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The Scarlet Letterby Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter Essay Prompts Page Numbers

1. Which punishment is better for both the individual and the society: internal guilt or public shame?

In the novel, Dimmesdale must deal with his guilt, while Hester faces shame. We should think about whether these punishments are effective in turning people away from sin and back towards what is right.

2. Does society need to use shame and exclusion to punish those who break its rules?

Puritan society used shame and ostracism (excluding people from the group) to try to keep its members in line! Is this a good strategy? Is it necessary?

3. What does the book have to say about what seeking revenge will do to someone?

Hester’s husband, Rodger Chillingworth, is very upset that someone has trespassed against him in having an affair with his wife! He spends the book on a revenge quest against the father of Hester’s child.

4. Is it better, as Hester thinks it is, for only one of Pearl’s parents to suffer publicly for their sin?

Hester and Dimmesdale both sinned, but only Hester is caught. Is it morally acceptable for Dimmesdale to allow Hester to bear all the public burdens of her crime by herself?

5. Does God want us to have the truth out in the open instead of keeping secrets?

Both who Pearl’s father is and the fact that Chillingworth is Hester’s husband are kept secret from the whole town until the very end of the novel. Pay attention to how keeping secrets harms characters.

6. How can pride keep people from God’s light?Hester’s reputation is ruined, and people reduce her down to her one sin, ignoring the fullness of who she is. Reacting against the people’s cruelty and judgmental attitude, Hester’s pride makes her turn away from taking full responsibility for her sin. Dimmesdale, on the other hand, is very highly regarded in the town, yet his pride leads him away from God, too; he is afraid to confess his sin, for he knows it will ruin his reputation.

7. How does Hester’s story teach individuals to deal with the limitations of living within a society?

Hester wants to run away with Dimmesdale, following her heart rather than the rules of her society. Society, however, has a legitimate interest in protecting the institution of marriage and preserving social order. Is it okay for individuals to reject the rules and order that make society work? Is it even possible for them to do so and survive?


Chapters 1-4On lined paper, you will use “CEA” paragraph flow (with quoted text evidence!) to answer the bolded questions. On the 10th, 13th, and 18th of September, you will choose one paragraph to submit for a grade.

Chapter One

1. The prison door is man-made; what does it suggest about mankind/society?

2. The rose bush comes from God; what does it suggest about God?

3. The rose bush is also linked to Anne Hutchinson. What does that suggest about its meaning?

Chapter Two

4. What do the Puritan magistrates hope to accomplish with Hester’s punishment (standing on the scaffold in front of the crowd and wearing the scarlet letter for the rest of her life)?

5. How does Hester make her letter look, and what is Hawthorne suggesting about Hester’s character by having her make it this way? (Write a paragraph response on lined paper.) (47-8) WHEN YOU QUOTE, YOU NEED TO SET UP THE QUOTE.Ex: THE BOOK SAYS, “quote the text word-for-word” (100).

6. Hester sees scenes from her own past, rather than her actual surroundings, while she is standing on the scaffold. Then, when she comes back to herself and sees the marketplace, she feels that “these were her realities, —all else had vanished.” What is this meant to tell us?

Chapter Three

7. Hester recognizes her husband (CHILLINGWORTH) in the crowd as she stands on the scaffold. She is confused and frightened because she thought he had died at sea, and now she is worried about how he will react to seeing that she has cheated on him. Why does her husband put his finger to his lips, asking for her silence?

8. Does Dimmesdale really want Hester to name the child’s father? Explain.

Chapter Four

9. Do you agree with Chillingworth when he says to Hester, “Between thee and me, the scale hangs fairly balanced”? Why or why not?

10. What are readers supposed to gather from Hester asking Chillingworth if he is “like the Black

Man that haunts the forest round about us”?

Summary:


Chapters 5-6

Chapter Five1. The narrator says, “Perhaps there was a more real torture in her first unattended

footsteps from the threshold of the prison than even in the procession and spectacle that have been described, where she was made the common infamy, at which all mankind was summoned to point his finger.” Why is it more torturous to leave the prison than to stand on the scaffold?

2. Why does Hester stay in town when she could move away and start fresh? (Write a paragraph response on lined paper.) (71-2)

3. What does Hester begin to believe the letter is revealing to her about everyone else? Also, do you think she is right about this, or not? Why?

Summary:

Chapter Six4. Characterization: Describe Pearl’s physical qualities, personality, and behavior.

5. What might Pearl symbolize?

6. Explain Hester’s conflicted feelings about Pearl.

7. When Hester tells Pearl that Pearl comes from God, why do you think Pearl then says, “I have no Heavenly Father”? Also, why does Hester chide her daughter when she says this?

Summary:


Chapters 7-8

Chapter Seven

1. Opinion: Why does Hester dress Pearl like the letter? Does Hester intend to remind people of the scarlet letter by dressing Pearl to match it? Explain your thoughts.

