The Scarlet Letter
Chapters 1-4
The Prison-Door
Hawthorne opens
The Scarlet Letter
just outside a
prison door in the
Puritan village of
Boston in the
early 1640s.
The Prison-Door
The Scarlet Letter is the
story of a crime that
has already been
committed, of
characters whose lives
have already been
darkened by guilt and
disgrace….
The Prison-Door
Look carefully at the
details of the opening
scene: “The sadcolored garments” of
the spectators; the
prison-door itself,
“Heavily timbered
with and studded with
iron spikes.
The Prison-Door
• These details create a
somber mood; they
paint a cheerless
picture. And they
hint, as well, at a
society that places
punishment far above
forgiveness on its
scale of values.
The Prison-Door
• However, one note of
color relieves the gloom.
A wild rose bush
blossoms by the prison
door.
• The rose bush suggests a
world beyond the narrow
confines of the Puritan
community.
The Prison-Door
A world where
beauty and
vibrant color
flourish and
crime finds
forgiveness,
tolerance, and
pity.
The Prison Door vs. The Rosebush
Hawthorne is already
establishing a contrast here in
the beginning of the novel
where the prison door
represents the oppressive,
unforgiving, even hypocritical,
Puritan society to that of the
rosebush/nature, which
represents goodness,
forgiveness, and hope.
Human Frailty and Sin
In Hawthorne’s discussion of the inevitability
of prisons wherever human beings settle, he
introduces the idea of human frailty and sin.
His sympathy toward this human tendency
can be seen in his offer to the reader of a
rose from the bush outside the prison, a
“sweet moral blossom that may . . . relieve
the darkening close of a tale of human
frailty. . . .”
Hypocrisy
• Hypocrisy is evident in the harsh
description of the pious but vindictive
women who await Hester outside the
prison.
• They are in contrast to the description
of the beautiful, graceful, and proud
protagonist –ironically, a convicted
adulterer.
Scaffold
• The scaffold introduced in the second
chapter represents public exposure, in
opposition to what is hidden in people’s
hearts.
• This symbol is a dramatic center point upon
which the theme of human frailty and
conflict between the principal characters
will be played out.
Foreshadowing
• Hester’s recollection of the “misshapen scholar”
from her past foreshadows his appearance in
Chapter III, “The Recognition.”
• Suspense builds as the reader wonders about the
nature of the relationship between Hester and this
man who now terrifies her and who questions her
about the identity of her lover.
• His initial curiosity about her lover foreshadows
what will become an obsession for him.
Characterization
• The omniscient point of view
employed by Hawthorne allows for
direct characterization.
• Symbols and dialogue contribute to
indirect characterization.
Hester Prynne (Graphic Organizer)
• Hawthorne directly describes Hester Prynne
as a “figure of perfect elegance” whose
“beauty shone out and made a halo of the
misfortune and ignominy in which she was
enveloped.”
• His use of light-associated vocabulary links
Hester Prynne symbolically with goodness
in the human soul and with redemption.
Hester Prynne (Graphic Organizer)
• Hester is indirectly characterized as a
shameful woman according to the women in
the market place, but they admit she has
“good skill at her needle.”
• However, in the same breath they call her a
“brazen hussy.”
• A man in the crowd refers to her as one
“youthful and fair.”
Hester Prynne (Graphic Organizer)
• Hester is a graceful heroine: proud, but that
is her salvation in the face of these cruel
townspeople.
• She is a single mother who alone must
provide for herself and her child.
• She internally is terrified and frightened of
her future, but she does not want to give the
Puritan society the satisfaction of seeing her
afraid.
Chillingworth
• Chillingworth is directly described both as Hester
remembers him and as he appears in the crowd.
• Their dialogue reveals the unsatisfying
relationship that has shaped these two characters.
In the prison cell, Hester asks her husband, “Art
thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest
round about us?”
• In local folklore the Black Man, associated with
the forest, is the Devil.
The Scarlet Letter
Upon finishing The
Scarlet Letter in
1850, Nathaniel
Hawthorne read the
manuscript to his
wife, Sophia.
The Scarlet Letter
“It broke her heart,”
Hawthorne wrote, “and
“sent her to bed with a
grievous headache,
which I look upon as a
triumphant success.”
The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter is
peopled with
characters who are
meant to be the
embodiments of
moral traits, rather
than realistic, living
figures.
The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter
displays Hawthorne’s
lifelong preoccupation
with the themes of
secrecy and guilt, the
conflict between
intellectual and moral
pride, and the lingering
effects of Puritanism.
Original title page
The Scarlet Letter
The year is 1642.
The place is Boston,
a small Puritan
settlement. Before
the town jail, a group
of somber people
wait with stern
expressions.
