The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850 Study Questions Chapters I and II 1. What two necessities, according to Hawthorne, must the founders of a new colony provide immediately? 2. Under whose footsteps was the rose-bush outside the prison supposed to have sprung up? 3. What kind of spectacle have the townspeople of Boston gathered to witness? 4. What is the significance of the scarlet letter A which is embroidered on Hester's gown? 5. What conclusion can you draw from the fact that every new colony must provide a prison and a cemetery at once? 6. How do most of the townspeople regard Hester's punishment—as too severe, too lenient, or appropriate? 7. Do you agree that the harshest aspect of punishment by pillory was that it prevented the confined person from hiding his or her face? 8. Hester thinks of her childhood home as she stands on the scaffold. What does this glimpse of her past suggest about her family background? 9. Hawthorne says the Puritan townspeople were "stern enough to look upon her [Hester's] death, had that been the sentence" but not heartless enough to mock and ridicule her. Do you agree that scornful mockery would be cruder than the attitudes Hawthorne describes here? Chapter III 1. The stranger who appears at the outskirts of the crowd while Hester stands on the scaffold is slightly deformed. In what way? 2. What explanation does the stranger make to the townsman he speaks with that accounts for his combination of' 'civilized and savage costume"? 3. The townsman tells the stranger that the judges have been lenient with Hester because of her youth and because she is probably a widow. What was the severest possible penalty for adultery in the Massachusetts Colony? How long does Hester have to stand on the scaffold? How long must she wear the scarlet letter? 4. What seems to particularly disturb the stranger after he has learned of the sentence imposed on Hester? 5. What clues to the identity of the stranger does Hawthorne provide in the first three paragraphs of Chapter III? 6. After hearing of Hester's crime and punishment, the stranger vows that her lover's identity will be known. How important do you think this vow of his will be in the rest of the novel? 7. In what way, according to the Reverend Dimmesdale, can Hester help her unknown lover atone for his sin? 8. How does the Reverend Wilson interpret the baby's response to Dimmesdale's entreaty? What significance do you think the baby's response may have?
9. The Reverend Dimmesdale awaited the result of his appeal to Hester to reveal her lover's name "leaning over the balcony, with his hand over his heart. . . ."On hearing her refusal, he draws back "with a long respiration." Why do you suppose he was holding his breath until he heard her answer? How would you describe what the young minister is probably feeling at this moment? Chapter IV 1. Where is Roger Chillingworth, the stranger of Chapter III, to lodge while the authorities work out his ransom with the Indians? 2. What two kinds of experience equip Chillingworth to be a physician? 3. Why does Hester at first resist Chillingworth's attempts to give the baby medicine? 4. What promise does Chillingworth exact from Hester? 5. At what point are you certain that Chillingworth is Hester's husband? Cite the passage that confirms your suspicions. 6. Why does Chillingworth say that he seeks no vengeance against Hester? 7. What do you think Chillingworth means when he says of the father of her child "I shall read (the letter of infamy) on his heart"? 8. At the end of the chapter, Chillingworth says, "Not thy soul. ... No not thine!" Which words would he have emphasized as he said this? What do you think he means? Chapter V 1. What reasons does Hawthorne give for Hester's remaining in Boston, where she is an outcast? 2. Hawthorne mentions three main occasions for which the people of Boston made use of Hester's sewing skill. What are they? What is one occasion for which Hester is never asked to make clothing? 3. What does Hester do with any spare money that she might have? 4. Hawthorne describes Hester as lonely "and without a friend on earth who dared to show himself.'' Who might be one friend who dares not show himself? 5. The people of Boston are willing to hire Hester to make clothing for public ceremonies, funeral apparel, and baby linen but not bridal veils. Why do you suppose they make this exception? 6. Describing how Hester is able to support herself and her child, Hawthorne says "She possessed an art that sufficed ... to supply food for her thriving infant and herself. It was the art -- then, as now, almost the only one within a woman's grasp -- of needlework." What does he mean by "the only [art] within a woman's grasp?" 7. Hawthorne also makes this observation: "Women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle." Do you agree that this is true now? Do you think it was true in Hawthorne's day? Explain your answer.
