Character Analysis!!!

Hester Prynne is one of the first main characters the reader is introduced to. She is a seamstress who to the Puritan community, committed a crime. She is now forced to wear a scarlet "A" on her chest as her punishment for committing adultery with the local minister Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester is a strong female character. She shows independence and compassion and is a freethinker. Even when her husband, Rodger Chillingworth, comes to cause trouble, Hester continues on to be strong. When Hester committed adultery with Dimmesdale, the whole community looked down upon her for her actions and for keeping her partner’s name a secret. They made her an outcast to society by shunning her to the forest. Instead of being bitter, Hester shows compassion by reaching out to the poor and hungry. She also shows compassion and love to her daughter Pearl. Hester does what she has to to ake sure she can keep Pearl. She fights for her and lives for her.

Rodger Chillingworth is a physician who is married to Hester Prynne. Chillingworth was an awful husband who loved his work more then his wife. He often ignored her in their marriage, and didn’t love her they way he did his work. Chillingworth came across to the reader as a cold person with no heart. The way Hawthorne describes his distorted body, and the name Hawthorne chose to give him gives the reader a hint that he is an evil man. When he arrives in New England, where he had left his ife alone and by herself, he finds out about Hester’s crime. Since Hester refuses to Reveal the father’s name of her baby, Chiliingworth makes it his job to figure it out for himself and then make him suffer. Soon this job that he took up turned into a nasty obsession which takes over his life. After Dimmesdale dies revealing his dirty secret, Chillingworth has nothing to live for. Soon after Dimmesdale dies, Chillingworth dies.

Arthur Dimmesdale is the local minister in the Puritan community. He is the father of Pearl and secret lover to Hester. He decides he doesn’t want to tell the community of his secret, so instead he lets it build up inside of him. Since Hester wears a letter on the outside, Dimmesdale wears one on the inside by his heart. He was constantly seen in the book covering it up on the outside with his hands as if it will shine through his clothes and be revealed to everyone. His guilty conscience built up so much turmoil inside of himself that it eventually made Dimmesdale sick. Although his kept secret caused him to be ill mentally and physically, he was an overall better minister to his followers in the church. The people in the community learned from and enjoyed each of Dimmesdale’s sermons. At the end, Dimmesdale makes his best and last sermon. After that he stands up with Pearl and Hester to announce his secret to everyone in the market place. Immediately after the community heard, Dimmesdale falls to the ground. He makes his final words to Pearl and Hester then dies in Hester’s arms.

The last but certainly not least is Pearl. She is the result of the adultery between Hester Prynne and local minister Arthur Dimmesdale. Pearl is not a normal child. Even though she comes across as sweet and innocent, she also has an elfish/impish side. Many people in the book proclaimed she had some witchcraft in her. Although she is very young in the book, she is very alert and understands what is happening around her. She understands who Dimmesdale is, that her mother is an outcast, who Chillingworth is, etc. She is just an innocent child who some how holds power and knowledge to preform supernatural events (such as the meteor). At the end of the book, when Dimmesdale is dying, Pearl cries. It says that right then Pearl lost that elfish/impish side to her. That she was freed of her witchcraft and would be able to grow to be a real women.