Web viewReading One: Chapters 1-4. Paragraph Choices: 1, 3, or 4. How is the rose bush symbolic? What is Hester Prynne’s punishment? Why are the Puritan magistrates are

The Scarlet Letterby Nathaniel Hawthorne

Reading One: Chapters 1-4

1. How is the rose bush symbolic?

2. What is Hester Prynne’s punishment?

3. Why are the Puritan magistrates are treating her this way? (What do they hope to accomplish with this punishment?)

4. What is remarkable about the scarlet letter Hester makes?

5. What is Hawthorne suggesting about Hester’s character by having her make the letter like that?

6. Hester recognizes her husband in the crowd as she stands on the scaffold; why does this discovery both confuse and frighten her?

7. Her husband puts his finger to his lips, asking for her silence. Why doesn’t he want her to reveal who he is?

Paragraph Choices: 1, 3, or 4

Note: Many of you will go around asking other students for their answers. Not only will you not grow as a learner by copying other people’s work, but you will also get a zero if I notice you have copied off someone else or off the internet. Additionally, you should be aware that putting other people’s answers in your own words is STILL cheating. Finally, these questions/paragraphs are NOT GROUP ACTIVITIES. I EXPECT YOU TO SHOW ME YOUR OWN THINKING/WRITING.


Reading Two: Chapters 5-6

Chapter Five

1. Explain this line: “[there was] more real torture in her first unattended footsteps from the threshold of the prison, than even in the procession and spectacle [of her time on the scaffold].

2. Why does Hester stay in town when she could move away and start fresh?

3. Hester begins to believe the letter is revealing something about everyone else to her. What is it revealing?

Chapter Six

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

5. What might Pearl symbolize?

6. Explain Hester’s conflicted feelings about Pearl.

7. What is the significance of the dialogue that passes between Hester and Pearl at the end of the chapter? Analyze what it means or implies.



Reading Three: Chapters 7-8

Chapter Seven

1. How is the way Hester dresses Pearl symbolic?

2. In what way is sunshine symbolic in this chapter?

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

Chapter Eight

4. In this chapter, Reverend Wilson jokes Pearl’s name should be Ruby, Coral or Red Rose. Why doesn’t he think Pearl is a fitting name for her, and why does he suggest those names instead?

5. Write down two arguments Hester makes in defense of her keeping her child. (Please read all the way through the chapter before answering this. She speaks multiple times on the topic.)

6. What is Pearl’s claim about her origin, and what is the deeper significance behind this statement?

7. Write down two arguments Dimmesdale makes in support of Hester keeping her child.

8. At the end of the chapter, Governor Bellingham’s sister asks Hester to go with her. What is significant about Hester’s explanation for why she will not make that choice?



Reading Four: Chapters 9-11

Chapter Nine

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

2. This chapter is called “The Leech,” which used to be a name for doctors because they used leeches so often in their practice. Explain the deeper (symbolic) significance of this name.

3. Chillingworth is beginning to take on evil qualities because of his vengeance; find two quotes that prove this is happening.

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

Chapter Ten

5. Briefly explain each side of the argument between Chillingworth and Dimmesdale about the confession of sins.

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

7. Find two quotes where Chillingworth is connected with hell (this shows vengeance is evil).



Continue Chapter Eleven

8. Why does Chillingworth bring up certain painful subjects when he’s around Dimmesdale?

9. Why isn’t Dimmesdale able to see that Chillingworth is his enemy?

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

11. Explain what the text means when it says Dimmesdale “had spoken the very truth, and transformed it into the veriest falsehood” (130)?


Reading Five: Chapters 12-14

Chapter Twelve

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

2. Why does Pearl keep asking him to stand on the scaffold tomorrow at noon?

Chapter Thirteen

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

4. How has being scorned, ostracized, and punished changed Hester?

Chapter Fourteen

5. Hester sees evil in Chillingworth’s face and features; what theme (lesson/statement of truth) does this develop?

6. Why does Chillingworth say he cannot give up his quest for revenge?



Reading Seven: Chapters 15-16

Chapter Fifteen

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

2. Why do Pearl’s questions trouble Hester?

3. Find a quote from chapter 15 that shows Hester is not taking responsibility for her sin.

Chapter Sixteen

4. Carefully read through the scene with Hester and Pearl in the sunlight. What symbolic meaning could the sunlight have? Explain your answer.

