Hester Prynne's sin was adultery. This sin was regarded very seriously by the Puritans, and was often punished by death. Hester's punishment was to endure a public shaming on a scaffold for three hours and wear a scarlet letter "A" on her chest for the rest of her life in the town. Although Hawthorne does not pardon Hester's sin, he considers it less serious than those of Dimmesdale and Chillingworth. Hester's sin was a sin of passion. This sin was openly acknowledged as she wore the "A" on her chest. Hester did not commit the greatest sin of the novel. She did not deliberately mean to commit her sin or mean to hurt others.

Hester's sin is that her passions and love were of more importance to her than the Puritan moral code. This is shown when she says to Dimmesdale, "What we did had a

Arthur Dimmesdale's sin was the same as Hester's. He is Hester's silent partner in crime, the guilty one who has confessed nothing in order to save himself. Actually, Dimmesdale is a coward, a man who is too weak to confess his guilt, even though he desires to greatly. As a way of self-punishment, Dimmesdale has created a supposed "A" on his own chest by beating himself. Dimmesdale has committed the crime of hypocrisy. He is a minister and every week gets up on his pulpit to hear his congregation's sins. Somehow, Dimmesdale is too weak to confess his own sin. By hiding it, his sin becomes even worse; it's now a concealed sin. Dimmesdale pleads with Hester, while she is sentenced on the scaffold, to confess his guilt. "I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer! Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life. What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him--yea compel him, as it were--to add hypocrisy to sin?" Dimmesdale's guilt is overwhelming. He must act as if nothing has happened. He remains silent so that he can continue to do God's work as a minister. Throughout the seven years of the novel, Dimmesdale's sermons get more and more tantalizing the weaker he grows. He must wear one face for the world, another for himself. Dimmesdale is trying to excuse his behavior, when his soaring career may be a justification for concealing a sin. He is struggling to confess, and in each sermon, he comes closer and closer to doing so. He is also under pressure from Chillingworth, who has brought Dimmesdale almost to the point of insanity. His guilt is heightened when he sees Hester suffer alone with the sin he was a part of.

The townspeople made Hester's situation even worse. They punished her for committing a sin, even though they committed sins themselves. The townspeople were then guilty of hypocrisy. The worst sin committed by the townspeople is the isolation they put Hester through. She was at a point where she would not go out in the daytime, just to avoid the people. Wearing her sin on her chest made the townspeople isolate her. They were all clear hypocrites for being the same people who went to church weekly, repenting their own sins. Nathaniel Hawthorne was immersed in sin, its wages, and the redemption of sin. Hawthorne was a Puritan descendant, a child to a strong tradition of sin. Puritan theology was based upon the conviction of sins.

Hester is indeed a sinner, adultery is no light matter, even today. On the other hand, her sin has brought her not evil, but good. Her charity to the poor, her comfort to the broken-hearted, her unquestionable presence in times of trouble are all direct results of her quest for repentance. Her salvation also lies in the truth. She tells Dimmesdale of Chillingworth's real identity, having kept it a secret before,

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Approximate Word count = 2029
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)