Hester Prynne, a married woman, taken in adultery, is brought upon the stage that she may be punished by a public scandal/stigma. She was beautiful and young, and had been married to an old, difficult husband who had wandered away from her for a time, without giving signs of life. While living away from her husband in the Puritan New England, Hester has given birth to an illegitimate child, Pearl (thought by some to be the Devil’s child). Thus, she is considered a sinner, and the partner of her sin, though not of her punishment, is the saintly young minister of the Church, Arthur Dimmesdale, to whom she is attached. It is her fate/punishment to wear the letter "A" always worked on her dress to be seen by all men.
In this context, the injured husband, Roger Chillingworth, comes by chance into the town to find his wife humiliated and made to wear the scarlet symbol. When the couple meets, Hester refuses to reveal the name of who has been the fellow sinner and father of her child.
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