8. Explain whose "human eye" it is that Hawthorne is referring to in this passage: “But sometimes, once in many days, or perchance in many months, she felt an eye -- a human eye -- upon the ignominious brand, that seemed to give a momentary relief, as if half of her agony was shared. The next instant, back it all rushed again . . . for in that brief interval, she had sinned anew. Had Hester sinned alone?” In what way has Hester "sinned anew"? Chapter VI 1. How does Hester account for the aspects of Pearl's character that trouble her? 2. How does Hawthorne characterize the disciplining of children in the early days of the Boston Colony? 3. Cite some examples of the grim games played by the Puritan children. 4. What was the first object Pearl seemed to be aware of as an infant? 5. Hawthorne states the following paradox: "How strange, indeed! Man had marked this woman's sin by a scarlet letter, which had such potent and disastrous efficacy that no human sympathy could reach her. . . . God, as a direct consequence of the sin which man thus punished, had given her a lovely child . . . to connect her parent forever with the race and descent of mortals, and to finally be a blessed soul in heaven." Does the birth of "a lovely child'' born out of an adulterous relationship prove that the strict Puritan moral code is wrong? Explain your answer. 6. In describing the harsh disciplinary practices of the Puritan family, Hawthorne observed that these practices were "enjoined by scriptural authority." He is referring to Prov. 13:24: "He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him takes care to chastise him." Does Hester follow this practice of not sparing the rod? Do you think that Pearl would have been more obedient and docile if Hester had taken a different approach to discipline? Chapters VII and VIII 1. What two contrasting reasons did the church members put forth that would ensure Hester's losing custody of Pearl? 2. Hawthorne says that the suit of armor hanging in Governor Bellingham's hall was not meant "for mere idle show." What does he mean by that? 3. When Governor Bellingham demands to know what Hester can teach Pearl concerning the "truths of heaven and earth," what does Hester reply? 4. Hester is startled at the change in Chillingworth's appearance since she last saw him. How has he changed? 5. Explain the irony involved in the following passage: " 'I will enter,' replied Hester Prynne, and the bond-servant, perhaps judging from the decision of her air, and the glittering symbol on her bosom, that she was a great lady in the land, offered no opposition.''
6. The Reverend Wilson tells Pearl she must "take heed to instruction [in religious matters], that so, in due season, thou mayest wear in thy bosom the pearl of great price." In using this phrase, he has in mind these verses from the Bible: "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it" (Matt. 13:45-46). Explain in your own words what the Reverend Wilson is saying to Pearl. Where in this novel have you encountered another reference to a "pearl of great price"? 7. Summarize the Reverend Dimmesdale's argument on behalf of allowing Hester to keep Pearl. 8. Which side, if either, does Chillingworth take in the question of whether Pearl should be taken away from Hester? Chapters IX and X 1. Why, according to Hawthorne, were there few physicians in Boston? 2. What is the principal occupation of the only surgeon in the Boston Colony? 3. When does the Reverend Dimmesdale's health begin to fail? 4. Whose suggestion is it that Chillingworth and Dimmesdale lodge in the same house? 5. The word leech is an old word for physician. It also has these meanings: "a bloodsucking worm formerly used by physicians in bloodletting," and "one who clings to another to get what he" can from him." Explain the irony involved in using this word in the titles of Chapters IX and X. 6. Chillingworth finds in Boston "a new purpose; dark, it is true if not guilty, but of force enough to engage the full strength of his faculties." What is this new purpose in Chillingworth's life? 7. Dimmesdale's apartment is hung with tapestries depicting die Biblical story of David and Bathsheba and Nathan the Prophet. King David commits adultery with Bathsheba; in order to obtain her for himself, David orders that Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, be sent to certain death in battle. Nathan condemns the king's action harshly (2 Sam. 11-12). Why is it ironic that these scenes should be decorating Dimmesdale's rooms? What effect is the constant sight of them likely to have on the minister's sensibilities? 8. While Dimmesdale is asleep, Chillingworth makes a discovery that confirms his suspicions concerning the minister. What do you suppose he sees when he opens the front of the minister's shirt? Chapters XI and XII 1. What is the result when the Reverend Dimmesdale tells his congregation that he is the worst of sinners? 2. What measures does Dimmesdale take in an attempt to do penance for his sins? 3. Where have Hester and Pearl been before they arrive at the scaffold on their way home? 4. What does the minister reply when Pearl asks him if he will stand on the scaffold with them in broad daylight? 5. How do the other townspeople who see the red A in the sky interpret it?
