The Scarlet Letter Characters

Meet the Cast

Hester Prynne

(Click the character infographic to download.) 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 s...

Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale

(Click the character infographic to download.) 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'...

Pearl

(Click the character infographic to download.) 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...

Roger Chillingworth

(Click the character infographic to download.) 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...

Governor Richard Bellingham

(Click the character infographic to download.) 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....

Reverend John Wilson

(Click the character infographic to download.) 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 cl...

Mistress Hibbins

(Click the character infographic to download.) 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...