Sin, lust, adultery, guilt, hypocrisy, and damnation: one may not believe that these are just some of the themes of a book written in 1850. The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, includes all of these and more. The novel, which takes place in 1642 in Boston, Massachusetts, is a story about a young woman, Hester Prynne, who is found guilty of adultery. The story begins with Hester and her newborn child being led from the town …showed first 75 words of 1463 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1463 total…of lies, adultery, sin, revenge, and lust, just to name a few. Hester Prynne's and Arthur Dimmesdale's daughter, Pearl, is one of the key characters of the story. She helps it develop through remarkable precocity, and how she notices and expands on relationships between the other three main characters: Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth. Her quotations and her constant childish questioning of Hester shows that she is far more mature than her age.