The Scarlet Letter

Arthur Dimmesdale is a Puritan minister in Salem. He is scholarly, pious, and serious, but is well-liked by his parishioners for his apparent ability to empathize with their concerns. Dimmesdale’s sermons seem plagued by a hidden sorrow that “[gives] him sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind; so that his heart vibrate[s] in unison with theirs, […] and sent its own throb of pain through a thousand other hearts” (124-25). Despite his young age, Dimmesdale is sickly, which his parishioners interpret as a sign of intense spirituality rather than a side effect of the guilt he feels first for having an affair with Hester, and then for being too cowardly to admit to it.

Dimmesdale’s storyline therefore highlights the wide discrepancy that can exist between public opinion and subjective experience. It also contrasts with Hester’s storyline: Whereas Hester finds in her shame and suffering a point of common humanity with the society that has exiled her, Dimmesdale’s secret causes him to feel isolated even as he achieves professional success and public admiration. Dimmesdale’s strict religiosity also leads him to judge himself much more harshly than Hester does herself, while his weaker personality prevents him from confronting the consequences of his actions head-on in the way that Hester has been forced to—a hypocrisy that only intensifies his self-recrimination. As a result, Dimmesdale’s death on the scaffold is perhaps the only “happy” ending available to him; because Dimmesdale believes so fully in the need for public penance, it’s only by openly admitting to being Hester’s lover and Pearl’s father that he can assuage his own conscience.

Roger Chillingworth is Hester’s husband and the novel’s primary antagonist. He is hunchbacked and much older than his wife, and has devoted his life to studying alchemy and medicine in Amsterdam. In attempting to join Hester in Salem, Chillingworth was taken captive by a Native American tribe, leading his wife to presume him dead. When he finally arrives in Salem and discovers Hester’s adultery, he takes the name Chillingworth rather than reveal his relationship to her.

This alias proves prophetic, foreshadowing the cold and cruel man he becomes during the novel. Although Chillingworth doesn’t seek revenge on Hester, he befriends Dimmesdale and—after uncovering proof that the minister was Hester’s lover—cannot resist tormenting him with reminders of his guilt. Chillingworth becomes so consumed with hatred for Dimmesdale that he views the minister’s public confession and death as his own defeat, and dies himself shortly afterward: “when, in short, there was no more devil’s work on earth for him to do, it only remained for the unhumanized mortal to betake himself whither his Master would find him tasks enough, and pay him his wages duly” (225). The idea that Chillingworth has become “unhumanized” in his quest for revenge echoes the novel’s ideas about sin, judgment, and forgiveness; whereas Hester’s compassion for others stems from her awareness of her own flawed nature, Chillingworth loses this sense of shared humanity by assuming responsibility for punishing Dimmesdale. Nevertheless, the novel refuses to entirely condemn Chillingworth, and his decision to leave most of his fortune to Pearl—the daughter of his rival—suggests that he hasn’t entirely lost his capacity for kindness.

Pearl is the illegitimate daughter of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, named in reference to Matthew 13:46: “Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.” The name captures her importance to Hester but is at odds with both the girl’s appearance—like her mother, Pearl has dark hair and eyes—and her passionate, unruly temperament: “In giving her existence, a great law had been broken; and the result was a being, whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in disorder” (81).

This idea that there is something unnatural or even otherworldly about Pearl recurs throughout the novel; she is more at home with nature than with other people, and she variously reminds those around her of an elf, a witch, or even a demon. It is not simply that Pearl is stubborn, capricious, and moody, but rather that she is preternaturally intelligent when it comes to the circumstances surrounding her conception. From infancy, she’s fascinated by the scarlet letter her mother wears, and she often speaks in a way that suggests she knows Hester and Dimmesdale’s secrets. The narrator ties these eccentricities to the turmoil Hester experienced throughout her pregnancy, which perhaps speaks to the broader reason for Pearl’s strangeness: for most of the novel, Pearl is not so much a character as a living symbol of Hester and Dimmesdale’s actions. It’s only Dimmesdale’s confession that frees Pearl from this symbolic role, allowing her to become fully human and a member of society. She goes on to inherit a fortune from Chillingworth and, the novel implies, to marry and have children.

Mistress Hibbins is the “bitter-tempered widow” (47) of a magistrate and the sister of Governor Bellingham. She dresses in elaborate and expensive clothing and is widely reputed to be a witch (as Hawthorne notes, the real-world Mistress Hibbins was eventually executed for witchcraft). In the novel, she is an ambiguous figure; although Mistress Hibbins speaks to characters like Hester in a way that implies she is part of a witches’ coven, Hawthorne repeatedly questions whether these damning exchanges ever took place. In this way, the novel uses the figure of Mistress Hibbins to underscore its ideas about public perception, private character, and social ostracism; the narrator implicitly suggests that the rumors of witchcraft may simply reflect societal discomfort with a woman who flouts gender norms by being bad-tempered and outspoken.

Richard Bellingham was a lawyer and important figure in the early history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, having served as one of its first governors. He appears in this capacity throughout The Scarlet Letter; Hawthorne introduces him, for example, as he presides over Hester’s punishment, describing him as “a gentleman advanced in years, with a hard experience written in his wrinkles” (59). He later attempts to have Pearl removed from Hester’s custody, although he relents when Dimmesdale intervenes on Hester’s behalf. His sister (in the novel, though perhaps not in real life) is Mistress Hibbins.

Like Bellingham, John Wilson was a real historical figure, a Puritan minister who was among the first to settle in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. By the time the novel opens, Wilson is elderly, but he continues to play an active role in Salem society, thanks in part to the respect he’s accorded as a church leader. Hawthorne describes him as a “great scholar” whose sternness is tempered by a “kind and genial spirit […] [that] was, in truth, rather a matter of shame than self-congratulation with him” (60).