel Twice-Told Tales in He spent some time at the Boston Custom House, and after he married Sophia Peabody. In this marriage, he would have three daughters. One, who would eventually become an author. In 1853, the Hawthorne family went to Liverpool, England, and Nathaniel served as U.S. Consul. They traveled through Europe, and they lived for a time in France and Italy. This is where they met fellow authors Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her husband Robert Browning. In Italy, Hawthorne wrote The Marble Faun (1860). Henry James praised, “The finest piece of imaginative writing yet to be put forth in the country,” about The Scarlet Letter. Nathaniel died on May 19, He was mourned by many of his friends. Nathaniel Hawthorne was laid to rest in Author’s Ridge in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery among his many friends including the Alcotts, Emerson, and Thoreau. Source sited: literature.com/hawthorne/

Hester Prynne was a woman known of shame because she committed adultery, and she had to wear the letter “A” to let all know of her sin. She was a beautiful woman as the book describes her in the last paragraph on page fifty. Hester was married to Roger Chillingworth, and she had lived with him for some time in London. Chillingworth sent Hester to America, but for a long time did not follow her. In Hester’s loneliness, she had an affair with Reverend Dimmesdale. From the affair, Pearl was born. Hester reveals to Roger that she was never in love with Roger. “‘Thou knowest,’ said Hester,—for, depressed as she was, she could not endure this last quiet stab at the token of her shame,—‘thou knowest that I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any.’”(p.69) After being sentenced to a life of shame, Hester did not run away. She began to make her life with Pearl in an abandoned cabin with no help from anyone. Hester shows loyalty and strength. Not only does she endure the years of shame; she stays silent about who Pearl’s father is. Hester showed pride in having to wear the scarlet letter “A” by embroidering it with gold to make it look flashy.

Seven years later, Dimmesdale takes shame for what he and Hester did. Then, Mr. Dimmesdale dies. After Mr. Dimmesdale died, Hester and Pearl left the town of Boston, but only Hester returned to the town. When she returned, the people of the town looked upon her with a new respect. “And, as Hester Prynne had no selfish ends, nor lived in any measure for her own profit and enjoyment, people brought all their sorrows and perplexities, and besought her counsel, as one who had herself gone through a mighty trouble. Women, more especially,—in the continually recurring trials of wounded, wasted, wronged, misplaced, or erring and sinful passion,—or with the dreary burden of a heart unyielded, because unvalued and unsought,—came to Hester’s cottage, demanding why they were so wretched, and what the remedy! Hester comforted and counselled them the best she might.” (p ).

Throughout the book Hester, the protagonist, deals with many conflicts throughout the book. A conflict occurs in Governor Bellingham’s mansion. Hester and Pearl had arrived at the governor's house to deliver a pair of gloves. It just so happened, Reverend Wilson, Reverend Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth were also at the governor’s mansion. They think that Pearl should be taken out of the care of Hester because she is an “unfit” mother. Bellingham speaks first to Hester saying, “There hath been much question concerning thee, of late. The point hath been weightily discussed, whether we, that are of authority and influence, do well discharge our consciences by trusting an immortal soul, such as there is in yonder child, to the guidance of one who hath stumbled and fallen, amid the pitfalls of this world. Speak thou, the child’s own mother! Were it not, thinkest thou, for thy little one’s temporal and eternal welfare that she be taken out of thy charge...?” (p.101) The political people believe that Pearl should be taken away because Hester wears a badge of shame from her awful sin. Hester argues that the badge has taught her many things, and that with the badge she will be able to teach Pearl what she has learned from it.

“ ‘I can teach my little Pearl what I have learned from this!’ answered Hester Prynne, laying her finger on the red token. ‘Woman, it is thy badge of shame!’ replied the stern magistrate. ‘It is because of the stain which that letter indicates, that we would transfer thy child to other hands.’ ‘Nevertheless,’ said the mother, calmly, though growing more pale, ‘this badge hath taught me—it daily teaches me—it is teaching me at this moment—lessons whereof my child may be wiser and better, albeit they can profit nothing to myself.’ ‘We will judge warily,’ said Bellingham,...” (p.101) When Pearl failed to answer who had made her, Governor Bellingham declares, “Here is a child of three years old, and she cannot tell who made her! Without question, she is equally in the dark as to her soul, its present depravity, and future destiny! Methinks, gentlemen, we need inquire no further.” (p.103) Hester continues to argue with the governor. She is insistent because Pearl is her everything. When the old minister tells her that the child will be well cared for, Hester turns to the young clergyman to help her prove that she should keep Pearl. “ ‘God gave her into my keeping,’ repeated Hester Prynne,

raising her voice almost to a shriek. ‘I will not give her up!’—And here, by a sudden impulse, she turned to the young clergyman, Mr. Dimmesdale, at whom, up to this moment, she had seemed hardly so much as once to direct her eyes.—‘Speak thou for me!’ cried she. “Thou wast my pastor, and hadst charge of my soul, and knowest me better than these men can. I will not lose the child! Speak for me! Thou knowest,—for thou hast sympathies which these men lack!—thou knowest what is in my heart, and what are a mother’s rights, and how much the stronger they are, when that mother has but her child and the scarlet letter! Look thou to it! I will not lose the child! Look to it!’...” (p.103) Reverend Dimmesdale speaks in Hester’s favor. He tells the others that God gave her the child. Dimmesdale says that God also gave Hester “Instinctive knowledge of its nature and requirements,... which no other mortal being can posses...” (p.104). He tells them that Hester has recognized the miracle that God has given her through Pearl, and that Pearl is the one good thing in Hester’s miserable life. In Dimmesdale’s speech he states, “...methinks, is the very truth,—that this boon was ment, above all things else, to keep the mother’s soul alive...” (p.104)

The conflict is resolved when Bellingham lets Hester keep Pearl. After hearing Dimmesdale speak so passionately for Hester and Pearl, one could come to a conclusion that there is feelings between Hester and Dimmesdale. This could be a possible consequence for Mr. Dimmesdale because someone could assume that he was the one who committed adultery with Hester.