Chapter 1 Summary
• This opening chapter sets the scene for the novel in seventeenthcentury Boston.
• The dark and gloomy prison sets the tone of the entire story and
foreshadows the social and psychological situations of Hester
Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale.
• The one bright spot in this description is a single rose bush said to
spring from the footsteps of Anne Hutchinson, a famous Puritan
woman who questions the authority of the male-dominated Puritan
church.
• The rose connects Hester Prynne to Anne Hutchinson.
• Hester lives in truth, pride, and honor, openly confessing her sin.
• Like a “martyr,” she suffers in silence and refuses to identify her
partner in sin.
Chapter 2 Summary
• This chapter gives the reader a better
understanding of two of the main characters,
Hester and Pearl.
• Hester is sensitive but strong-willed.
• At three months old, Pearl, Hester’s daughter,
already has an unnatural interest in the scarlet
“A.”
• This chapter reveals some of Hester’s
background—her life before she arrived in
Boston.
Chapter 3 Summary
• In this chapter, the other two main characters of the novel appear.
• Both Roger Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale are in the crowd.
• From her obvious fear of him, it is clear that Hester knows
Chillingworth, the deformed man in the crowd.
• In contrast to Roger Chillingworth is the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale
who is truly grieved over Hester’s shame.
• Guilt is already making Dimmesdale grow weak.
• It requires the encouragement of a senior minister for Dimmesdale
to appeal to Hester to reveal the identity of her partner.
• The most important aspect of this chapter is to establish a major
motif of the novel—the
• three times that all four of these characters meet at or on the
scaffold.
Chapter 4 Summary
• Hester and Chillingworth confront one another
for the first time in Boston.
• Hester distrusts Chillingworth, as shown in her
fear that he will poison Pearl.
• Surprisingly, Chillingworth does not seek revenge
on his wife; instead, he focuses on Hester’s lover.
• When Hester refuses to reveal the identity of
Pearl’s father, Chillingworth vows to find out on
his own.
Chapter 5 Summary
• This chapter concentrates on Hester’s alienation
and intense suffering, partially self-inflicted, but
mostly imposed by a society that spurns her.
• Hester lives a friendless life, with her child as her
only real companion.
• Importantly, she also forgives her lover for hiding
his sin.
• She understands his choice and the pain it must
cause him.
Chapter 6 Summary
• The main purpose of this chapter is to describe Pearl
and to establish her symbolic significance.
• Pearl’s is a personality of contrasts: innocent beauty
and charm vs. a rebellious nature, uncanny
insightfulness vs. wild-child behavior, tenderness vs.
aggressiveness.
• Pearl’s name is also significant.
• She is a jewel, her mother’s “only treasure,” purchased
at the highest price this society could set.
• Pearl is a constant reminder of sin and a living form of
the scarlet letter.
Chapter 7 Summary
• Mostly this chapter serves to reinforce the
love Hester has for Pearl.
• Hester’s horrified reaction upon learning
about discussion of taking Pearl away from her
and her trip to the governor for aid firmly
establish this love.
Chapter 8 Summary
• For the first time, all of the major characters of the
novel come together in close contact.
• Pearl’s scarlet dress concerns the governor and the
ministers.
• Because Pearl seems not to know her catechism,
though she has been religiously taught by her mother,
Governor Bellingham decides that Pearl should be
taken away from Hester and taken to live with a
guardian who will “properly” raise her.
• In desperation, Hester appeals to Dimmesdale for help.
This action cements Chillingworth’s conviction that he
has found Hester’s lover.
Chapter 9 Summary
• Chillingworth’s actions demonstrate his subtlety, his
conniving, and his delight in Dimmesdale’s pain.
• Chillingworth at first convinces the parishioners that he
should care for the ailing minister; then, Hawthorne shows
how Chillingworth convinces Dimmesdale that they should
live under the same roof so he can constantly care for him.
• Because Dimmesdale does not need to have his body
healed, but his soul, keeping Dimmesdale alive actually
only adds to his torment.
