Hester Prynne is the main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
Published in 1850, the novel is set in seventeenth-century Puritan Boston. Hester has a daughter, Pearl, after an affair with the minister Arthur Dimmesdale, while her husband is believed to be missing. The community punishes her for adultery by forcing her to wear a scarlet “A” on her clothing.
Hester’s story is not simply about guilt and punishment. She supports herself as a skilled seamstress, raises Pearl independently, and gradually earns respect through her generosity and strength. Hawthorne presents her as a complex figure who questions the authority and moral certainty of her society.
Readers sometimes confuse Hester with Pearl, her daughter; Roger Chillingworth, her vengeful husband; or Arthur Dimmesdale, the minister who shares responsibility for Pearl’s birth. Hester is the novel’s protagonist, while those characters help reveal different sides of her conflict with Puritan society.