By Nathaniel Hawthorne
I read this in grade school. It isn't like I remembered. Let me see if I can sum it up.
Hester is the WS. Her BS is out of town for a few years (captured by Indians or something). She gets pregnant and has to wear the letter A (for "adultery", not "affair") on her chest. The town thought that would be better than killing her, since she had a kid. She refuses to reveal the OP.
Her BS returns, visits her in jail, changes his identity and makes her promise not to tell anyone who he is. He spends the next 7 or so years determining who the OP is (the priest!) so he can torture him mentally. The whole thing is kind of sick and you end up not liking the BS very much.
Hester is penned as being a kind person who does good things for her community. I found that annoying, yet it was satisfying (to me, but prob not to a WS) to hear that the townspeople still looked down on her. I was also glad that the OP basically tortured himself mentally throughout the years. In my mind I was thinking he deserved it.
I wasn't glad that the BS ended up a miserable wretch his whole life, but that's what would really happen if a BS spent all of their time and energy seeking revenge on OP instead of moving on, right?
I finished this a few weeks ago, so I can't remember who died at the end.
