Scarlet Letter Review Questions

1. Hester’s sin in the Scarlet Letter: A) is committing the acts of adultery with another man other than her husband, lead by lust, sexual passion, and admiration for a man she had not devoted her life to. B) Breaking religious and moral ethical ‘law’ in the Puritan society where a ‘true’ woman was one who was faithful to her husband while attending to all the domestic responsibilities a female provider were supposed to attend to as the male caregiver- the husband- provided; withholding all needs and desires of stepping out of place from the role given to avoid conflict in the home.
The consequences of Hester’s sins are is that she is left pregnant, alone, and looked down upon as the town ‘whore’ due to her little ‘one-night stand’. She is forced to wear a delicately- yet artistically-designed scarlet ‘A’ that stands for adulteress on her bosom everyday until the day she dies; becoming an exile in her village and forced to live in a remote area with her daughter, Pearl. Not only has Hester lost all her friends, family, dignity, and respect, she is fated to carry the burden of her sin with each passing moment of Pearl’s youth, constantly reminded that she had had intimate relations with another man that was brashly forbidden in her culture. Although Hester isn’t as defiant and carefree as she was when she had her rendezvous, she still keeps the same air of confidence, ferocity, and individuality she once wore upon entering and exiting the jailhouse.

Arthur Dimmesdale’s sins in the Scarlet Letter: A) having ‘relations’ with Hester Prynne when he knew she was married. B) Breaking religious and ethical ‘law’ in Puritan society that states the precise roles for a man, especially ones in power, and a woman.
The consequences for Dimmesdale’s sins are his ailing health that is steadily decaying him to his early- yet inevitable- death from the immense torture to his soul from have a guilty conscience of sleeping with Hester Prynne; she forced to wear the scarlet letter that causes her public humiliation that causes Dimmesdale to have a dark soul from the shame he has in staying quiet and hidden and the birth of a daughter he does not have the liberty or chance of befriending. This effects the minister’s character by giving him a miserable and intolerable life lived in a lie that he wish he could repent for in public, in response, allowing the young man to have a negative outlook on the world before him and everything of splendor. He suffers with his hand placed over his heart in a symbolic pain of the torture he feels in his soul from Hester Prynne’s scandal and his days hidden in solitude to remain undiscovered as her ally in their conjoined sin.

The sin of Roger Chillingworth in the Scarlet Letter is: A) the intentional torture of a man’s soul to pry out necessary information about his ex-wife and the scandal concerning her. B) Using such information to use against his friend, the town minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, in his emotional and physical downfall from the highest religious pillar in society to his dramatic death of public branding. C) Disowning his wife, Hester Prynne for her disgrace in their matrimony.
The consequences of the sins committed by Roger Chillingworth are simple the unhappiness and incompletion he feels once returning home from being a captive by Native Americans to see his wife bearing a child that is not his. He feels humiliated and dishonored when he sees Hester on the stage in town square, showing off her Scarlet Letter and the newborn infant she bore from it, as punishment. This dishonor and humiliation is portrayed when Hester sees her husband once her punishment of public humiliation and symbolic awareness has been served, his gesture of placing a single finger over his lips to remain unknown as her husband shows his discomfort and hurt pride while, also, his sin of disowning his wife. He is now a ‘divorced’ man living a lonely life as a physician while playing part-time detective in exposing the culprit of his wife’s fall from womanhood. The effect this has on Roger Chillingworth’s character is the ‘chilly’ disposition and cold demeanor he carries out of self-hatred for stealing away his wife’s youth with his old age and/or hatred for the man that was the ally in his wife’s sin that has remained quiet and hidden to preserve his reputation, holding his newfound personality up to his name as someone who brings a scare or “chill” down one’s spine.

2. Three characteristics of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s writing style would be: Allegory, descriptive wording to convey the five senses, and vivid imagery for the reader. The allegory was used as a technique to show how one thing can affect another and what comes as result of such union. One example of allegory would be Hester Prynne’s daughter, Pearl. Pearl is outcome of an intimate relationship her mother had with the minister, Arthur Dimmesdale. She is shown as the byproduct of something so evil and sinister, but is portrayed as a beautiful being with the grace and beauty of a fair maiden. Her symbolism is in her name. Her name is the great price her mother paid in giving birth to her out the sin of adultery and is the only treasure her mother holds dear. The child’s name conveys an expensive token that is searched for by all and paid with excessive amounts of money to be cherished. That same rationale is thought by Hester Prynne as she watches her baby grow with grace and beauty as she cherishes the only vale she has.

“But she named the infant “Pearl”, as being of great price- purchased with all she had,- her mother’s only treasure.” (Scarlet Letter page 82, paragraph 1)

An example of descriptive wording in Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter would be when he describes the scenery, setting, people, and emotions of such individuals with great detail and splendor. Since there were no printing presses back in Hawthorne’s era, the reader had to rely on intense descriptions in the novel to get a visual of what they were reading for better comprehension and understanding. The text was written in overly formal English but held captivating emotion and detail that allowed the reader to imagine the scene playing in their mind like a theatre. Everything from the descriptions of the scenery around the characters to the sounds of little miscellaneous items in the scene were described to give the reader feeling of the scene played before them with all the emotions the character’s feel.

“The day was chill and sombre. Overhead was a grey expanse of cloud, slightly stirred, however, by a breeze; so that the gleam of flickering sunshine might now and then be seen at its solitary play along the path.” (Scarlet Letter page 168, paragraph 3)

An example of vivid imagery in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s writing would be when he wrote his descriptive scenes between characters and their conflicts that would allow the reader to visualize everything taking place in great detail. Hawthorne put his readers in the place of his characters when writing and did so with extensive amounts of detail that created pictures laid out before the reader. It felt as if the reader were listening to a narration from the novel in their ear as they gazed into a picture that conveyed the scene down to the slightest component, imagining that they were in the characters shoes while the entire focused on them and their struggle with conflict.