5. Explain what Hester means when she says, “‘Once in my life, I met the Black Man. This scarlet letter is his mark’” (169)?

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



Reading Eight: Chapters 17-18

Chapter Seventeen

1. Explain the meaning of these lines: "She [Hester] doubted not, that the continual presence of Roger Chillingworth—the secret poison of his malignity, infecting all the air about him—and his authorized interference, as a physician, with the minister's physical and spiritual infirmities—that these bad opportunities had been turned to a cruel purpose.”

2. Does Hester still love Dimmesdale? Explain your thinking.

3. Find a quote from chapter 17 that shows Hester is not taking responsibility for her sin.

Chapter Eighteen

4. Why is the chapter called “A Flood of Sunshine?” Think about the symbolism!

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

6. 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? Basically, what is her wildness supposed to show or tell readers?


Note: if you think it’s better to look things up online instead of doing your own thinking, I’m telling you now the lady’s answer on enotes.com is wrong. Any idiot can write for sparknotes, cliffsnotes, etc. Just because you see it online doesn’t mean it’s correct. You grow as a learner by doing your own thinking, not by parroting back something you read on the internet.

Note: Actions are NOT symbolic. Her action may “show” something, but it cannot “symbolize” something.


Reading Nine: Chapters 19-20

Chapter Nineteen

1. When Pearl won’t cross the brook to join her mother and Dimmesdale, what message is she sending them?

2. What message is Pearl sending Dimmesdale when she washes his kiss off in the water?

3. Do you agree with Pearl that Hester hasn’t learned her lesson, the lesson the scarlet letter is supposed to teach, and therefore cannot yet take the letter off? Explain your answer.

4. Hester has decided to ignore the rules of society and say that it is right for she and Dimmesdale to be together because they are in love; Dimmesdale has agreed 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, they are going to run away. Do you think they are handling this correctly? Explain.

Chapter Twenty

5. Dimmesdale is tempted to speak blasphemies, tempted to say that our souls are not immortal, tempted to hurt the girl’s feelings and say something evil to her. Why is this happening to him?

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



Reading Ten: Chapters 21-22

Chapter Twenty-One

1. How do Pearl’s comments about Dimmesdale show how weak and cowardly he is?

2. The woods symbolize freedom and individualism; the marketplace symbolizes order and society. Think about why the story can’t end in the woods and why Hawthorne brings the story back to the marketplace in the end. What theme (message or statement of truth) is he developing?

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

Chapter Twenty-Two

4. 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?

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

6. Why does the focus return to Hester’s scarlet letter? Everyone is looking at it, and it is burning worse than ever. She was thinking she could just throw it away, people supposedly had gotten over it and thought her “able” and good, but what does this show?



Reading Eleven: Chapters 23-24

Chapter Twenty-Three

1. After Hester said they should run away, Dimmesdale stopped feeling sick and guilty, and he was full of energy. However, after giving his speech, he is drained of energy. What did this energy represent, and why did he lose it?

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

3. Does Dimmesdale consider himself saved or damned, and what does Dimmesdale say about whether or not they will meet in heaven?

4. 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.

5. When Pearl kisses Dimmesdale, the novel says “the spell is broken” (234) and she is now finally free to grow up to be a normal woman; she doesn’t have to be a weird, defiant, and angry spirit any more. Why was she such a strange child, under a “spell,” as the story says, and why is she now free from that spell?

6. What does Dimmesdale teach Hester though his words and actions on the scaffold?

Paragraph Choices: No Paragraph


Chapter Twenty-Four

7. Explain what the narrator means when he says the moral of this “miserable experience” is “Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!” (238).

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

9. What does it mean when Hester says that one day a woman will come and show that “sacred love should make us happy” (241)?

10. In the end, Hester stops trying to escape the consequences of her actions—she has finally learned the lesson of the scarlet letter! How does the way she chooses to live the rest of her life prove she has finally learned to face her sin and her past?

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Web viewReading One: Chapters 1-4. Paragraph Choices: 1, 3, or 4. How is the rose bush symbolic? What is Hester Prynne’s punishment? Why are the Puritan magistrates are