Most authors write about love stories that work out in the end, so a reader would think that The Scarlet Letter would go along with all of the rest. Author Nathaniel Hawthorne, however, throws in the sins of Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth.

Hester Prynne was found to have committed adultery and now lives her life in sorrow. She has to deal with people talking about her while she is put on the scaffold for punishment. Some women say that “If the hussy stood up for judgment before us five” that she would not only have to wear a scarlet letter and stand up in front of a crowd (45 Hawthorne). The same group of women say that “At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead” to punish her (45 Hawthorne). Hester Prynne also has to live with the fact that her child is wild and likes to tease her about the letter that she wears. Hester thinks that the child, Pearl, is reckless and “could not be made amenable to rules” (80 Hawthorne). Pearl teases her mom that “the sunshine does not love you” because it is scared of the scarlet letter (166 Hawthorne). Hester has committed one of the worst sins of all time and is now being properly punished for it.

Arthur Dimmesdale has committed the same sin as Hester Prynne, but he lives his life in secret. He tortures himself, both mentally and physically. Dimmesdale had delusions about Hester and other things that never “quite deluded him” enough that he did not know that they were not real (131 Hawthorne). He often whipped himself with a secret whip “as an act of penance” (130 Hawthorne). Arthur Dimmesdale is secretly punished by a physician that knows what he did. The physician was out to get him and “had begun an investigation” to find out what Dimmesdale was hiding; he would stop for nothing to get his revenge on Arthur Dimmesdale, and that made Dimmesdale worry about his character (115 Hawthorne). The physician finds some leafs one day and tells Dimmesdale that he “found them growing on a grave which bore no tombstone” and prods him with the fact that the man probably had a secret that he kept until he died and that he should have revealed it when he was living, like Dimmesdale is (117 Hawthorne). Arthur Dimmesdale is being tortured throughout his daily life and does not quite know it, but this is his punishment.

Roger Chillingworth, the husband of Hester Prynne, devotes his whole life to the act of revenge on her partner. When he has a hunch that it is Arthur Dimmesdale, he befriends him and becomes obsessed with revenge. As time went on, Chillingworth was not finding what he wanted, so “necessity seized the old man within its gripe and never set him free again,” not until he completed his revenge (115 Hawthorne). Roger Chillibworth was now growing agitated with the fact that he still did not know for sure if it was Dimmesdale and began to look like “there was something ugly and evil in his face which they had not previously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to sight, the oftener they looked upon him” (114 Hawthorne). On the day of the Election Sermon, Arthur Dimmesdale suddenly decides to confess everything and it destroys Chillingworth. When Dimmesdale finishes his speech, Chillingworth cries out, “thou hast escaped me” and immediately beings to wallow in self-pity (233 Hawthorne). After that, Chillingworth has nothing left to live for and his death “took place within the year (237 Hawthorne). Roger Chillingworth only lived for revenge and when that was over, he had nothing to look forward to.

The sins of Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth were what Nathanial Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter about. Hester Prynne committed adultery and had to live her life in sorrow and remorse. Arthur Dimmesdale also committed adultery, but lived his life in secret and only revealed it when he was going to die. Roger Chillingworth took revenge on Dimmesdale’s soul. Roger Chilling worth was said to be the worst sinner of the three of them.