The Plot
They are expecting
Hester Prynne, a
woman convicted
of adultery.
The Scarlet Letter
You will not know it
yet. But even this
early, Hawthorne has
marked the thematic
boundaries of his
novel:
– law and nature
– repression and freedom
The Scarlet Letter
“The Market Place” is
some curtain-raiser.
In one vivid image,
you have the whole
story. The lines of
conflict are drawn, the
issues defined, the
characters placed in
relation to one
another.
The Scarlet Letter
The image Hawthorne
gives us is that of a
young woman taken in
adultery, and standing
on a scaffold in the
midst of a hostile
crowd.
The Scarlet Letter
This is Puritan
Boston, where
private wrongdoing
is
public knowledge.
The Scarlet Letter
Chapters V - VIII
Novel Structure
• Chapters of expository narration link
together dramatic scenes in this section of
the novel.
• Chapters V – VIII are almost entirely
descriptive, bringing the reader forward in
time to what appears to be the first time in
three years that the four principal characters
have been together.
Theme: Hester
• Hester is sought out for her talent but
shunned for her person; however, this
ALIENATION from society is not as
distressing to Hester as is her
disillusionment about others:
• The scarlet A has given her “a sympathetic
knowledge of the hidden sin in other
hearts.”
Theme: Pearl
• The wages of sin are paid by Pearl as well.
• “Pearl was a born an outcast of the infantile
world.”
• Like her mother, she has a preternatural
insight.
• She “comprehended her loneliness” and her
behavior reflected such awareness; her
behavior toward Dimmesdale in Chapter
VIII signals an awareness of his importance
to her life.
Theme: Dimmesdale
• It is Dimmesdale who articulates Pearl’s place in
Hester’s process of REDEMPTION
• Arguing on behalf of Hester keeping custody of
her daughter, he explains to Gov. Bellingham that
“if she bring the child to heaven, the child also
will bring its parent thither.”
• The narrator reminds the reader of this by Hester’s
refusal to join Mistress Hibbins in the forest:
“Even thus early had the child saved her from
Satan’s snare.”
Symbol: The Scarlet Letter
• The “beating” of the letter alerts Hester to
the secret sin in others
• Pearl’s clothes “reminded the beholder of
the token which Hester Prynne was doomed
to wear upon her bosom.”
• Pearl, like the beautifully embroidered
scarlet letter, is “an analogy between the
object of her [Hester’s] affection and the
emblem of her guilt and torture.”
Symbol: Flower/Weeds Imagery
• Pearl is described as an “immortal flower, out of
the rank luxuriance of a guilty passion.” In
contrast to Pearl, the Puritan children are
described as “the ugliest weeds of the garden . . .
whom Pearl smote down and uprooted, most
unmercifully.”
• In the garden at the Governor’s Hall, Pearl’s
demand for a rose is reminiscent of the rose by the
prison door the narrator offered the reader in the
first chapter as a “sweet moral blossom.”
Symbol: Flower/Weeds Imagery
• Pearl claims to be a rose plucked from the
bush by the prison door, and the reader can
assume that it will be she who is to “relieve
the darkening close of a tale of human
frailty and sorrow.”
Symbol: Light/Sun vs. Shade/Dark
• Pearl is thrilled at the grandeur of the
governor’s house and wants the sunshine
that gleams off its front; to this her mother
says, “Thou must gather thine own
sunshine. I have none to give thee!”
• Hester no longer has the innocent moral
goodness the sun represents. She has also
conformed to the puritan society by dulling
her appearance and being subdued.
Symbol: Light/Sun vs. Shade/Dark
• At the appearance of the governor and his
visitors, who immediately spot Pearl, “[t]he
shadow of the curtain fell on Hester Prynne.
. . .”
• It is several moments before they see her
and begin the inquisition to find evidence to
remove her child from her custody.
Symbol: Light/Sun vs. Shade/Dark
• Roger Chillingworth’s features are dark and
seem to grow “duskier” as he whispers to
Dimmesdale during Mr. Wilson’s interview
with Pearl.
• This is indicative of his darkening moral
character.
Symbol: Light/Sun vs. Shade/Dark
• Dimmesdale, after making a splendid
argument on Hester’s behalf, withdrew
from the group “and stood with his face
partially concealed in the heavy folds of the
window curtain, while the shadow of his
figure, which the sunlight cast upon the
floor, was tremulous with the vehemence of
his appeal.”
• The interplay between shadow and sunlight
is representative of Dimmesdale’s internal
conflict between good and evil.
Irony
• Dimmesdale, whose health has been
declining as a physiological response to his
guilt, has consulted a doctor, Roger
Chillingworth, the man who has sworn to
uncover Hester’s lover.