6. How does the discovery Chillingworth makes (at the end of Chapter X) change the relationship between the minister and him? 7. Despite the pain it causes him, Dimmesdale's guilt appears to make him a better preacher. Cite the passage that tells why this is so. 8. Hawthorne says that some who may have heard Dimmesdale's cry from the scaffold would mistake it for "the noise of witches; whose voices, at that period,' were often heard to pass over the settlements or lonely cottages, as they rode with Satan through the air." Is he being ironic? Explain. 9. Pearl appears to know intuitively that Dimmesdale is her father when she asks him whether he will stand with her mother and her on the scaffold in daylight. What previous indication was given that she felt a special bond with the minister? Chapter XIII 1. What is the link that binds Hester to Dimmesdale? 2. How much time has passed since Hester first stood with the infant Pearl on the scaffold? 3. After a time, because of Hester's charity and good works, many refuse to interpret the scarlet A by its original meaning. What do these people say the A stands for? 4. After describing the extent to which Hester's feminine beauty has vanished in seven years, Hawthorne says: "She who has once been a woman, and ceased to be so, might at any moment become a woman again if there were only the magic touch to effect the transfiguration. We shall see whether Hester Prynne were ever afterwards so touched, and so transfigured." What future development in the novel do you think this last sentence might foreshadow? 5. Near the end of the chapter, in the paragraph beginning "Indeed, the same dark question often rose into her mind . . . ," Hawthorne paints a pessimistic picture of the role of women in Puritan society. Does Hawthorne strike you as an advocate of women's rights? In your opinion, have enough changes occurred so that today women are "allowed to assume what seems a fair and suitable position"? 6. The second-to-the-last paragraph of the chapter consists of this one sentence: "The scarlet letter had not done its office." What do you think Hawthorne means by that statement? 7. Briefly summarize the reasons why Hester is now better able to cope with Chillingworth than she was in her prison chamber seven years before. Chapters XIV and XV 1. What change in Chillingworth's appearance does Hester notice when she stops to speak to him? 2. Hester and Chillingworth each pity the other. For what does he say he pities Hester and for what does Hester pity him? 3. Does Chillingworth try to persuade Hester not to reveal his identity to Dimmesdale? 4. What gesture of the Reverend Dimmesdale's does Pearl repeatedly associate with her mother's scarlet letter?
5. "It lies not in the pleasure of the magistrates to take off this badge," Hester tells Chillingworth. "Were I worthy to be quit of it, it would fall away of its own nature, or be transformed into something that should speak a different purport." Has the latter possibility -- that the scarlet letter would have a wholly different meaning -- already happened? Cite evidence from the book to support your opinion. 6. What do you think Chillingworth means in the following passage? "Peace, Hester, peace!" replied the old man, with gloomy sternness. "It is not granted me to pardon. I have no such power as thou tellest me of. My old faith, long forgotten, comes back to me, and explains all that we do, and all we suffer. By thy first step awry thou didst plant the germ of evil; but since that moment, it has all been a dark necessity. Ye that have wronged me are not sinful, save in a kind of typical illusion; neither am I fiend-like, who have snatched a fiend's office from his hands. It is our fate." 7. Where, according to Chillingworth, does Hester take her first step astray? 8. How does this statement of Chillingworth's, made during his first conversation with Hester in the prison, accord with the statement in number 6, above? “I might have foreseen all this. I might have known that, as I came out of the vast and dismal forest, and entered this settlement of Christian men, the very first object to meet my eyes would be thyself, Hester Prynne, standing up, a statue of ignominy, before the people. Nay, from the moment when we came down the old church steps together, a married pair, I might have beheld the balefire of that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path!” 9. What do you think Hester means when, as Pearl begs to know the meaning of the scarlet letter, she thinks to herself, "No! If this be the price of the child's sympathy, I cannot pay it"? Chapters XVI and XVII 1. What are Hester's reasons for not wanting to visit Dimmesdale in his own study? 2. Why does Pearl tell Hester "the sunshine does not love you"? 3. What is Dimmesdale's initial reaction when Hester reveals Chillingworth's true identity? 4. Hester urges Dimmesdale to leave Boston and begin a new life. What possibilities does she suggest for his future career? 5. Hawthorne says that Pearl's character has an undesirable hardness and needs to experience "a grief that should deeply touch her, and thus humanize and make her capable of sympathy." Hawthorne then adds, "But there was time enough yet for little Pearl." What later event in the novel do you think this last sentence may foreshadow? 6. Although she has just heard the story of the Black Man the previous night, Pearl used that name in referring to Chillingworth in Chapter X. At that time she appeared to be referring only to his darkened complexion. Reread the passage in Chapter X where Hester and Pearl look up to see Chillingworth and the minister in the window. Explain both of these sentences Pearl says to her mother: "Come away or yonder old Black Man will catch you! He hath got hold of the minister already." 7. In the previous chapter, Hester could not bring herself to explain the meaning of the scarlet letter to Pearl. Yet in Chapter XVI, she tells Pearl that she met the Black Man once and the scarlet letter is his mark. What is she confessing to?
