The Scarlet Letter: Who is the Greatest Sinner? Geoffrey Chaucer once said, “ The guilty think all talk is of themselves.” In the case of Hester Prynne, a character in the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, it is true. Hester Prynne is a middle-aged woman who has committed a sin in the Puritan society and is punished by the society to wear a scarlet letter for life. She was often ridiculed by society for her act in sin and was the center of society ignominy. Her sin was adultery, but that is just a prelude to the other sins that she committed. Hester is guilty of th