Study Guide for Scarlet Letter
1. The Prison Door
a. Narrator is the guide through the story.
b. He wants the reader to know there is a reason/purpose for the story.
2. The Market Place
a. The Market Place – where society judges Hester, suggests public nature of
Puritan punishment.
b. Punishment in his time is about embarrassment and infamy as opposed to
Puritan extreme punishments.
c. Purpose of Hester’s walk to scaffold is to show Hester’s strength, show the
society’s reaction, and to put the reader in Hester’s shoes.
d. Exposition: Her mom died when she was a child → bad marriage.
e. The purpose of the detailed scaffold scene is pathos – to get our sympathy.
Hawthorne does so via interrupted sentences, allusions, hyperboles…
3. The Recognition
a. The men judging Hester are more sympathetic than the cruel women.
b. Dimmesdale has speech like an angel. He puts his hand over his heart
when he preaches.
c. Hester and Dimmesdale have a connection in the scaffold scene
i. Their eyes connect. Pearl reaches out to him.
d. The A symbolizes adultery after Rev Wilson’s sermon.
4. The Interview
a. Chapter is suspenseful because the dark diction and Chillingworth is
introduced.
b. He is vengeful. He has an evil and dark smile → EVIL.
c. Hester and Chillingworth had a mismatched marriage. She is hot. He is
not.
d. They have wronged each other - His wrong doing is not loving her, while
hers is adultery.
5. Hester at Her Needle
a. Hester stays in Boston to face her punishment – penance. She doesn’t
know any other place. She can handle the torture.
b. Hester is amazing at needle point. She does the clothes for all the high
people → Ironic – her work is so good they don’t care how bad she is.
c. Hester also begins her charity work. She helps the society that shuns her.
d. ABLE = A.
i. The letter provides her with insight to weather a person is good or
bad.
1. It’s good because she can see who the person really is. It’s
bad because it tears her apart.
2. Scarlet letter serves as an example/warning to people in
society.
6. Pearl
a. Pearl – devilish, powerful, strong, insightful, elfish
i. Supernatural – no father – came from nowhere
b. Narration in Chp 5-6: flashbacks, keeps tract of Pearls age to show time
passing, and refers to the reader
7. The Governor’s Hall 8. The Elf-Child and the Minister
a. Hester to Pearl: “Thou must gather thine own sunshine. I have none to
give thee”
i. Sunshine = happiness and freedom. Sun shines on Hester when she
throws the SL to the ground.
ii. Pearl to Hester: “Why doesn’t the sun shine on you”
1. Hester is sin and dark
b. Pearl embodies Scarlet Letter because she is a product of sin just as the
letter is.
i. BUT, Pearl can be loved. The SL cannot be loved.
c. Hester: “Pearl keeps me here in life”
i. Pearl = Hester’s purpose, reason for living. Pearl keeps Hester
from the dark side.
1. Hibbons invites Hester to forest, but Hester says refuses
because of Pearl
d. Pearl is natural, supernatural, and symbolic.
i. Natural – childish responses.
ii. Supernatural – intuitive reactions
iii. Symbolic – caressing Dimmesdale’s hand
1. Peal’s actions are a symbolic embodiment of Hester’s
desires.
e. Rev. Wilson at first hated Hester for her sin and no confession. But he now
is less harsh to her and sees her as odd purity.
8. –
9. The Leech
a. Townspeople see RC as a godsend miracle – doctor who was sent down to
cure Dimmesdale.
b. But they sense a darkness
i. APPEARANCE Vs. REALITY
10. The Leech and His Patient
a. Weeds growing over grave
i. Chillingworth – weeds = dark secret trying to confess.
1. Trying to get Dimmesdale to confess
ii. Dimmesdale – weeds = medicine – a spiritual gift and forgiveness.
11. The Interior of a Heart
a. Dimmesdale posses the Tongue of Flame
i. He gives a heated preachings – talent handed down by a holy spirit
ii. His sin gives him the power to preach about sin well.
12. A Minister’s Vigil
a. Chapter is in the middle of the book.
i. Dimmesdale admits his guilt
1. Peak of his guilt
2. Beginning of his degeneration
ii. Second Scaffold scene – A in the sky
1. Scarlet Letter A turns from able to ANGEL
a. Hester is doing charity – helping the society that
punishes her.
b. However, the A represents sin for Dimmesdale
because he is doing nothing to help Hester.
13. Another View of Hester
a. Scarlet Letter changed Hester physically and intellectually.
i. She is a bare, ugly, harsh outline of herself
ii. She isn’t a woman any longer.
b. “The scarlet letter has not done its office”
i. It has not weakened her; she grew stronger and has risen above it.