• By keeping his sin hidden and unconfessed, Dimmesdale
lets his conscience eat away his being; he suffers even more
greatly than Hester, who has been forced to confess her sin
in public.
Chapter 10 Summary
• This chapter presents Chillingworth torturing
Dimmesdale and shows Dimmesdale’s selfinflicted suffering over his silence, even to the
point of nighttime flagellation.
• Hawthorne does not say for certain that
Dimmesdale is Pearl’s father, nor does he reveal
what Chillingworth finds when he looks at
Dimmesdale’s chest.
• One of the novel’s themes is concealment and
revelation.
Chapter 11 Summary
• This chapter focuses on Dimmesdale’s intense
agony as he wastes away from his guilt and
inability to confess his sin.
Chapter 12 Summary
• This is the central chapter. It is full of irony and should be the most
scrutinized in the novel.
• Finally, Hawthorne reveals the relationship between Hester,
Dimmesdale, and Pearl.
• In his misery, Dimmesdale is mysteriously drawn to the scaffold
where Hester had stood seven years ago.
• Dimmesdale confesses, but only in his imagination.
• As soon as Dimmesdale admits his cowardice to Pearl, a meteor
appears in the sky to light the darkness with a scarlet “A.”
• Roger Chillingworth has been watching the three on the scaffold.
The scaffold is the symbol of public acknowledgment of sin.
• The scarlet “A” takes on new meanings in the chapter. As it flashes
across the sky, the “A” now becomes a sign of the minister’s guilt as
well as Hester’s.
Chapter 13 Summary
• The author describes Hester’s life in the sevenyear period between scaffold scenes.
• Readers sympathize with Hester as a single
mother who lives among people unsympathetic
to that way of life.
• Hester’s selfless aid to the poor and sick points
out her goodness.
• Surprisingly, her reputation in Boston gradually
changes.
• Some now see her letter “A” as standing for Able
rather than Adultery.
Chapter 14 Summary
• In this chapter, Hawthorne again points out that
Chillingworth is a wronged man.
• Hester again acknowledges her responsibility in that
wrong and her part in causing the change in him from a
kind and just person into an evil, vengeful demon.
• However, Chillingworth boasts about torturing
Dimmesdale and the sadistic pleasure he gets from the
minister’s suffering turn Hester’s thoughts against him.
• Readers sympathize with the harm done to
Chillingworth, but may also find his response to it
inappropriate and immoral.
Chapter 15 Summary
• This chapter underscores the complex and
contradictory emotions Hester is now feeling.
• She decides that her husband greatly wronged
her and holds him solely responsible for all the
problems in her life.
• She admits to herself that, even though it is a sin,
she hates him.
• Pearl’s creation and wearing of the green letter
“A” symbolizes her innocent notions about her
mother’s scarlet letter and further intensify
Hawthorne’s association of Pearl with nature.
Chapter 16 Summary
• Pearl questions Hester about the Black Man
(Satan).
• Hester admits that she has met the Black Man.
The forest is also an important source of
symbolism in this chapter.
• The darkness reflects Hester’s dreary, unhappy
life.
• Both the men who are responsible for Hester’s
temptation and sin are in the forest: the Black
Man, her mythic tempter, and Dimmesdale, her
physical tempter.
Chapter 17 Summary
• For the first time, Hawthorne brings the two
lovers alone together for a period of time,
revealing their feelings for one another.
• Hester promises Dimmesdale that he will never
be alone, that she will be there for him.
• Dimmesdale makes no such corresponding
promise, but instead simply accepts Hester’s aid.
• Their bond almost falls apart when Hester reveals
that Dimmesdale’s confidant is really his worst
enemy and her husband.
Chapter 18 Summary
• The forest frees Hester and Dimmesdale from the
responsibility of the show that they put on in public.
• Nature imagery dominates the first part of the chapter.
• Their conversation reveals that these two “naturally”
belong together.
• Hester discards the scarlet letter, the symbol of social
judgment, and lets down her hair, and Dimmesdale
begins to recover his vigor.
• Pearl behaves calmly and naturally in the forest.
