Rebekah Jiménez, Reuben Sinder & Lucas Rénique-Poole
English 10: American Literature
Jane Belton
Exam 2009
Final Exam Review Sheet:
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. (1850)
Overview:
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is set in the 17th century Puritan colony
of Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was set up as a ‘plantation of the
religious’. To the Puritan mindset the colony represented a great idealist haven and a
Godly objective. However, the society was sterile, false and gray, with truth, passion,
colour and emotion violently repressed, (as Hester Prynne was). There was no freedom of
religious thought; any non-conformists had the freedom to stay away.
The novel opens with Hester Prynne, a young woman, being punished for having
an illegitimate daughter (Pearl) with man whose identity is not yet disclosed to the reader.
She is made to stand on a scaffold and be publicly shamed, and required to wear a big
scarlet letter “A” (for “adultery) on her bosom. Her former European husband, Roger
Chillingworth then comes into town and becomes the town doctor, yet his real mission is
to find out who she had her baby with, but tells no one who he really is. Rev.
Dimmesdale, the revered town reverend and the father of Pearl is suspected by
Chillingworth, who has become corrupted by revenge. Dimmesdale wants to leave
Massachusetts with Hester and Pearl, yet Hester is tied to Massachusetts by the weight of
her sin. In any case, during his last sermon, Dimmesdale tells the truth and dies before he
gets to live happily with Hester and Pearl.
Characters, Key Terms & Symbols:
Hester Prynne: Hester is the protagonist; she wears the scarlet A as punishment for
committing adultery. Her husband Rodger Chillingsworth sent her to America from
Europe, but didn’t go with her. While in America she has an extramarital affaire with
Reverend Dimmesdale which leads to the birth of their child Pearl.
Mistress Hibbins: Mistress Hibbins is the sister of Governor Bellingham and is
considered at witch. She is the bridge between the world of the puritans and the world of
the forest. She invites Pearl and Hester to services where she awakens The Black Man.
Chillingworth: Hester’s Husband from Europe (Netherlands) he is an elderly scholar. He
arrives in Boston the day Hester is given her scarlet A punishment. He seeks revenge on
Dimmesdale who he’s positive committed the crime. Just before Dimmesdale dies, he
reveals that he is Pearls father. Chillingworth dies soon after because he has no objective
or purpose in life.
Pearl: Pearl is the daughter of Dimmesdale and Hester. She contains an otherworldly
quality, she flirts with the border of what is real and what isn’t. Likewise she is often
described as wild, impish and bird like, and maintains a close relationship with nature.
She fixates herself on the scarlet letter and dances on the boarder of the normal and
Rebekah Jiménez, Reuben Sinder & Lucas Rénique-Poole
English 10: American Literature
Jane Belton
paranormal, just as she stands on the border of the brook.
Exam 2009
The Black Man: The Black man is the personification of the devil. Services for the Black
Man take place in the woods and Mistress Hibbins invites Hester and Pearl to join her at
one of these rituals.
Governour Bellingham: Governour Bellingham believes that if Pearl continues to live
with Hester that it will lead to Pearls demise. Dimmesdale gives Bellingham a speech in
which he decideds to let Pearl remain with Hester, His sister is mistress Hibbins.
Dimmesdale: Dimmesdale is a very public figure in Boston. He has to keep his
relationship with Hester very quiet. The only time that Hester and Dimmesdale can be
together is in the forest. He is constantly reminded about his predicament by
Chillingworth who is seeking revenge on Dimmesdale.
Rose bushes: The rosebushes symbolize eternity and how nature will always outlive man.
The rose bushes endure much more then any of the characters and they still continue
living. Another view of the rosebushes, the domesticated roses growing in Governor
Bellingham’s house compared to the wild roses that grow outside the jail cell. The
governor’s European roses represent passion from the old world, an indulgence he takes
despite his position as Puritan governor. The wild roses are a symbol of the pervasiveness
of nature; the puritans were unable to eradicate the unbridled life and beauty present
before they established their dull colony. Roses are also scarlet like the letter, a sign of
passion and pure life, untouched by grey society.
