Scarlet Letter Study Guide by Chapters
Chapters 1-3
1. What two landmarks are mentioned in Chapter?
2. What does the presence of the rose symbolize? What is the significance about the
location?
3. In what town does the story take place?
4. Describe Hester's behavior as she emerges from the prison cell?
5. Is there a significance to Hester's viewing the crowd from atop the scaffold?
6. What is her child's name?
7. When Hester is on the scaffold, about what does she think?
8. What is the usual punishment for Hester's sin?
9. Who is the stranger at the fringe of the crowd?
10. Who is John Wilson?
11. What vow does the stranger in the crowd make?
12. Who pleads with Hester to identify her child's father?
Chapters 4-6
1. Describe Roger Chillingworth in the scene in which he visits the jail.
2. Why does Chillingworth ask Hester to keep his identity secret?
3. Who is Chillingworth? What vow does he persuade Hester to make? What does he
promise in return?
4. Why does Hester remain in Boston?
5. How is Hester treated by the townspeople?
6. From what occasion is Hester's work excluded?
7. Why did Hester name her child Pearl?
8. How does Hester support herself and her daughter?
9. How do children of Boston treat Pearl?
10. How is Pearl described?
11. How does Pearl amuse herself?
12. What does Pearl first notice as a baby?
Chapters 7-10
1. Why does Hester visit Governor Belllingham's mansion?
2. What reason does Hester give for her need to keep Pearl?
3. Who supports Hester in her pleas to keep Pearl and by what argument?
4. How does Pearl behave toward Dimmesdale in the governor's garden?
5. What is Pearl wearing on the day of the visit to the governor?
6. When Rev. Wilson asks Pearl who made her, what does she say?
7. What does Chillingworth suggest after the governor allows Pearl to stay with Hester?
8. What does Mistress Hibbins tell Hester? What is Hester's response?
9. How does Roger Chillingworth come to be Dimmesdale's personal physician?
10. How has Roger Chillingworth changed since Hester first knew him?
11. What does Chillingworth suggest is the cause for Dimmesdale's suffering?
12. How does Pearl's behavior in the cemetery express a link between Dimmesdale and
Hester?
13. How does Chillingworth finally discover the cause of Dimmesdale's suffering?
Chapter 11-12
1. What reason is given for Dimmesdale's ability to touch the souls of others?
2. What effect does public veneration have upon Dimmesdale?
3. How does Dimmesdale seek penitence?
4. Describe Dimmesdale's first vigil on the scaffold.
5. What meanings are given to the apparition in the sky?
6. What effect does the midnight vigil have on Hester?
7. What questions did Pearl ask Dimmesdale? What were his answers?
8. What interpretation does the congregation put on the red letter in the sky?
Chapter 13-15
1. What has Hester's A come to mean to some to the townspeople?
2. Describe the changes in Hester's appearance and temperament wrought by the scarlet
letter.
3. In what way has the A freed Hester?
4. How does Hester come to view womanhood?
5. Why does Chillingworth refuse to leave Dimmesdale alone?
6. What does Hester discover after her interview with Chillingworth?
7. How does Hester respond when Pearl makes an A for heself of eelgrass?
8. When asked what the A truly means, what does Hester say?
Chapters 16-18
1. How does Pearl explain the sun's refusal to shine on Hester?
2. What answer does Hester give Pearl when she asks if Hester has met the Black Man?
3. Where do Hester and Pearl meet Dimmesdale?
4. How does Dimmesdale react when Hester reveals Chillingworth's true identity?
5. What does Hester suggest they do?
6. What does Hester do to signal the beginning of a new life?
Chapters 19-21
1. How does Pearl act when she sees her mother without the A?
2. What is Pearl's question concerning Hester and Dimmesdale?
3. What does Hester secretly do after meeting Dimmesdale?
4. How is Dimmesdale affected by his interview with Hester?
5. How does Dimmesdale treat Chillingworth when the two meet?
Chapters 22-24
1. What does Chillingworth do when he sees Dimmesdale's transformation?
2. How does Dimmesdale finally escape Chillingworth?
3. What becomes of Cillingworth after Dimmesdale's death?
4. How do the townspeople react to Dimmesdale's confession?
5. What becomes of Hester and Pearl?