The Scarlet Letter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It was an 1850 romantic work of fiction that had a historical setting. The main characters in the book are Pearl, Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, Arthur Dimmesdale and Governor Richard Bellingham.
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The Puritan scarlet letters were a symbol of shame and public punishment in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel "The Scarlet Letter." In the story, Hester Prynne is forced to wear a scarlet letter "A" on her chest as a mark of her adultery. The letter serves as a constant reminder of her sin and isolation from the Puritan community.
In Puritan theocracies, anyone who committed adultery was condemned to wear a scarlet letter "A" on them for the rest of their lives. This ridiculed them by letting everyone know that they are an adulterer or adulteress. Nathaniel Hawthorne writes about this in his most famous novel The Scarlet Letter.
According to Nathaniel Hawthorne ( and he can be pretty goofy sometimes), if a woman was thought to be an adultress (she fooled around with a married man) she had to wear a big red "A" on her clothing. Oddly enough, men were not subject to the same fashion accessory. Think about that one for a while.