Forest: The forest juxtaposed to the Puritan society is a symbol. In the forest anything can
happen. There are no rules in the forest, while in Puritan’s live in a very rigid where rules
are everything. There is a very clear distinction of what happens in the forest compared to
the forest where anything can happen. Nature and especially water are uncontrollable,
like emotions and it is foolish to believe that a society could eradicate it. (just as the
governour couldn’t eradicate an indulgence for the beauty of European roses, and the
colonists were unable to dissapear the vitality of nature, represented by the wild roses,
without a trace).
The Letter A: The A is such an important symbol in the book, it means many different
things. On the surface it signifies the act of adultery, but it means so much under that.
The A re-appears many times throughout the book. All the characters view the A
differently, it reminds Dimmesdale of his mistake, it reminds Chillingworth of the
revenge that he wants on Dimmesdale. The A appears at the end of the book in a meteor
in the sky too. The A, which pearl is obsessed with is bound to Hester, and try as she
might pearl stops her from getting rid of it. It represents how Hester’s sin ties her to the
“place of the crime.”
The Babbling Brook: The Brook is the biggest division in the book, it separates Pearl and
Hester from the rest of the town. The Brook goes on until you cant view it anymore
showing again that nature is always continuous. Likewise the brook’s flow and its
Rebekah Jiménez, Reuben Sinder & Lucas Rénique-Poole
Exam 2009
English 10: American Literature
Jane Belton
environs (the forest) can be interpreted in various ways to represent the course of the
book’s story
The “Black Man”: is a symbol for the devil. The “witches” of the town have rituals to
summon the Black Man. It is also used to refer to either Chillingworth of Dimmesdale,
but it is uncertain which it actually refers to.
Hester’s House: Located on the border of town and the forest, showing how she’s on the
border between the events that occur in the town, and the dark events of the forest. She
and pearl inhabit the borderlands between free, unbridled nature, passion and emotion,
and restricted, grey, sterile Puritanism. However, they are unable to fit into either.
Significant Passages & Themes:
Passages
 Passage # 1: The Babbling Brook
“Thus conversing, they entered sufficiently deep into the wood to secure themselves
from the observation of any casual passenger along the forest track. Here they sat down
on a luxuriant heap of moss; which at some epoch of the preceding century, had been a
gigantic pine, with its roots and trunk in the darksome shade, and its head aloft in the
upper atmosphere It was a little dell where they had seated themselves, with a leaf-strewn
bank rising gently on either side, and a brook flowing through the midst, over a bed of
fallen and drowned leaves. The trees impending over it had flung down great branches
from time to time, which choked up the current, and compelled it to form eddies and
black depths at some points; while, in its swifter and livelier passages there appeared a
channel-way of pebbles, and brown, sparkling sand. Letting the eyes follow along the
course of the stream, they could catch the reflected light from its water, at some short
distance within the forest, but soon lost all traces of it amid the bewilderment of treetrunks and underbush, and here and there a huge rock covered over with gray lichens. All
these giant trees and boulders of granite seemed intent on making a mystery of the course
of this small brook; fearing, perhaps, that, with its never-ceasing loquacity, it should
whisper tales out of the heart of the old forest whence it flowed, or mirror its revelations
on the smooth surface of a pool. Continually, indeed, as it stole onward, the streamlet
kept up a babble, kind, quiet, soothing, but melancholy, like the voice of a young child
that was spending its infancy without playfulness, and knew not how to be merry among
sad acquaintance and events of sombre hue” (162-163).
Analysis & Interpretations:
-Lucas: As a metaphorical overview of the whole book, wherein the brook
represents Hester’s life, the branches choking her flow the puritan elders who punished
her, and the leaves which clutter the waters are like the scarlet letter, a burden her
waters must carry. The “swifter and livelier passages” represent her life with Pearl at
the forest’s edge, where the leaves and impending braches are gone. The gigantic pine
represents Dimmesdale, who had once carried his head high above the canopy, but has
now fallen into the rotting darkness of the forest floor. The fungus worms and bugs that
eat away his wood represent Chillingworth.
Rebekah Jiménez, Reuben Sinder & Lucas Rénique-Poole
Exam 2009
English 10: American Literature
Jane Belton
-Jake: Once the tree was gone moss started to grow, but it was also beautiful. What
Hester was is gone, but now she is something new yet once again beautiful.
