The element of "the other" is strongly found in The Scarlet Letter. This element encompasses alienation, exclusion, and isolation, which can be found in the primary characters of Hester, Pearl, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth. These people are ostracized because they have "deviate[d] from others' expectations (Williams 3)." In Kesterson's Critical Essays on Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, he gives a good summarizing description of how the characters in The Scarlet Letter, Hester, Pearl, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth, are outcasts from society in different ways.

Hester, [...] makes emotional mistakes which lead to isolation; Dimmesdale, [...] [is] isolated as a result of an indissoluble inner tension; Chillingworth, [...] whose inhuman occupation leads to his separation from humanity; Pearl, [...] whose isolation from society and play-mates is the result of the negligence, mistakes or sins of the people about her, in particular her mother's sin. (Kesterson 130)

These situations and feelings are mainly the result of sin and...