The story of the scarlet letter begins in seventeenth-century Boston, then a Puritan settlement. A woman named Hester Prynne, is led from the town prison with her baby girl named Pearl, in her arms and the scarlet letter “A” on her breast. A man in the crowd tells a elderly man in the crowd that Hester is being punished for adultery. Hester’s husband sent her ahead to America, but never arrived in Boston. It was said that he had been “lost at sea.” While waiting for her husband, Hester had apparently had an affair, as she had given birth to Pearl. Even so she would not reveal her lover’s identity, and the scarlet letter, along with her public shaming, is her punishment for her “sin.” On that day Hester was led to the town and was lectured by the town fathers, but she again refused to identify Pearl's father. The elderly man is Hester’s missing husband, who was practicing medicine and calling himself Roger Chillingworth. He then settles in Boston, …show more content…
They then decided to flee to Europe, where they could live with Pearl as a family. They planned to take a ship sailing from Boston in four days. They both felt a sense of release, and Hester removes her scarlet letter and finally let down her hair. Pearl then does not recognize her mother without the letter. The day before the ship was supposed to set sail, the townspeople get together for a holiday and Dimmesdale preached his best sermon. Meanwhile, Hester had learned that Chillingworth knew about their plan and had planned to get on the same ship. While Dimmesdale was leaving the church after his sermon, He seen Hester and Pearl standing before the town scaffold. He then gets on the scaffold with Hester and Pearl, then confessed his love publicly, exposing the scarlet letter carved into his chest. He then fell dead, as Pearl kissed