2. Explain how the sunshine symbolizes truth in this chapter.

3. In what way is the convex mirror symbolic in this chapter? It symbolizes…

4. Pearl cries furiously when her mother will not give her a red rose. Why does Hawthorne keep linking her to the rose bush from the beginning of the story?

Summary:

Chapter Eight

5. In this chapter, Reverend Wilson jokes Pearl’s name should be Ruby, Coral, or Red Rose. Why does he think those names are more fitting than “Pearl”?

6. What is Pearl’s claim about her origin, and what is the deeper significance behind this statement? (Write a paragraph response on lined paper.) (100)

7. Why does Chillingworth look uglier and more misshapen now?

8. Hester and Dimmesdale both make arguments in support of Hester keeping her child. Summarize these arguments.

9. At the end of the chapter, Governor Bellingham’s sister (Mistress Hibbins) asks Hester to go with her to the forest, saying that she “promised the Black Man that comely Hester Prynne” would come. What is significant about Hester’s explanation for why she will not make that choice?

Summary:


Chapters 9-11

Chapter Nine

1. What was Chillingworth’s motivation for becoming Dimmesdale’s friend and doctor?

2. How has Chillingworth changed since he started on his quest for revenge?

3. Can you infer why Dimmesdale’s health is failing?

Summary:

Chapter Ten

4. Opinion: What has made Chillingworth’s investigation into the identity of Pearl’s father turn from a quest “only of truth” into something more sinister?

5. Opinion: Does Dimmesdale actually believe he is right to refuse Chillingworth’s urging to confess? Explain your thoughts.

6. What reasoning does the text give for Pearl being so free-spirited?

7. How is Chillingworth connected to hell in this chapter, and what does this show? (Write a paragraph response on lined paper.)

Summary:

Chapter Eleven

8. What is Chillingworth doing to make Dimmesdale suffer?

9. What gives Dimmesdale such a powerful presence with his congregation?

10. Opinion: Why won’t Dimmesdale confess in a more outright manner?

Summary:


Chapters 12-14

Chapter Twelve

1. What motivates Dimmesdale to go to stand on the scaffold at night?

2. Dimmesdale thinks the red “A” in the sky is calling him out—that it means “Adulterer,” but the people think it means “Angel” for the governor who has gone to heaven. What is this supposed to tell us about the Puritan habit of looking for signs?

Summary:

Chapter Thirteen

3. How and why does society change its stance toward Hester over time?

4. Is it pride or humility that causes Hester to hold herself apart from others? Why does she spend so much time nursing the sick and taking care of the poor?

5. Why would Puritan society have held Hester’s “freedom of speculation… to be a deadlier crime than that stigmatized by the scarlet letter”?

6. The narrator says the scarlet letter had “not done its office.” What was it supposed to do, and what did it actually do?

Summary:

Chapter Fourteen

7. Opinion: Is Hester right to blame herself for Chillingworth’s having become a “fiend” (fiend means devil)? Why or why not?

8. Why can Chillingworth pity Hester, but not Dimmesdale?

9. Why does Chillingworth say he cannot give up his quest for revenge, and are readers meant to believe his reasoning? Why or why not? (Write a paragraph response on lined paper.)

Summary:


Chapters 15-16

Chapter Fifteen

1. What does Hester suddenly realize about her feelings toward Chillingworth and their marriage?

2. Opinion: Is Hester correct to say that Chillingworth “has done me worse wrong than I did him”?

3. How is Pearl both a symbol of “justice and retribution” as well as “mercy and beneficence”?

4. Why do Pearl’s questions trouble Hester?

5. What part of this chapter shows that Hester is not taking responsibility for her sin? (Write a paragraph response on lined paper.)

Summary:

Chapter Sixteen

6. What symbolic meaning could the sunlight have? Explain your answer.

7. What does Hester mean when she says, “‘Once in my life, I met the Black Man. This scarlet letter is his mark’” (169)?

8. How is there symbolic truth in Pearl’s analysis of why the minister holds his hand over his heart?

9. What is the meaning of the forest in this novel? (Consider the following questions before you answer: Why does Hawthorne set the meeting between Hester and Dimmesdale in the forest? Why does the narrator say Hester is wandering in a “moral wilderness”? Why does the narrator describe the forest as both a place of natural beauty and the home of the Black Man?)

Summary:


Chapters 17-18

Chapter Seventeen

1. Does Hester still love Dimmesdale or not?

2. Opinion: Whose judgment of Dimmesdale’s life are we meant to agree with, Dimmesdale’s or Hester’s? Why?

3. When Hester reveals the fact that Chillingworth is her husband, why does Dimmesdale first blame Hester harshly and then forgive her?