-Beauty and nature of the brook and woods juxtaposes with sterility of the colony.
Unlike the sterile, false town, the loquacious brook, like pearl speaks the truth; it cannot
lie.

Passage # 2: Pearl at the Seashore (cf. 178: Pearl’s Relationship w/ nature, cf.
Passage # 5: unatainability of a “better world” and “happiness”)
“Pearl, whose activity of spirit never flagged, had been at no loss for amusement
while her mother talked with the old gatherer of herbs. At first, as already told, she
had flirted fancifully with her own image in a pool of water, beckoning the phantom
forth, and--as it declined to venture--seeking a passage for herself into its sphere of
impalpable earth and unattainable sky. Soon finding, however, that either she or the
image was unreal, she turned elsewhere for better pastime. She made little boats out
of birch-bark, and freighted them with snailshells, and sent out more ventures on the
mighty deep than any merchant in New England; but the larger part of them
foundered near the shore. She seized a live horse-shoe by the tail, and made prize of
several five-fingers, and laid out a jelly-fish to melt in the warm sun. Then she took
up the white foam that streaked the line of the advancing tide, and threw it upon the
breeze, scampering after it with winged footsteps to catch the great snowflakes ere
they fell. Perceiving a flock of beach-birds that fed and fluttered along the shore, the
naughty child picked up her apron full of pebbles, and, creeping from rock to rock
after these small sea-fowl, displayed remarkable dexterity in pelting them. One little
gray bird, with a white breast, Pearl was almost sure had been hit by a pebble, and
fluttered away with a broken wing. But then the elf-child sighed, and gave up her
sport, because it grieved her to have done harm to a little being that was as wild as the
sea-breeze, or as wild as Pearl herself” (154-155).
Analysis & Interpretations
-The little boats: a futile attempt to “Get away from it all,” to go to nature
-The A fashioned from eel grass: The “A” is an unknown element that she knows
well, but doesn’t know its meaning, so she plays with it innocently. On another level,
The a she makes from eel grass is a fresh, new a, representing the new, fresh
perspective the townspeople have of the new Hester (this is at the point when she
begins to be renowned for her sewing). In playing with the “A” she is once again
reaching, reaching for things far beyond her age.

Passage # 3: Hester, Pearl & Dimmesdale on the Scaffold (cf. 185: Pearl asks if
Dimmesdale will appear in public as a family with them)
"Come up hither, Hester, thou and Little Pearl," said the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale.
"Ye have both been here before, but I was not with you. Come up hither once again, and
we will stand all three together."
She silently ascended the steps, and stood on the platform, holding little Pearl by the
Rebekah Jiménez, Reuben Sinder & Lucas Rénique-Poole
Exam 2009
English 10: American Literature
Jane Belton
hand. The minister felt for the child's other hand, and took it. The moment that he did so,
there came what seemed a tumultuous rush of new life, other life than his own pouring
like a torrent into his heart, and hurrying through all his veins, as if the mother and the
child were communicating their vital warmth to his half-torpid system. The three formed
an electric chain.
"Minister!" whispered little Pearl.
"What wouldst thou say, child?" asked Mr. Dimmesdale.
"`Wilt thou stand here with mother and me, to-morrow noontide?" inquired Pearl.
"Nay; not so, my little Pearl," answered the minister; for, with the new energy of the
moment, all the dread of public exposure, that had so long been the anguish of his life,
had returned upon him; and he was already trembling at the conjunction in which--with a
strange joy, nevertheless--he now found himself--"not so, my child. I shall, indeed, stand
with thy mother and thee one other day, but not to-morrow."
Pearl laughed, and attempted to pull away her hand. But the minister held it fast.
"A moment longer, my child!" said he.
"But wilt thou promise," asked Pearl, "to take my hand, and mother's hand, tomorrow noontide?"
"Not then, Pearl," said the minister; "but another time."
"And what other time?" persisted the child.
"At the great judgment day," whispered the minister; and, strangely enough, the sense
that he was a professional teacher of the truth impelled him to answer the child so. "Then,
and there, before the judgment-seat, thy mother, and thou, and I must stand together. But
the daylight of this world shall not see our meeting!'' (134).