• Pearl’s behavior changes when she finds Dimmesdale
and her mother together.
Chapter 19 Summary
• Pearl’s role as a living symbol of her mother’s
conscience comes out again when she loudly refuses to
accept her mother unless the scarlet letter returns to
her bosom.
• However, she does not accept Dimmesdale.
• When he kisses Pearl, she runs to the brook to wash
the kiss away.
• That he is not willing to walk into town with them,
even though Pearl asks him to do so, further
demonstrates that Dimmesdale is still ashamed.
• We realize that Hester’s hope that the three of them
will soon live together openly is only a dream.
Chapter 20 Summary
• Hawthorne notes that Dimmesdale is wholly
unprepared to be freed from his burden, so that,
when he thinks that he will escape, he walks with
greater strength and has a new resolve in life.
• On his way home, he is tempted to curse, argue,
and show lust—wicked impulses that he struggles
to curb.
• More importantly, though, he sends Chillingworth
away.
• He also tears up his Election Day sermon and
stays up all night writing another.
Chapter 21 Summary
• Only the Puritans would have a festival without any excitement!
• The clothing of Hester and Pearl points to a contrast between
dullness and excitement.
• Hester’s drab clothing appears solemn.
• Pearl’s very bright clothing symbolizes her impish excitement.
• The colorful Indians and pirates, outsiders to Boston, find this
repressed carnival curious.
• This chapter constantly contrasts hope with dread.
• Eventually, the dread wins out.
• Chillingworth’s discovery of the plans made by Hester and
Dimmesdale shows the lengths to which he will go to deny them
happiness.
Chapter 22 Summary
• This chapter centers on the Election Day holiday.
• It is a day of change, and thus the appropriate setting for the
story’s climax.
• Dimmesdale, by this time, has become almost a saint in the eyes of
his parishioners.
• Hester, on the other hand, is once again reminded that she is
considered an outcast sinner.
• Dimmesdale receives nothing but adoration as he delivers his
Election Day sermon.
• In contrast, Hester stands in front of the scaffold with all of her sins
upon her.
• Chillingworth’s evil intention of accompanying the lovers to Bristol
and escorting Dimmesdale to the ship smashes all of Hester’s
hopes. Hawthorne is preparing us for a tragic ending.
Chapter 23 Summary
• The climax arrives when Dimmesdale decides to stand on the
scaffold with Hester and Pearl.
• In doing so, he finally relieves his conscience and succeeds in
breaking Chillingworth’s hold over him.
• By exposing his sin immediately after achieving the zenith of glory
in his Puritan congregation, he demonstrates the courage that he
had long been lacking.
• He considers the public revelation of his guilt better than the
cowardly escape from Boston that he had planned. He dies a
peaceful man.
• Dimmesdale relies on Hester, asking for her help to ascend the
scaffold and leaning on her to announce his sin. In doing so he
rejects help from both Rev. Wilson (the Church) and Governor
Bellingham (the State).
Chapter 23 Cont’d
• Pearl willingly goes to Dimmesdale and gives him a kiss,
symbolizing that he has come to terms with his conscience.
• Chillingworth’s attempt at preventing Dimmesdale from
climbing the scaffold reflects his truly evil nature.
• Chillingworth realizes that he has become so depraved that
he will not survive without Dimmesdale to torture. This
final scaffold scene unites all the novel’s disparate ideas.
• This chapter reveals Hawthorne’s beliefs in such concepts
as sin, redemption, the role of the Church, the role of the
State, the function of confession, and the effects of social
judgment.
Chapter 24 Summary
• This denouement chapter brings the novel to a logical
conclusion. Readers want to know what happens to Hester,
Pearl, and Chillingworth after Dimmesdale’s death.
• However, Hawthorne gives mostly general and vague
details, leaving the reader to decide what to believe. This is
especially true about Pearl’s fate.
• Hester at last becomes what her life has been leading up to.
• She takes on the role of counselor and advisor, an alternate
spiritual guide, especially to women who may be troubled
(and many were) by the harsh patriarchal theocracy.