8. When Hester and Pearl catch sight of Dimmesdale, Pearl says "And, mother, he has his hand over his heart! Is it because when the minister wrote his name in the book, the Black Man set his mark in that place? But why does he not wear it outside his bosom, as thou dost, mother?" When else has Pearl associated the minister's habit of keeping his hand over his heart with Hester's scarlet letter? In what way is Pearl's question a perceptive one? 9. Hawthorne describes the meeting of Hester and Dimmesdale in the forest in this way: “When they found voice to speak, it was, at first, only to utter remarks and inquiries such as any two acquaintances might have made, about the gloomy sky, the threatening storm, and, next, the health of each. Thus they went onward, not boldly, but step by step, into the themes that were brooding deepest in their hearts. So long estranged by fate and circumstances, they needed something slight and casual to run before, and throw open the doors of intercourse, so that their real thoughts might be led across the threshold.” Does it seem natural to you that Hester and Dimmesdale would begin their first private conversation in more than seven years with small talk? Explain. Why do you think Hawthorne merely tells us that they talked about the weather, asked about each other's health, and so on, instead of including the actual dialogue? 10. What metaphor does Hawthorne use in the passage above to explain the purpose of Hester and Dimmesdale's small talk? 11. Dimmesdale says "Of penance, I have had enough! Of penitence, there has been none!" Explain how penance and penitence are different. What penance has the minister undergone? 12. Explain the meaning of the last sentence in the chapter: "Then, all was spoken!" 13. What, if anything, do you find ironic about the title Hawthorne gives Chapter XVII? Chapters XVIII and XIX 1. Why is Hester better prepared to make the decision to go away than Dimmesdale is? 2. In the paragraph beginning "Thus, we seem to see . . . ," what reasons does Hawthorne set forth that might lead Dimmesdale to flee with Hester? 3. When Pearl demands that Hester put the scarlet letter on her dress again, does she pick it up and take it to her mother? 4. When Hester has replaced the scarlet letter, Pearl kisses her. Immediately thereafter, Pearl does something that causes Hester to say "That was not kind!" To what action is Hester referring? 5. Near the beginning of Chapter XVIII, Hawthorne says that Dimmesdale's sin "had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose." What do you think he means by this statement? 6. When Hester throws down her scarlet letter, the transfiguration foreshadowed in Chapter XIII occurs and Hester's beauty returns. What is the "magic touch" that effects the transformation? 7. Nature itself seems to rejoice at the reawakening of Hester and Dimmesdale's love. Do you think we are supposed to think that the natural world really reflects the emotions of human beings? Or does nature simply appear different through the eyes of the lovers? 8. Near the end of Chapter XVIII, the forest creatures are naturally drawn to Pearl and recognize in her ' 'a kindred wildness.'' How do you account for this wildness in Pearl?
9. Read the following sentences from Chapter XVIII: "A wolf, it is said,—but here the tale has surely lapsed into the improbable,—came up and smelt of Pearl's robe, and offered his savage head to be patted by her hand." Why does Hawthorne suggest that this detail is part of a legend or folk tale? 10. Why do you think Pearl is so upset to find that Hester has removed the scarlet letter from her dress? Chapter XX 1. Where have Hester and Dimmesdale decided to go when they leave Boston? Why do they choose to go to Europe rather than remain in the New World? 2. How does it happen that Hester is acquainted with the captain of the ship now in the harbor? 3. Why does Dimmesdale consider it fortunate that the ship is not to sail for four days? 4. When Mistress Hibbins offers to introduce Dimmesdale to "yonder potentate you wot of," to whom is she referring? 5. Commenting on Dimmesdale's desire to preach the Election Sermon as a "suitable mode ... of terminating his professional career," Hawthorne observes, "No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true." How does this judgment apply to the minister's reasons for wanting to deliver the sermon? 6. After the minister's encounter with Mistress Hibbins, Hawthorne describes Dimmesdale in this way: "The wretched minister! . . .Tempted by a dream of happiness, he had yielded himself, with deliberate choice, as he had never done before, to what he knew was deadly sin." Why, according to Hawthorne, is agreeing to flee with Hester a worse sin than committing adultery with her? Chapters XXI and XXII 1. What have the crowds of people gathered in the market-place to witness? 2. Of what ceremony in England was the Election Day pageantry a pale imitation? 3. What piece of unwelcome news does the master of the ship on which she, Pearl, and Dimmesdale are to sail have for Hester? 4. What is particularly noticeable about Dimmesdale's manner as he walks in the procession? 5. Where does Hester stand during the procession and during Dimmesdale's sermon in the church? 6. As Hester seems about to be freed of the stigma of the scarlet letter, Hawthorne muses on her feelings: “Nor were it an inconsistency too improbable to be assigned to human nature, should we suppose a feeling of regret in Hester's mind, at the moment when she was about to win her freedom from the pain which had been thus deeply incorporated with her being. Might there not be an irresistible desire to quaff a last, long, breathless draught of the cup of wormwood and aloes, with which nearly all her years of womanhood had been perpetually flavored?” Do you think it possible that Hester would feel a twinge of regret at the thought of leaving the scene of her humiliation and banishment? Explain your answer.