14. Hester and the Physician
a. Chillingworth changed since becoming involved with Dimmesdale.
i. Studious and calm → evil, fierce, fiendlike, vengeful, devilish…
b. Hester argues to make Chillingworth forgive Dimmesdale
i. ‘Dimmesdale has suffered enough’ ‘Punish me instead’
c. Chillingworth refuses
i. ‘No he hasn’t’ ‘You’ve already gotten your punishment’
15. Hester and Pearl
a. Narrator criticizes Hester
b. Hester first thinks Pearl is trying to sympathize with her and contemplates
telling her everything.
c. Hester then realizes that she doesn’t need Pearl’s sympathy, also she fears
that if she did tell Pearl everything Pearl might revel in it and make fun of
Hester
d. Pearl’s green letter represents hope that the situation will better
16. A Forest Walk
a. Forest symbols
i. Light – purity, joy, freedom – H discards SL → Sun/Happiness
ii. Path – life’s journey (fallen branch – obstacle)
iii. Brook – Pearl - sin, secrets, uneasiness, unknown origin
iv. Trees – seclusion with ominous quality.
17. The Pastor and His Parishioner
a. Reverend Dimmesdale: “Of penance I have had enough! Of penitence
there has been none!”
i. Penance = voluntary act of showing sorrow for sin
ii. Penitence = feeling sorrow/regret for sin
iii. ‘I have had enough of being punished for something I don’t regret’
b. Dimmesdale does not think their ‘act’ is a sin
c. Hester’s willingness to accept punishment suggests she thinks it’s a sin
18. A Flood of Sunshine
a. The narrator uses physical nature as a parallel to human nature.
b. When the secret is revealed, the light shines down
c. “moral wilderness” - Nature is a tool for reflection
i. Moral compass instead of puritan society
19. The Child at the Brook-Side
a. Pearl is a symbol of Society and the Hand of Fate when she makes Hester
put the scarlet letter back on.
i. Society – acts as consciousness
ii. Hand of Fate – SL is part of who Hester is; she can’t escape it.
20. The Minister in a Maze
a. “Revolution in the sphere of thought and feeling” – Dimmesdale’s
behavior totally changes
i. Made a deal with the devil in the forest – agreeing to flee…
1. Broken from the chains of Puritan society.
a. → walks the line between devilish and knowledge
i. Wants to teach wicked words
ii. He is driven by hope for a future with Pearl
1. → careless
iii. Denies Chillingworth and medicine
21. The New England Holiday
a. Hester feels alone in Puritan society; she is ostracized.
b. Everyone is starring at her
i. “Hester stood in that magic circle of ignominy”
c. Puritan culture: Anyone who strays from the rigid lines that govern the
society is alienated, no matter how much he/she does to recover from it.
d. Chillingworth’s smile foreshadow the failure of their escape
22. The Procession
a. Everyone notices the change in Dimmesdale – in body and soul.
i. He looks much healthier, but he’s still haunted by suffering.
b. Hester feels distant from Dimmesdale.
i. His vigor depresses her and makes him seem remote
1. There was a “remoteness and intangibility that had fallen
around the minister”
c. Pearl asks if he is a different person and she wants to kiss him
d. Hester and Dimmesdale are not soul mates. They will never be together.
He can’t be forgiven for leaving her alone. Everything will soon come
crashing down.
e. Hester feels connected to Dimmesdale still somehow.
23. The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter
a. Dimmesdale and Hester
i. Dimmesdale doubts they’ll be together in the afterlife because they
have both sinned
1. Changes opinion in the face of death
b. Dimmesdale and Chillingworth
i. Chillingworth looses his power over Dimmesdale – blackmail.
Chillingworth tries to stop him from revealing the truth, but can’t.
Chillingworth wanted Dimmesdale punished.
c. Dimmesdale and Pearl
i. Pearl openly expresses love for Dimmesdale – she kisses him.
1. she can love despite her childhood
2. She now has a father
a. She becomes Human
d. Saved or Damned
i. Salvation
1. “There has been enough penitence” – reveals the truth
a. ‘I have suffered enough, I am going to be saved’
i. ‘God is merciful’
24. Conclusion
a. Sign on Dimmesdale’s Chest
i. Up to the reader
ii. All we know is that there is something there
iii. Possible suspects
1. chilling worth’s dark magic
2. Self inflicted
3. Sympathy and pain (spiritual)
4. Physical manifestation of guilt (spiritual)
b. Who Suffered More
i. Internal Vs. External Struggle
1. Either – Reader’s choice
a. Dimmesdale suffers more because he is weaker and
Hester just deals with it better
b. OR Hester suffers more and Dimmesdale should
suck it up
c. Pearl’s marriage
i. It reinforces her now human identity and qualities.
ii. Gives a happy ending
d. Hester’s Return
i. Hester knows no other world.
e. Moral
i. Be true to yourself
1. to your strengths, weaknesses, and limits