The Scarlet Letter

Characters essay
Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter is a piece of romantic literature, and
conforms to the characteristics of this literary style. Due to this style, each
character has unique and exaggerated characteristics. These characteristics
are reflected in appearance, action and speech.
The baby Pearl is perhaps the most perplexing character in the book.
Her mother’s only treasure Pearl grows up surrounded by hostility. The
“wild child” attribute may rightfully be given to Pearl, for “nothing was
more remarkable than the instinct, with which the child comprehended
her loneliness” (pg84; ch6). Because of her loneliness, she develops a
remarkable personality and a unique way of thinking. She stands strong
against the puritan children who bully her with “all this enmity and
passion Pearl inherited out of Hester’s heart” (pg85; ch6). Pearls
description contradicts, on one side her name and some of descriptions
portray her as her mother’s only treasure. On the other side she is “a little
imp, whose next freak might be to fly out the chimney” (pg87; ch6).
The reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is “a young clergyman, who had
come from one of the great English universities” (pg61; ch3). He is a
genuine coward, and Hawthorne displays the two faced puritan society
through him. He fears “to step down from a high place” (pg62; ch3) and
face up to the deed, that he committed. He chooses to get eaten up from the
inside by his guilt to keep his respected position in society. His character is
at first very appealing to the reader, as was the puritan society appealing to
the colonists, but as the reader progresses through the book, this
personality becomes shadier and shadier, until it is distorted into an ill two-
faced personality. In knowledge of Hawthorne’s opinion of puritan New
England, Dimmesdale may be an allusion Hawthorne makes to history. If
we accept this allusion, then the romantic characteristics of this book
become more enhanced through this symbolism.
Roger Chillingsworth, “to whom external matters are of little value”
(pg56; ch2) is a queer looking, well-educated man, whose one shoulder is
higher than the other. He “bent his eyes on Hester Prynne” (pg56; ch2), the
adjective bent describes Chillingsworth’s personality perfectly. He keeps his
identity a secret, for he wants to find out who Pearl’s father is. He suspects
Dimmesdale from early on in the story and shares quarters with him, where
he tries to force him to confess. He is described as the “diabolical agent
[who] had the divine permission, for a season, to burrow into the
clergyman’s intimacy, and plot against his soul” (pg112; ch9). While this
description may be exaggerated it is somewhat true, for Chillingsworth
brought misery upon the ill reverend Dimmesdale.
Hester Prynne is the protagonist of the story. She is a young, strong,
proud woman who doesn’t hide from her punishment but bears it through
thick and thin. She moves out of society to live on the edge of the woods, but
she doesn’t move away from Boston. She shows courage in defending her
fellow sinner and in not moving away from the people who despise her. She
is a loyal person, and this is shown through her defense of Dimmesdale, and
her loyalty to Pearl.
In conclusion the exaggerated characters of Hawthorne’s Scarlet
Letter set an example for the many exaggerated characters we see in today’s
television and pulp fiction.
Kristof Weakley