4. Opinion: Are we meant to agree with Dimmesdale when he says, “that old man’s revenge has been blacker than my sin”?

5. What part of chapter 17 shows Hester is not taking responsibility for her sin? (Write a paragraph response on lined paper.)

Summary:

Chapter Eighteen

6. When the narrator says that Hester has learned “much amiss,” what is he referring to?

7. What does Hester do that shows she is putting the past behind her?

8. Near the end of this chapter, the forest and its creatures are naturally drawn to Pearl; they recognize in her “a kindred wildness.” Why is Pearl wild like this?

9. Why is the chapter called “A Flood of Sunshine?” Think about the symbolism! (Nature approves of their relationship; hope returns)

Summary:


Chapters 19-20

Chapter Nineteen

1. Pearl won’t cross the brook to join her mother and Dimmesdale until Hester picks up the letter; later, Pearl washes Dimmesdale’s kiss off in the water and kisses the scarlet letter. What message is she trying to send to her parents?

2. Do you agree with Pearl that Hester cannot yet take the letter off? Explain your answer.

3. In this chapter Hester shows she has decided to ignore the rules of society; she thinks it is right for Dimmesdale and her to be together because they are in love. Dimmesdale agrees to go along with her on this, although it is a new way of thinking for him. However, instead of being open about their defiance of society’s rules, they are going to run away. Do you think they are handling this correctly? Why or why not?

Summary:

Chapter Twenty

4. Why do Hester and Dimmesdale plan to go back to the Old World?

5. Why is Dimmesdale suddenly so full of energy after speaking to Hester in the forest?

6. What change seems to have come over Dimmesdale since his trip to the forest, and why is this happening to him? (Write a paragraph response on lined paper.)

7. Why does Mistress Hibbins talk to Dimmesdale now? What are readers supposed to make of this?

Summary:


Chapters 21-22

Chapter Twenty-One

1. What do Pearl’s comments about Dimmesdale show about him? (Write a paragraph response on lined paper.)

2. The woods symbolize freedom and individualism (and danger/sin); the marketplace symbolizes order and society (and rule following). Why can’t the story end in the woods? Why does Hawthorne bring the story back to the marketplace in the end? What theme (message or statement of truth) is he developing?

3. Hester is juxtaposed with the sailors and the Native Americans at this point. Why? How are they similar?

Summary:

Chapter Twenty-Two

4. What is the deeper significance of Hester’s words when she tells Pearl, “We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest”?

5. Why would Hawthorne place Hester outside, standing at the foot of the scaffold to hear the sermon, while Dimmesdale is inside the church, in his pulpit, placed up high above the people?

6. What tones are coming through in Dimmesdale’s sermon, and what do they foreshadow?

7. In this chapter, the focus returns to Hester’s scarlet letter. Why?

8. Why are all the same women from the beginning there now, tormenting Hester by making her letter the focus of their attention? Notice that one is not there, however: the compassionate young woman who spoke out against them being too harsh…

Summary:


Chapters 23-24

Chapter Twenty-Three

1. What is the devil/Chillingworth tempting Dimmesdale to do?

2. What does Dimmesdale say about whether or not he and Hester will meet in heaven?

3. On the scaffold, Dimmesdale asks Hester, “‘Is this not better than what we dreamed of in the forest?’” (232), and she says, “‘I know not! Better? Yea; so we may both die, and little Pearl die with us!’” (232). Hester thinks he is giving up – she wanted to run away with him. Which do you think would be better, running away or confessing? Explain your answer.

4. How does Dimmesdale free both Pearl and Hester though his words and actions on the scaffold?

5. Opinion: Does Dimmesdale’s public confession make up for his many years of silence? Why or why not?

Summary:

Chapter Twenty-Four

6. According to the narrator, what is the moral of this “miserable experience”?

7. Why did Chillingworth lose all of his strength and energy after Dimmesdale’s death?

8. What is “more real” about the life Hester can lead in New England? Why does she go back and start wearing the scarlet letter again? Has she finally learned the lesson of the scarlet letter? What was the lesson?

9. Hester believes that “sacred love should make us happy” (241). What does this mean?

Summary:


Final Note: The final words are the epitaph from Hester and Dimmesdale’s shared tombstone: “ON A FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER A, GULES,” which means, “On a black background, a red letter A.” So, Hester is buried under the symbol of her sin, but it’s deeper than that! When the Puritans made the tombstone, the black background was probably supposed to represent sin, and the red “A,” her crime of adultery. But couldn’t the background also represent the society’s sins of hypocrisy and judgment? And then the “A,” which burns brightly on top of a dark background, couldn’t it show Hester rising above society’s label of “sinner”? Perhaps this is the message Hawthorne told us, right in the first chapter, would be in the book! Society should be compassionate toward sinners; otherwise, people turn into cruel hypocrites.

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