7. Hawthorne describes the holiday mood of Puritan Boston as follows: “Into this festal season of the year—as it already was, and continued to be during the greater part of two centuries—the Puritans compressed whatever mirth and public joy they deemed allowable to human infirmity; thereby so far dispelling the customary cloud, that, for the space of a single holiday, they appeared scarcely more grave than most other communities at a period of general affliction.” Explain the meaning of the passage in italics. Is it a satirical or serious remark? 8. What possible outcome do you think this speech of Mistress Hibbins may foreshadow? “When the Black Man sees one of his own servants, signed and sealed, so shy of owning to the bond as is the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, he hath a way of ordering matters so that the mark shall be disclosed in open daylight to the eyes of all the world! What is it that the minister seeks to hide, with his hand always over his heart?” 9. At the end of Chapter XXII, Hawthorne writes: “The sainted minister in the church! The woman of the scarlet letter in the marketplace! What imagination would have been irreverent enough to surmise that the same scorching stigma was on them both!” In what sense is "the same scorching stigma on them both"? How-does Hester's stigma differ from Dimmesdale's? Chapters XXIII and XXIV 1. How does Dimmesdale appear as he leaves the church after his triumphant sermon? 2. How does Pearl react when Dimmesdale calls Hester and herself to mount the scaffold with him? 3. Where, according to Chillingworth, is the one place where Dimmesdale could have successfully escaped him? 4. What were some of the conjectures made by parishioners as to the origin of the minister's scarlet letter? 5. What explanation for the events of Election Day is made by the minister's friends to make him seem blameless? 6. Dimmesdale enters the church energetically and upright to give his sermon; he leaves it stooped and tottering. How would you account for each of these quite different ways he carried himself? What must we assume has happened to him during the course of the sermon? 7. Explain why Chillingworth desperately tries to stop Dimmesdale from confessing his sins on the scaffold. 8. What do you think Dimmesdale means when he describes his and Hester's sin as violating "our reverence for each other's soul"?
The Novel as a Whole 1. Some readers believe that the elaborate decoration that Hester embroiders on the scarlet letter indicates her rejection of the community's view of her act. Do you agree or disagree? Explain. 2. Irony involves a contrast between what would normally be expected and what actually happens. In verbal irony, a speaker says one thing, but means something quite different. Explain the verbal irony involved in the excerpt that follows. What is Hawthorne really saying? “Vanity, it may be, chose to mortify itself, by putting on, for ceremonials of pomp and state, the garments that had been wrought by her sinful hands. 3. Situational irony involves a contrast between what seems appropriate and what actually happens. Explain how the relationship of Chillingworth and Dimmesdale up to the point of Hester's revelation of the former's identity illustrates situational irony. 4. A third kind of irony, dramatic irony, occurs when the reader knows or suspects something important that one or more characters do not know. Explain how Dimmesdale's plea to Hester in Chapter III to name her fellow-sinner is an example of dramatic irony. What meaning do his words have to the onlookers? To Hester? 5. One consequence of sin in The Scarlet Letter is that the sinner acquires the ability to sense or recognize the sins of others. For example, in Chapter V, Hester realizes that the scarlet letter she wears gives her "a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sins in other hearts.'' Show how the same kind of insight is possessed by Chillingworth, Dimmesdale, and Mistress Hibbins. 6. Another consequence of sin in this novel is isolation. Cite passages that indicate the isolation of the three major characters: Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth: 7. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne makes extensive use of symbols—people, places, or objects that are made to take on a larger meaning. Explain briefly Hawthorne's use of the following as symbols: the scaffold, the forest, weeds and poisonous plants.