Day, Hester and Pearl stand in the town square waiting for a parade to begin. The captain of the ship upon which Hester had arranged passage informs her that Chillingworth will also be riding. After Dimmesdale gives his sermon, he approaches Hester and Pearl at the foot of the scaffold and asks them to help him ascend it. Once he has the attention of the crowd, he confesses his guilt and tears off his ministerial band revealing a scarlet A. He then dies in Hester's arms. Soon after Dimmesdale's death, Chillingworth, no longer having an object of revenge, withers away and dies. Hester becomes and important figure in the community, and when she dies, she is buried next to Dimmesdale. Character Analysis Hester Prynne From the very begging of the book, Hester Prynne is presented as a woman with indefatigable pride. When she first leaves the prison to bear her punishment upon the scaffold, it is said that "never had Hester Prynne appeared more lady-like." Her sin is that she committed adultery with Reverend Dimmesdale and bore a child by him. Because of this she wears the scarlet A on her dress her entire life, even after it is no longer required of her. This is another example of her pride. Even though Hester's sin is the most overt of the three main characters, it is actually the least serious. This is because her sin is a sin of passion instead of intellect. Hester also suffers the least, because she publicly acknowledges her sins while the others keep their's secret. Often, Hawthorne presents Hester as a victim, either of fate or the actions of others. He tells of how she was forced to marry someone she didn't love, and then left in a foreign land with no word from him. He tells of how Chillingworth refuses to acknowledge that she is his wife once he arrives, and later, how she is continually tormented by her unruly child. But despite all of her suffering, she manages to find salvation in the truth. And because of this, she later become...
