Chapter 3
At the edge of the crowd, Hester Prynne’s gaze is captured by an Indian in native dress and a small, oddly dressed white man whose shoulders are uneven. The stranger, later identified as a wanderer rescued by the Indian, approaches a townsman and asks for information about Hester’s scandal, her husband (the missing Master Prynne), and the father of her three‑month‑old child. The townsman recites the local gossip: Hester’s husband vanished after sending her to Boston, and no one knows the father’s identity.
The stranger, visibly agitated, presses the townsman for details, remarking that the guilty party should be publicly exposed. He and his Indian companion move through the assembled crowd toward the scaffold where Hester stands with her infant. Governor Bellingham, seated on a balcony with his sergeants, watches the scene; Rev. John Wilson, the senior clergyman, steps forward and calls Hester’s attention. Wilson engages in a debate with the young Rev. Dimmesdale about whether Hester should be forced to confess publicly. Wilson urges her to name the man who “tempted” her; Dimmesdale, uneasy but compelled by the governor, delivers a trembling appeal from the balcony, urging Hester to reveal the name of her co‑sinner for both his and her salvation.
Hester listens as Wilson and Dimmesdale repeatedly demand that she name the father, promising relief from her scarlet punishment. The crowd murmurs, and several voices—some harsh, some pleading—press her to speak. Hester remains silent, declaring she will never name the man, asserting that the scarlet letter cannot be removed and that her child must have a heavenly father. Dimmesdale, moved by her resolve, acknowledges her strength. The clergyman continues a sermon on sin, focusing on the scarlet letter’s symbolic terror.
After the confrontation, Hester is escorted away from the scaffold, led back to the prison where the scarlet letter glows within the dark interior, and disappears from public view. The chapter ends with the town’s lingering speculation about the letter’s ominous glow in the jail.