• This, coupled with the fact that it is
Dimmesdale who intervenes to keep Hester
from losing Pearl, creates compelling
dramatic irony.
• That Hester says to Dimmesdale the child
rather than my child adds to the dramatic
irony.
Characterization: Pearl
• Hester’s daughter Pearl is frequently treated as a
symbolic character.
• Considering her as an element of an allegorical
tale lends the characterization credibility.
• “In giving her existence, great law had been
broken; and the result was a being whose elements
were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in
disorder”
• She is both the curse and the blessing of human
frailty: both the challenge that Hester must face
everyday and the hope that is her only consolation
and possibility of redemption.
Characterization: Pearl
• Worth noting as well is the symbolism of
her name.
• Pearls are rare and abnormal growths of
various irregular shapes formed by irritation
within the shell of some oysters.
• Hawthorne states in Chapter VI that
“[Hester] named the infant ‘Pearl,’ as being
of great price – purchased with all she had –
her mother’s only treasure!”
The Scarlet Letter
Chapters 9 - 12
Novel Structure
• Seven years after the initial scene in the market place,
the four principal characters are at the scaffold again.
• Finally Dimmesdale stands beside Hester and Pearl,
but only in the safety of night.
• Chillingworth, who stood originally at the fringe of
the market place and swore he would discover
Hester’s partner, sees the three of them, comes
forward, and in the appearance of kindness (dramatic
irony) leads home the minister whom he now knows
also bears an “A” upon his breast.
Literary Elements: Theme
 Dimmesdale’s hypocrisy and guilt begin to
affect his perception of reality. He fasts to the
point of hallucinating.
“None of these visions ever quite deluded him .
. .”
Dimmesdale’s distrust in his perceptions
hinders his ability to see Chillingworth as the
danger he is. By all appearances Chillingworth
is a solicitous physician and friend, but the
reality is entirely different.
Literary Elements: Irony
• Dimmesdale, ironically, is able to touch his
congregation not despite his transgression,
but because of it.
• His moment of human frailty seven years
prior provided him with insight “that give
him sympathies so intimate with the sinful
brotherhood of mankind. . . .”
Symbol: The Scarlet Letter
• The reader can surmise that Chillingworth discovers an
“A” on Dimmesdale’s chest.
• On the scaffold three of the characters scarred by the
brand of adultery stand together. “And there stood the
minister, with his hand over his heart; and Hester
Prynne, with the embroidered letter glimmering on her
bosom; and little Pearl, herself a symbol, and the
connecting link between those two.”
• The red zenith “A” that marked the night sky while the
three stood upon the scaffold highlights for Dimmesdale
his culpability. Ironically the “A” is interpreted by the
townspeople as standing for Angel. This foreshadows
the transformation the scarlet “A” worn by Hester will
undergo.
Pearl
• The preternatural awareness or knowledge of
human relations that Pearl possesses
continues to be developed in Chapters X –
XII.
• She warns her mother away from
Chillingworth, the Black Man who, she
claims, already has control of the minister.
• On the scaffold, she has the mature
awareness to realize Dimmesdale, who will
stand with her and her mother at night, will
not have that same courage in the morning.
Literary Elements: Characterization
• Hawthorne begins the narration of Chapter
IX with the direct characterization of
Chillingworth.
• The psychological profile of Chillingworth
is actually gracious, for he is described as
having intuition, “no intrusive egotism,”
and the ability “to bring his mind into such
affinity with his patient’s that this last shall
unawares have spoken what he imagines
himself only to have thought,” all of which
will be his tools to destroy Dimmesdale.
Literary Elements: Characterization
• The transformation in the man is clear. “At first,
his expression had been calm, meditative, scholarlike. Now, there was something ugly and evil in
his face . . . “
• The physical description of Chillingworth paints
the picture of a man with the flames of Hell in his
eyes and twisted by evil (Chapter X).
• When he returns the minister’s glove, the sexton
suggests it was Satan who saw fit to steal it; the
reader could suppose that perhaps it was
Chillingworth indeed who planted the glove at the
scaffold.
Literary Elements: Characterization
• Physical attributes are also employed to
emphasize Dimmesdale’s guilt; he is pale and
sickly
• When being interrogated by his physician on
the issue of unconfessed crimes, he grips “hard
at his breast, as if afflicted with an importunate
throb of pain.”
Literary Elements: Irony
• Leech is an archaic term for a physician, and
leeches were tools of the trade. It is an
effective double-entendre, because
Chillingworth is “sucking the life” out of
Dimmesdale.
• A physician, whose mission is to cure,
Chillingworth affixes himself to his patient in
order to destroy him.
