Hester Prynne's Public Shaming

On a summer morning in seventeenth-century Boston, a crowd of Puritans gathered before the prison door, their grim faces betraying the solemnity of the occasion. The women among them, coarse and outspoken, debated the severity of the sentence, with some arguing that Hester Prynne deserved death rather than the mere public exposure and lifelong wearing of a scarlet letter. When the prison door opened, the town-beadle emerged first, a grim figure representing the full severity of Puritan law, and drew forward a young woman who, with natural dignity, stepped into the sunlight as if by her own free will. She bore in her arms a baby of about three months old, and on the breast of her gown, fantastically embroidered with gold thread, appeared the letter A, so artistically done that it seemed a fitting decoration to her splendid attire, which was far beyond the sumptuary regulations of the colony.

The Scaffold and the Crowd

Hester Prynne was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance, dark and abundant hair, and a face beautiful in feature and complexion, marked by a ladylike dignity. Those who had known her before were astonished to see her beauty shine out, making a halo of her misfortune. The scarlet letter transfigured her, taking her out of ordinary relations with humanity and enclosing her in a sphere by herself. She was led through a lane opened in the crowd, preceded by the beadle and attended by stern-browed men and unkindly women, while eager schoolboys ran before her. The scaffold stood at the western extremity of the marketplace, beneath the eaves of Boston's earliest church, and was the platform of the pillory, an instrument designed to hold the human head in its tight grasp for public gaze. Hester's sentence required her to stand upon the platform for three hours, but without the neck confinement, and she ascended the wooden steps with full knowledge of her part.

The Authorities and the Appeal

Directly over the platform was a balcony where Governor Bellingham sat with four sergeants bearing halberds, surrounded by other eminent characters distinguished by a dignity of mien. The Reverend John Wilson, the eldest clergyman of Boston, addressed Hester, urging her to reveal the name of her fellow-sinner, and called upon the young minister Arthur Dimmesdale to exhort her. Dimmesdale, a person of striking aspect with a white, lofty brow and large, brown, melancholy eyes, spoke with a voice tremulously sweet and rich, urging Hester to speak out the name for her soul's peace and for the sake of her fellow-sinner, who might otherwise add hypocrisy to sin. The people were so moved that they expected either Hester to speak or the guilty one to be drawn forth by an inward necessity. But Hester shook her head, replying that the letter was too deeply branded to be taken off, and that she would endure his agony as well as her own. When a voice from the crowd commanded her to speak and give her child a father, she turned pale but answered that her child must seek a heavenly father and never know an earthly one.

The Aftermath and Consequences

After the appeal failed, the elder clergyman delivered a discourse on sin, dwelling on the ignominious letter until it seemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flames of hell. Hester stood with glazed eyes and an air of weary indifference, her spirit sheltering beneath a stony crust of insensibility. The infant wailed and screamed, and Hester strove to hush it mechanically. She was then led back to prison, and it was whispered that the scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark passage-way. The immediate consequence was a state of nervous excitement that demanded constant watchfulness, lest she should perpetrate violence on herself or the child. This led to the introduction of Roger Chillingworth as a physician, who, in the prison interview, revealed himself as her husband and extracted a promise of secrecy, setting in motion the long chain of psychological torment that would follow. The public shaming also marked the beginning of Hester's life as an outcast, forcing her to take up residence in a lonely cottage on the outskirts of town and to support herself and Pearl through her needlework, which became the fashion even as it was shunned for bridal veils. The event permanently altered Hester's appearance and character, stripping her of her luxuriant hair and much of her womanly softness, and driving her into a life of thought and speculation. Yet, over the years, her patient endurance and good works transformed the scarlet letter in the public eye from a token of sin into a symbol of her calling as a Sister of Mercy, and she became a counselor to women in trouble, though she never again removed the letter until her death.