"The Scarlet Letter" is the novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The action of the book took place in the puritan colony in Boston. The heroine was Hester Prynne, who was married to Roger Chillingworth. She managed to commit the adultery with the priest Mr. Dimmesdale. He was also the father of little Pearl, who was their daughter. Anybody in the town knew neither about Hester's husband nor about Pearl's father. After couple of years their act of adultery imposed a huge impact on both of them in physical and psychological way.
At first, Hester was ashamed of the sin she committed and tried to hide it at all cost, but soon Hester noticed that "it gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts" (80). She was forced to wear the scarlet letter "A" on her chest and then she got used to it. The scarlet letter was a symbol of the sin she had committed. The letter became the symbol of Hester's calling. She had to help everyone in need such as the elderly or the poor. She didn't lose her strength, but she lost the beauty:
"it was a sad transformation, that her rich and luxuriant hair
had either been cut off or was so completely hidden by cap (...).
(...) there seemed to be no longer anything in Hester's face for
Love to dwell upon; nothing in Hester's form, though majestic and statue-like, that Passion would ever dream of clasping in its embrace, nothing in Hester's bosom, to make it ever again a pillow of affection"(150).
Hester didn't have any closer relationship with man, especially with the minister Dimmesdale.
When Hester and Mr. Dimmesdale met each other, he was health and young. Since the day, when Hester was forced to wear this scarlet letter, he began to have some health problems with the heart. When the lady met Mr. Dimmesdale for the first time after many years, his nerves seemed to be completely destroyed. "His moral force was abased into more than even while his intellectual faculties retained their pristine strength, or had perhaps acquired a morbid energy, which disease only could have given him"(146). The priest tried many times to tell about the sin he had committed in church, but nobody believed him. So he was supposed to keep his secret inside, which seems to be the reason for all his physical problems. He couldn't stop thinking about it. The second reason of his illness was probably the man he had to live with. He was the man Mr. Dimmesdale admired as the best friend and a good doctor, but he didn't have any idea that the mysterious man could be Hester's husband.
Roger Chillingworth, Hester's husband, was old, very intelligent and quite sneaky. When he learnt about Hester's adultery, the one reason for his staying in Boston, he really wanted to find the man who put shame on his good name. When Mr. Chillingworth found out that Mr. Dimmesdale was the adulterer, his will of revenge changed into the great hatred, which turned "a wise and just man to a fiend"(159). Mr. Chillingworth's eyes were completely full of evil "intellectual and studious man, calm and quiet, (...), had altogether vanished, and been succeeded by and eager, searching, almost fierce, yet fully guarded look" also "there came a glare of red light out of his eyes: as if the old man's soul were on fire"(155). His image didn't even change, "the traces of advancing life were visible, he wore his age well, and seemed to retain a wiry vigor and alertness"(155). He grew a long beard and he began to look similar to the Black Man. Every his feature was effected by the sin of his wife.
I think that there isn't any sin that could change someone's life in such a radical way. Many times the other people are involved. They make the situation worse. I think that today the adultery happens very often, but the effects of it are probably very similar. Someone wanted to revenge, some people do everything to reconcile, whereas the others feel like a victim. "The Scarlet Letter" is the novel about the great love, the will of revenge and the passion.
