Name:
The Scarlet Letter: Reading Guide
Instructions: As you read The Scarlet Letter, please complete the following study guide questions
and activities. You may answer the questions directly in your book by annotating, or jot your
responses down in the spaces provided in this guide. You may turn in this study guide or the
physical book for proof of your active reading.
Here’s the Twist: Please respond to every question with a quote from the text that answers it.
Copy it directly from the book and into the space provided. Multiple quotes are encouraged but not
required.
Conflicts this Novel Explores:
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Self-trust v. accommodation to authority
Conventional v. unconventional gender roles
Obsessiveness v. open-mindedness
Hypocrisy v. candor
Appearance v. reality
Presumed guilt or innocence
Progress v. nostalgia for the past
Destruction that the quest for perfection engenders
Chapters 1-4: In the exposition to the novel, we are introduced to our main characters, the setting,
and some of the important symbols that will persist in the novel. Take notes on these topics in the
spaces provided below.
Please provide three quotes per box. Include page number.
Setting:
Hester Prynne:
Arthur Dimmesdale:
Roger Chillingworth:
Pearl:
Symbols: Find and copy a quote that describes the symbol or its meaning.
The Rose Bush:
The Scarlet Letter:
Pearl:
Chapters 4-8: Here comes a tiny bit of action and a description of life immediately following
Hester (and Pearl’s) release from jail. Again, find a quotation that illuminates the answer to each of
the following questions.
Chapter 4 – The Interview
What is revealed about the previous relationship between Hester and the mysterious doctor?
What does Chillingworth make Hester promise?
Chapter 5 – Hester at her Needle
Why didn’t Hester leave town after being released from jail?
Describe Hester’s home.
Chapter 6 – Pearl
What is Pearl’s behavior and affect like?
Chapter 7 – The Governor’s Hall
What does Hester see when she looks at her reflection in the convex mirror in the Governor’s
mansion?
Chapter 8 – The Elf-Child and the Minister
How does Dimmesdale convince Bellingham and Wilson that Hester should keep her daughter?
Chapters 9-12: Now the action cranks up as we turn our focus to Chillingworth, Dimmesdale, and
their relationship. How long will it take you to realize the big revelation?????
Chapter 9 – The Leech
What is Chillingworth’s backstory?
What has been happening with Dimmesdale’s health recently?
Chapter 10 – The Leech and his Patient
What do Chillingworth and Dimmesdale discuss after Dimmesdale inquires about the mysterious
plant?
What do the two men witness outside the window as they are talking?
Chapter 11 – The Interior of the Heart
Copy one line that shows how powerful Dimmesdale’s sermons have been recently.
What are Dimmesdale’s physical/outward signs of guilt and sin?
Chapter 12 – The Minister’s Vigil
What does Dimmesdale do on the scaffold?
What do Hester, Pearl, and Dimmesdale see while they are standing on the scaffold together?
Chapters 13-24: Now we skip forward in time – seven years have passed and changes have
overcome all our characters. Observe the physical and spiritual changes each has undergone and
how the plot moves forward.
Chapter 13 – Another View of the Heart
How has Hester’s role in the community in the seven years since Pearl’s birth?
Chapter 14 – Hester and the Physician
How has Chillingworth’s physical aspect changed in the seven years since he has been pursuing
Dimmesdale?
Chapter 15 – Hester and Pearl
How does Hester explain the meaning of her scarlet letter to Pearl?
Chapter 16 – A Forest Walk
What kinds of questions does Pearl have for her mother as they walk in the forest?
Chapter 17 – The Pastor and his Parishioner
How does Dimmesdale respond when Hester reveals to him that Chillingworth is her husband?
What do Hester and Dimmesdale plan?
Chapter 18 – A Flood of Sunshine
As Hester considers her life living with the scarlet letter, what does she think about?
What does Hester do in the forest?
Chapter 19 – The Child at the Brook-Side
How does Pearl respond to her mother without her scarlet letter?
How does Pearl respond to Dimmesdale?
Chapter 20 – The Minister in a Maze
What thoughts and delusions run through Dimmesdale’s mind after his encounter with Hester and
Pearl in the forest?
Chapter 21 – The New England Holiday
What is similar about this scene and the opening scene of the book? What is different?
Chapter 22 – The Procession
What does Pearl express to her mother, with regard to Dimmesdale?
Chapter 23 – The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter
What does Dimmesdale say to the crowd, standing on the scaffold?
What happens to Dimmesdale at the end of this chapter?
Chapter 24 – Conclusion
What do those in the crowd, on the day of Dimmesdale’s death, say about it?
What ends up happening to Chillingworth?
How does Pearl’s future turn out?
What happens to Hester?