Scarlet Letter Study Guide
Chapter 1 “The Prison Door”
1. What is Utopia?
2. What were the two places “founders of the new colony allotted portions of the ground?”
3. What literary device is used here considering this is Utopia?
4. What grew outside the prison?
5. What is the significance of this?
Chapter 2 “The Market Place”
6. What was the purpose of the scaffold?
7. What does Hawthorne indicate about what was considered criminal in his day and in the Puritan era?
8. Who seemed to be the most interested in the punishment of criminals?
9. How does Hawthorne explain this?
10. What do the gossips of the town believe will happen if the magistrates are not harsh?
11. Hester Prynne is “like a shadow emerging into sunshine.” Poetic device?
12. “Heretofore the baby had been only acquainted with the gray twilight of a dungeon.”
What is the symbolism here?
13. What is the adjective used by Hawthorne to describe Hester?
Why is this ironic?
14. What was the effect of the scarlet letter on Hester?
15. What was Hester Prynne’s sentence?
16. What was the belief of a Papist (Catholic) according to Hawthorne?
17. Why didn’t the crowd ridicule Hester?
18. What did Hester believe would have been easier to endure?
Chapter 3 “The Recognition”
19. What does Hester recognize that she foreshadows in chapter 2?
20. Of a truth friend that matter remaineth a riddle, and the Daniel who shall expound it is yet a
wanting” What poetic device is used? Explain.
21. According to the townsman explaining Hester’s situation to the stranger, what should have been her
sentence?
22. Describe the interaction between Hester and the stranger.
23. Make a prediction about whom you think he could be.
24. What does the clergyman (John Wilson) want Hester to do?
25. How does Hester feel about the father of her child?
How can you tell?
26. Whom does Wilson tell to “deal with the poor sinner’s soul?
27. What does he do?
Does he succeed?
28. What is the child’s reaction to this?
29. What does Hester say?
What is the reaction of the minister?
30. “The scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark passage way of the interior.”
Chapter 4 “ The Interview”
1. Why was Hester Prynne “in a state of nervous excitement that demanded constant watchfulness”?
2. What does this state prompt the jailer to do?
3. Why? (2 reasons)
4. Why did Hester become as “still as death”?
5. What is meant by “The Medicine soon proved its efficacy and redeemed the leeches’ pledge”?
6. What poetic device is used “I know not Lethe and Nepenthe”?
Why does Hawthorne choose this
pair?
7. What does Hester fear about the physician’s cure?
8. Who is Roger Chilling worth?
9. Cite evidence to support.
10. What excuse does Hester give for her indiscretion?
11. On what does Roger blame her sin?
12. What does Roger demand of Hester?
13. What is her response?
14. Why does Roger say, “Thou wilt not reveal; nonetheless he is mine”?
15. What does Roger make Hester promise?
16. “Not thy soul, No, not thine” Chillingworth promised. Literary device
17. Make a prediction.
Chapter 5 “Hester at her needle”
1. What does Hester believe is the only reason for the sunshine?
2. What is meant by “lurid triumph”?
3. What does Hester believe she will symbolize to the townspeople hereafter?
4. Hawthorne marvels at regarding Hester’s choice to stay in town given the “world before her” Why
does she do this according to the author?
5. What connection can you make with this explanation?
6. How does Hester support herself?
7. How is her craft advertised?
Literary device?
8. What was the one place that Hester’s skill could not be seen?
Why?
9. Except for the small “expenditure in the decoration of the infant” where did Hester’s efforts go?
10. To what was Hester’s mark compared?
What is the poetic device used?
11.Even though the entire town from the Governor to the poor people wore Hester’s garments, how did
they treat her? Give specific examples to support?
13. What “new sense” did Hester believe the scarlet letter had given her?
14. “O Fiend whose talisman (charm) was that fatal symbol” What poetic device is used here?
15. Describe the impact of the scarlet letter on Hester’s faith.
16. What was the rumor concocted about the scarlet letter by the townspeople?
17. Why was this ironic?