Analysis & Interpretations
-The 5th Paragraph of this passage paints a vivid representation of the way the puritan
society has cornered and put down Dimmesdale, who at this point has become wracked
with guilt, caught between his role in society and his sin with Hester. When he stands on
the scaffold he feels “strange joy,” for that is his natural place, with Hester and Pearl
“communicating…vital warmth to his half-torpid system.” He belongs in this family,
rather than under intense pressure and “anguish” due to social responsibility and fear of
“public exposure.” However, just as Pearl is held back from nature and what she
perceives to be a better world, Dimmesdale is unable to withdraw from the public eye.
-“he cant confess, not because he’s a coward, but because he has to be there to help
everyone…To be the holy one… The burden of the entire society and their beliefs lies on
him” –Alice Ng
Rebekah Jiménez, Reuben Sinder & Lucas Rénique-Poole
Exam 2009
English 10: American Literature
Jane Belton
-We also see here Pearl’s loquacity and “innocent” understanding which does not
understand façades, but only truth. She does not understand, nor in this passage nor on
page 185, why Dimmesdale must join her family only in private.

Passage # 4: The New World v. The Old World (cf. 182-184: her sin and its
incarnation (Pearl) bind her to Massachusetts and the letter)
“It may seem marvellous that, with the world before her--kept by no restrictive clause
of her condemnation within the limits of the Puritan settlement, so remote and so
obscure--free to return to her birth-place, or to any other European land, and there hide
her character and identity under a new exterior, as completely as if emerging into another
state of being--and having also the passes of the dark, inscrutable forest open to her,
where the wildness of her nature might assimilate itself with a people whose customs and
life were alien from the law that had condemned her--it may seem marvellous that this
woman should still call that place her home, where, and where only, she must needs be
the type of shame. But there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has
the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and
haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the colour to
their lifetime; and, still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it. Her sin,
her ignominy, were the roots which she had struck into the soil. It was as if a new birth,
with stronger assimilations than the first, had converted the forest-land, still so
uncongenial to every other pilgrim and wanderer, into Hester Prynne's wild and dreary,
but life-long home. All other scenes of earth--even that village of rural England, where
happy infancy and stainless maidenhood seemed yet to be in her mother's keeping, like
garments put off long ago--were foreign to her, in comparison. The chain that bound her
here was of iron links, and galling to her inmost soul, but could never be broken. It
might be, too--doubtless it was so, although she hid the secret from herself, and grew pale
whenever it struggled out of her heart, like a serpent from its hole--it might be that
another feeling kept her within the scene and pathway that had been so fatal. There dwelt,
there trode, the feet of one with whom she deemed herself connected in a union that,
unrecognised on earth, would bring them together before the bar of final judgment, and
make that their marriage-altar, for a joint futurity of endless retribution. Over and over
again, the tempter of souls had thrust this idea upon Hester's contemplation, and laughed
at the passionate an desperate joy with which she seized, and then strove to cast it from
her. She barely looked the idea in the face, and hastened to bar it in its dungeon. What
she compelled herself to believe--what, finally, she reasoned upon as her motive for
continuing a resident of New England--was half a truth, and half a self-delusion. Here,
she said to herself had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her
earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length
purge her soul, and work out another purity than that which she had lost: more saint-like,
because the result of martyrdom” (72).
Analysis & Interpretation
Why does Hester stay?
Hester chooses to remain in Massachusetts because of an emotional mosaic of ties to
New England:
Rebekah Jiménez, Reuben Sinder & Lucas Rénique-Poole
Exam 2009
English 10: American Literature
Jane Belton
-Tied to new England because, even though its not a happy place, the weight of her
sin is so heavy that it ties her down, making her foreign to past happiness.
-“It is part of her punishment”- Alice Ng
-Pearl also ties her to New England, because she is the incarnation of the sin that ties
her to New England.
-Compare to pp.182-184 , When Hester tries to get rid of her letter, pearl throws a
tantrum. No matter how “evil” the letter and her sin are, she is tied to them.

Passage # 5: Pearl and Her Reflection (cf. 94, 181: Pearl and her Reflections, cf.