Literary Elements: Biblical Allusions
• The room in which Dimmesdale lives has
tapestries depicting the story of David,
Bathsheba, and Nathan the Prophet. King
David had an adulterous affair with Bathsheba
and was denounced by Nathan (2 Samuel 11 –
12).
• While standing on the scaffold, Dimmesdale
mutters, “It is done!” and covers his face with
his hands. Jesus on the cross said, “It is
finished,” and then bowed his head (John
19:30).
The Scarlet Letter
Chapters 13 - 19
Literary Elements: Irony
 Hester, the “brazen hussy” sentenced to
wearing the scarlet letter, has been transformed
as has the meaning of the “A.”
She has lost her luster and sexuality and the
“self-ordained . . .Sister of Mercy” wears is
now interpreted by many to mean Able.
The thoughtful dimension of Hester’s character
presented in Chapter XIII is ironically much
like Chillingworth’s before his transformation
to “a fiend”.
Literary Elements: Symbol
• The motif of a maze or a dark path runs
through this chapter section.
• Hester is described as wandering about in the
“dark labyrinth of the mind.”
• In her appeal to Roger Chillingworth to
forgive Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester calls the
life she, Pearl, and Dimmesdale live a
“dismal maze.”
• Forest imagery is an element of this motif.
Literary Elements: Forest Symbol
• The forest serves two roles:
1. “the primeval forest . . . moral
wilderness”; a place where the
Black Man is believed to meet his
followers. (forest at night)
2. an oasis of freedom where the
rules of nature not those of society,
reign. (forest during the day)
Literary Elements: Symbols
• The opposing natures of town and forest are
significant. The town, once wilderness but
now tamed, is the confining society that will
condemn Dimmesdale , Hester, and their child;
but in the forest the rules of nature apply.
• There they are intimate and unrestrained.
• Young Pearl is the child of this freedom and
completely at home in the forest environment.
Literary Elements: Imagery
• Throughout these chapters the juxtaposition of shadow
and sunlight illustrates the contrast of innocence and
guilt:
– Pearl is bathed in sunlight wherever she skips on the dark path.
– When Hester attempted to step into the circle of sunshine that
shone upon her daughter, “the sunshine vanished.”
– In the shaded woods Hester waited to speak with Dimmesdale
for the first time in seven years.
– As Hester convinces her lover of hope of a future, the
previously shaded forest area becomes awash with sunlight.
Literary Elements: Personification
• The symbolic nature of the forest is
heightened by personification:
– In the forest surroundings “All these giant trees
and boulders . . . seemed intent on making a
mystery of the course of this small brook.”
– The brook is symbolic of Pearl (“Pearl
resembled the brook. . .”) “But the brook, in the
course of its little lifetime among the foresttrees, had gone through so solemn an
experience that it could not help talking about
it.”
Literary Elements: Personification
• The trees under which Hester and
Dimmesdale sit groan as if “telling the sad
story of the pair that sat beneath, or
constrained to forebode evil to come,”
foreshadowing the conclusion.
Literary Elements: Foreshadowing
• Also foreshadowing her crucial encounter with
Dimmesdale is Hester’s response to Chillingworth’s
news that the magistrate of the town had discussed her
removing the “A.”
• Hester’s response to this is, “Were I worthy to be quit
of it, it would fall away of its own nature . . .”
• When Hester and Dimmesdale meet in the forest and
with her belief in the consecrated nature of their love,
only then does Hester remove the “A” imposed by the
town.
Literary Elements: Foreshadowing
• The encounter between Dimmesdale and
Hester is foreshadowed in Chapters XIII and
XIV. Though the years have taken a toll on
Hester’s sensuality, the reader is assured that “
[s]he who has once been woman . . . might at
any moment become a woman again, if there
were only the magic touch . . . We shall see
whether Hester Prynne were ever afterwards so
touched, and so transfigured.”
Literary Elements:
Characterization
• Pearl is mirrored quite literally in the wilderness when
she sees her reflection in the pool, an image with the
“intangible quality” of the child herself.
• She is compared to the brook that flows through the
forest maze babbling a melancholy song; however, the
narrator makes it clear that her song is not a sad one.
• She has not yet been touch with a grief that would “
humanize and make her capable of sympathy”
Literary Elements:
Characterization
• “She danced and sparkled, and prattled airily
along her course” – Pearl is described frequently
as a bird. While wandering in the forest she
throws pebbles at a “little gray bird with a white
breast,” almost certainly injuring its wing.
• This causes her to pause and realize that she was
harming one as wild as herself. In the same way,
Pearl has thrown comments like rocks at her
mother’s bosom with the same uncanny accuracy.