The Letter and Human Frailty Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, tells a tale of human frailty and sorrow through each and every character. When you first meet Hester Prynne, the main character, she seems quite innocent. Only guilty of not naming her lover. Yet she is treated like an evil demon by the Puritan community of the 1700’s because she broke the seventh commandment The way they yelled “at the very least, …showed first 75 words of 495 total…

…showed last 75 words of 495 total…her chest, but Dimmesdale on the other hand has kept his sin under his clothes and it was literally killing him. In conclusion Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and Hester were all sinners, some sins worse than others. During this time period these sins were unheard of, that is why they were treated the way they were. These characters were a perfect example of “human frailty and sorrow”. Hester dying wearing the scarlet letter is the darkening close.