Passage # 2: the little boats)
“Here and there she came to a full stop, and peeped curiously into a pool, left by the
retiring tide as a mirror for Pearl to see her face in. Forth peeped at her, out of the pool,
with dark, glistening curls around her head, and an elf-smile in her eyes, the image of a
little maid whom Pearl, having no other playmate, invited to take her hand and run a race
with her. But the visionary little maid on her part, beckoned likewise, as if to say--"This
is a better place; come thou into the pool." And Pearl, stepping in mid-leg deep, beheld
her own white feet at the bottom; while, out of a still lower depth, came the gleam of a
kind of fragmentary smile, floating to and fro in the agitated water” (147).
Analysis & Interpretation
-Compare to Pearl sending the little boats into the ocean (in Passage # 2). She is
seeking “a better place” both in the pool, which she tries to enter, and in the ocean
where she tries to send at least something from her in the boats. However, both times she
fails. The ocean and water represents the ultimate “wildness,” the ultimate opposite of
puritan society, which, like the brook tells the truth. Pearl, being a child of nature
belongs more to this world of ultimate wildness, yet she cannot reach it.
-The repeated images of Pearl gazing at her reflection seem to exaggerate essential,
key characteristics of pearl; i.e. the unatainability of happiness (the “better world” in the
pool) in Passage # 5, beauty on cf. 181, and the letter cf. 94.
Themes:
 Pearl’s reflections The repeated images of Pearl gazing at her reflection seem to
exaggerate essential, key characteristics of pearl; i.e. the unatainability of
happiness (the “better world” in the pool) in Passage # 5, beauty on 181, and the
scarlet letter on 94.
 Pearl as a bird, a wild being Throughout the book pearl is referred to with
language such as “impish” or “bird like” and “wild.” Passage #2 discusses not so
much her wildness but her relationship to nature, in which she is impish to it,
injuring the little birds. Later, however, in the woods she interacts peacefully with
the animals. Passages # 2 and #5 show her longing to become fully “free” or
“happy” in a “better world,” represented by nature, and in particular water.
 Sin & Attachment to the place of the sin Throughout the book we notice Hester
stays in Massachusetts despite the fact that she could leave. Passage #4 discusses
reasons why she stayed. Later in the book, when dimmesdale and her resolve to
go to Europe, Pearl and the scarlet letter hold them back (p. )
Rebekah Jiménez, Reuben Sinder & Lucas Rénique-Poole
Exam 2009
English 10: American Literature
Jane Belton
 Nature, Truth, Colour, Beauty, Passion, Sin v. Greyness, Sterility: Throughout the
book, Hawthrone juxtaposes what the puritan community considered sinful, yet in
our eyes we might consider “beautiful” or “truthful” with the false sterility of the
puritan colony. However, the language that Hawthorne uses such as “dark” or
“sinful” about the forest confounds the boundaries of sinful and good. For
example, the forest appears beautiful in such scenes as passage # 1, where the
loquacious brook seems to tell the truth that the puritan community stifles, and the
collapsed pine grows into a new type of beauty (the verdant moss).
Possible Essay Questions


What “baggage” or “weight” do the Hester, Pearl & Dimmesdale carry? What
physical objects or key symbols are used to represent this “burden”? How (if at
all) do the characters try to rid themselves of this “burden,” both
emotionally/psychologically and physically? Are they successful? To what
extent? What burdens do other characters in the books we have read throughout
the year (Gatsby, Things They Carried, Cat, In the Blood, Bluest Eye)? How are
the things they carry different or similar to Hester, Pearl and Dimmesdale’s
“baggage”? How do they (from the other books) react to this “weight”? Cite
specific moments from the text(s).
What correlation do passion, sin, nature and beauty have in The Scarlet Letter?
Why are they so hated by the puritans, yet so vital and un exterminable? Why is
emotion and passion, like nature in the world, so irrepressible in the human spirit?
How are these larger themes like “baggage” or “burdens” to the Puritan society as
a whole? How are they different from the personal weight that Dimmesdale,
Hester & Pearl carry? How are they similar? Compare to the “funk” or “traces of
Africa” in The Bluest Eye.