# The Scarlet Letter — Character guide

> Key figures in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

- [Hester Prynne](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_scarlet_letter_se/characters/hester_prynne.md): Condemned to wear an embroidered scarlet letter for adultery, she endures Puritan scorn with a quiet, unsettling dignity that slowly transforms her punishment into a strange kind of power.
- [Arthur Dimmesdale](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_scarlet_letter_se/characters/arthur_dimmesdale.md): The colony's most beloved young minister, whose eloquence and piety conceal a secret guilt that is quietly consuming him from within.
- [Pearl](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_scarlet_letter_se/characters/pearl.md): Hester's wild, elf-like daughter, a child who seems to spring from the scarlet letter itself and who torments her mother with uncanny, unanswerable questions.
- [Roger Chillingworth](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_scarlet_letter_se/characters/roger_chillingworth.md): A learned physician who arrives in Boston and insinuates himself into the minister's confidence, his cold curiosity masking a deeper and more terrible purpose.
- [Governor Bellingham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_scarlet_letter_se/characters/governor_bellingham.md): A stern colonial governor whose rigid Puritan authority and worldly comforts sit uneasily together as he weighs the fate of Hester and her child.
- [Mistress Hibbins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_scarlet_letter_se/characters/mistress_hibbins.md): A sharp-tongued widow rumored to consort with the Black Man in the forest, she voices the town's darkest suspicions with a knowing, unsettling glee.
- [John Wilson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_scarlet_letter_se/characters/john_wilson.md): As the senior clergyman of the colony, Wilson lends his authority to the magistrates who judge Hester Prynne, questioning her in open court with a mixture of paternal warmth and unyielding doctrine. His genuine affection
- [Master Brackett](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_scarlet_letter_se/characters/master_brackett.md): The jailer who escorts Hester from prison to the scaffold.
- [Surveyor Pue](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_scarlet_letter_se/characters/surveyor_pue.md): The former surveyor of the Custom House who discovered Hester's documents.
- [Satan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_scarlet_letter_se/characters/satan.md): The embodiment of evil, often invoked by townspeople and Mistress Hibbins.
- [Sir Thomas Overbury](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_scarlet_letter_se/characters/sir_thomas_overbury.md): A historical figure alluded to in the Custom House sketch.

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