“We have spoken of Pearl’s rich and luxuriant beauty: a beauty that shone with deep and vivid tints; a bright complexion, eyes possessing intensity both of depth and glow, and hair already a deep, glossy brown, and which, in after years, would be nearly akin to black. There was a fire in her and throughout her; she seemed the unpremeditated offshoot of a passionate moment.”


“Her mother, in contriving the child’s garb, had allowed the gorgeous tendencies of her imagination their full play; arraying her in a crimson velvet tunic, a peculiar cut, abundantly embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold-thread.” (page 93, paragraph 3)

3. Pearl, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth’s names are symbolic in the Scarlet Letter because, each of their names represents their personality in the novel as well as their purpose.

Pearl: Her name is symbolic because she is her mother’s only treasure that was paid for by a great price: loss of dignity, respect, family, friends, and true “womanhood”. Pearl is a priceless artifact to the protagonist and plays a role in her daily survival. Without Pearl, Hester Prynne would have no reason to live in a world were she is shone because she committed the acts of adultery. This conveys the “treasure” in Hester’s logic about her daughter as well as the price she paid to give birth to her.

Chillingworth: His name is symbolic because he is an older man with a cold disposition that everyone around him seems to take notice; due to his dishonor and humiliation from Hester Prynne. His demeanor is resembles one of a stoic stature when he conducts his business as a physician and his disposition- along with the clamor of his voice- is almost terrifying to all who are near. He gives off an icy or “chilly” front to show his inner feelings of betrayal while keeping others at arms length that serve no purpose to him from which he can gain.

Dimmesdale: Arthur Dimmesdale’s name is symbolic in the novel because it reflects his boring “Blah” personality throughout the book. He is the religious minister that has sinned with Hester Prynne through adultery, but, besides that, nothing else about him is interesting enough for the reader to really take a liking to the young man or even remember he was one of the main characters. He is “dim” and has no real purpose in the novel besides being Hester’s lover, and co-sinner, his die-hard religion related speeches and talks about heaven, sin, and other related holy things becoming tiring- if not annoying- to the reader after the tenth chapter.

4. Hester’s attitude changes from when she was released from the jailhouse to the last scene on the scaffold by her air of confidence and pride. When exiting the jailhouse year’s back- when Pearl was just an infant- she held her head high with a fake air of buoyancy to convey a false sense of a nonchalant attitude, despite her sin of committing adultery and public mockery. As she walked from the jail, she played the part of a strong woman without any care of her wrongdoing, but had the inner feelings of agony and humiliation in her heart and soul; wishing her torture and punishment would end and she could go home and be alone. On the final scene on the scaffold, she, Pearl, and Reverend Dimmesdale are before the town people while the minister confesses his sin as being the one who had ‘relations’ with Hester and the child she bore was, in fact, his; showing the scarlet letter branded on his chest to signify his sin. Hester, this time, did not put on a fake air of poise but held her head high with the man she thought would never repent for their sins and confess that he was the counterpart in her duo sin. She holds grace while showing herself proudly before the townspeople along side her ‘man’ and daughter, not afraid to show her affection for the clergyman as he slowly wilts away, along with the secret that had been eating away at his soul for years.

5. Hester is one of literature’s first feminist due to the fact that she defied the role society had given her to play in a strictly religious, male-dominated Puritan colony. Women back in the 1700’s were the “Angel’s of the Household”. They were supposed to be pure when married and were only allowed to have sexual relations with the man they devoted themselves to through holy matrimony. A ‘true’ woman was one who was white, a virgin, and middle-class, holding devoted religious faith and know-how of domestic abilities to keep the home in order and under natural societal law. The woman was the one who was expected to remain faithful and ignore all desires she felt for anything unholy that would have shamed her and her family, the man- although it was frowned upon but not punished as severely- allowed to have affairs outside the marriage.
Hester Prynne was that single woman who went against all Puritan laws and lived up to those sexual desires she had built up with forced entry because of her husband’s absence. Having had intercourse with another man and married, she was ostracized in her town and lost all respect and rights she had a “real” woman. Even with such disobedience, Hester never allowed her predicament to write the future of her life, seizing the opportunity of being alone and standing as a fallen woman, to lead and live her life the way she planned it; an option women in that era had not acquired because of their gender. Her defiance paved the way for many women after, serving as a guide for them to follow for self-happiness and self-thought. Hester is one of literature’s first feminist because she defied moral conduct and thought for herself, not letting a male tell her in any shape, way, form, or fashion, what to do and how to do it.

6. The second scene in the Scarlet Letter serves as the novels climax due to a foreshadowing of events with Arthur Dimmesdale. Reverend Dimmesdale stands on the scaffold where Hester and Pearl stood years back- when the scandal concerning the scarlet letter first became known- and lets out a scream to show his inner pain and torture due to his sin of partnered adultery with Hester. This scene foreshadows that the minister is a step closer in confessing his sins of adultery due to the fact that his guilt is becoming almost unbearable to handle and conceal, his conscience and neediness to repent to god for forgiveness taking more of a priority. This also serves as the novels climax because it shows intense reactions from the minister, who, throughout the course of the novel, remained quiet and unopinionated about the scandal concerning the Scarlet Letter. This is the minister’s first severe reaction about the scarlet letter and his affiliation with the sin. This shows that the minister is tired of remaining quiet about his relationship with Hester and that Pearl is his daughter, his care for his reputation almost nonexistent but still holding by a thread due to his confession still being withheld out of cowardice.

Links to Sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_literature