The Scarlet Letter Characters

Hester is our homegirl. She's a self-sufficient single mother in one of the gloomiest most austere moments in America's history; she finds a way to support her daughter in a time when women were ju...

Reverend Dimmesdale is the Ryan Gosling of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. (You just know those single Puritan ladies had a Tumblr devoted to him.) He's a brilliant speaker, a kind man, and a wise re...

Quick: you're the most sinful woman in probably the entire New World, not counting those heathen Indians, you've just given birth to a girl, you feel really bad about your adultery, and you want to...

Oh, Chillingworth. Of course you would choose such a frosty pseudonym when you're getting ready to track down your wife's lover and persecute him in secret for seven years. That's just the kind of...

Richard Bellingham actually did serve as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony on multiple occasions: 1641 to 1642, 1654 to 1655, and 1665 to 1672. Because he's a historically real person, howev...

The Reverend Wilson is among the men who judge Hester Prynne at the beginning of the book. We'll let the narrator introduce him:[he was] the eldest clergyman of Boston, a great scholar, like most o...

Mistress Hibbins is Governor Bellingham's sister and a witch. She's constantly trying to get people to hand out with her, all "Hey, come to the witch party in the forest!" and "We shall have the th...