The Scarlet Letter
Chapters 7 to 10
Warm UP:
Cite specific quotes or passages when answering the
following questions:
• What did you find most compelling in these
chapters?
• What did you find most frustrating (beyond
Hawthorne’s verbosity)?
• What did you find most confusing? How could that
confusion be resolved? (Did a group mate explain?
Did you experience an aha moment during
discussion? Are you still confused?)
1. “The Governor's Hall”…
• Basic: Describe Governor Bellingham’s
estate.
• Higher Level: Explore the irony of the
description of Bellingham’s estate.
• Highest Level: Explain how the irony of
Bellingham’s estate reinforces
Hawthorne’s assertion regarding Puritan
morality.
What Do We Learn about Pearl, Her
Conception and Her Parents?
There was fire in her and throughout her; she seemed the
unpremeditated offshoot of a passionate moment. Her
mother, in contriving the child's garb, had allowed the
gorgeous tendencies of her imagination their full play;
arraying her in a crimson velvet tunic, of a peculiar cut,
abundantly embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold
thread. So much strength of coloring, which must have given
a wan and pallid aspect to cheeks of a fainter bloom, was
admirably adapted to Pearl's beauty, and made her the very
brightest little jet of flame that ever danced upon the earth
(Hawthorne 102).
“Pearl, seeing the rosebushes, began to cry for a red
rose, and would not be pacified” (Hawthorne 107).
Consider the rose bush’s symbolism explicated in
chapter one and the symbolism developed surrounding
Pearl in the chapters that follow. How does Pearl’s
obsession over a rose that from Bellingham’s
struggling garden.
2. “The Elf-Child and
the Minister”
Cite examples of light and dark imagery and
explore the this motif ’s possible purposes.
Who is shrouded in shadow or darkness? Who is
illuminated? What are these characters other
qualities?
What message is Hawthorne beginning to reveal?
2. “The Elf-Child and
the Minister”
• Basic: What is Hester’s argument for
maintaining custody of Pearl?
• Higher Level: How does her argument
further develop Hawthorne’s use of
juxtaposition?
• Highest Level: What is ironic about
Hester’s argument and its outcome?
What purpose does that irony serve?
3. “The Elf-Child and
the Minister”
• Basic: Summarize the characterization of
Mistress Hibbins and her conversation
with Hester at the conclusion of chapter 8.
• Higher Level: How does this conversation
and characterization further the novel’s
plot as well as its irony?
4. “The Leech”
• Why does the man now known “under the appellation
of Roger Chillingworth” resolve that his former name
“should never more be spoken” (117)?
• What is the symbolic purpose of this change and his
new chosen name?
• What is Hawthorne suggesting about Chillingworth
and humans in general when explaining his period of
captivity with Native Americans and the knowledge
gained during that time (first 4 pages of chapter 9)?
“the Leech”
• Explore the significance of the following quote in the
novel’s context and in our daily lives.
• “When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see
with its eyes, it exceedingly apt to be deceived”
(Hawthorne 125).
• What might “see” and “eyes” mean beyond their
literal meaning?
• Who is being deceived (in the novel and the world)?
• Why are they being deceived?
5. “The Leech and His
Patient”
• Explore the diction used in the opening
three paragraphs of “The Leech and His
Patient.” To what two things is Hawthorne
comparing Chillingworth and Dimmesdale’s
relationship? What is the significance of
each comparison?
6. “The Leech and His
Patient”
What is Chillingworth attempting to find through his “digging”? What is ironic about
the imagery used to represent this discovery?
• To sum up the matter, it grew to be a widely diffused opinion, that the Reverend
Arthur Dimmesdale, like many other personages of especial sanctity, in all ages of the
Christian world, was haunted either by Satan himself, or Satan's emissary, in the guise
of old Roger Chillingworth. This diabolical agent had the Divine permission, for a
season, to burrow into the clergyman's intimacy, and plot against his soul (Hawthorne
126).
• He now dug into the poor clergyman's heart, like a miner searching for gold; or,
rather, like a sexton delving into a grave, possibly in quest of a jewel that had been
buried on the dead man's bosom, but likely to find nothing save mortality and
corruption. Alas for his own soul, if these were what he sought!
• Sometimes, a light glimmered out of the physician's eyes, burning blue and ominous,
like the reflection of a furnace, or, let us say, like one of those gleams of ghastly fire
that darted from Bunyan's awful door-way in the hill-side, and quivered on the
pilgrim's face. The soil where this dark miner was working had perchance shown
indications that encouraged him. (Hawthorne 127)
How is that imagery continued here? Tie it into other symbols or
motifs that we have seen thus far.
“[W]here, my kind doctor, did you gather those herbs, with such a dark,
flabby leaf ?"
“Even in the grave-yard, here at hand," answered the physician,
continuing his employment. "They are new to me. I found them growing
on a grave, which bore no tombstone, no other memorial of the dead
man, save these ugly weeds that have taken upon themselves to keep him
in remembrance. They grew out of his heart, and typify, it may be, some
hideous secret that was buried with him, and which he had done better
to confess during his lifetime.” (Hawthorne 129)
With whom do you agree? Why?
"But, not to suggest more obvious reasons, it may be that they are kept silent
by the very constitution of their nature. Or,--can we not suppose it?--guilty as
they may be, retaining, nevertheless, a zeal for God's glory and man's welfare,
they shrink from displaying themselves black and filthy in the view of men;
because, thenceforward, no good can be achieved by them; no evil of the past
be redeemed by better service. So, to their own unutterable torment, they go
about among their fellow-creatures, looking pure as new-fallen snow; while
their hearts are all speckled and spotted with iniquity of which they cannot rid
themselves."
Wouldst thou have me to believe, O wise and pious friend, that a false show
can be better--can be more for God's glory, or man's welfare--than God's own
truth? Trust me, such men deceive themselves!“ (Hawthorne 130)
7. “The Leech and His
Patient”
• What Romantic/Transcendental elements are
used to further the novel’s symbolism and plot?
Beyond their representation of Romantic
elements, what function do they serve?
“The Elf-Child and
the Minister”
• Starting with chapter 8, explore how the
characterization of each key player’s
physical being is used to reflect his or her
psychological development.