Scarlet Letter
Chapter 1
- Juxtaposition- prison as “a black flower of civilized society” juxtaposed to the
red flower (rose bush)
- Black flower- sinful, evil
- Red flower- purity, light innocence
- Contrasts – argument on human nature – civilization- is sinful evil- argument
against the Puritans- there belief/culture are wrong
- decay (age) versus. Youth
- wearing an A- represents an Adulterer
- isolation and her punishment – because she is a woman
- Juxtapositions
- masculine vs. feminine – man made is masculine -natural is more feminine
- 1st example of opposites is in the person of Hester – represents both “dark
glossy hair” “dark eyes” still light around her- brings together extremes in
this moment
Chapter 2
- Metonymy - symbolic connection between the baby, mom, and scarlet letter
Chapter 3
- Hester still loves her adulter – refuses to give name out
- Man came out of the woods (Roger)- woods are associated with the devil
- Husband sent her over to the new world
- Arthur had charge over hester’s soul – makes him look bad
- Regardless of dimsdale’s role emotionally he is implicitly blamed for what
happened
Chapter 4
- envisions his revenge- takes it out on her- wants to find her lover
- doesn’t hold it against Hester,
- the first wrong was his- Roger
- Interview- prison cell- Little narrative , most part chapter 4 is dialogue- character’s say is giving us
the story
Chapter 6
- is pearl good or bad according to Hester
- look for hawthorn’s mood towards plant references
Notes
- narrator is unreliable- example: Chillingsworth – not told who this person is
o to flesh out the full understanding of characters
o we do some things unrealisticly because they are dramatically
necessary
o hawthorn dramatizes because of human ignorance
o narrator is dramatizing what people don’t know
o internal and external – movement of the story
o we know things that the public doesn’t know
o narrator is using a third person limited perspective – follows one
character through a story
o public realm- cause and effect- an assumption that Is wrong
o public chapters are narrated by the perspective of the many (the
public)
Pearl
- Confusing character
- Mother trys to hide something by clothing her
- Sunshine motif (chapter 7)
o Hester’s sunshine has been taken from her – part of society but not
really there – ghost (chapter 5) non –existence
- her life is undecided
Hester
- lives outside of the city (in the woods- associated with the devil)
- she’s described by living by the cold hearth (chapter 5)- shows us something
about loss of passion, spirit,
- living in limbo (exile) in between the woods and the village
- Finds no joy in anything- her hair- we can’t see (covered under a cap) –
conforming to the Puritan beliefs- squelching of her fire and passion
- Passion and intensity and fire – transferred to Pearl
- NO MORE Sunshine- you must gather your own
o She doesn’t have any life to give
o Pearl has to go find her own way
- Sphere of Isolation (Chapter 5) -motif
- Highly materialistic- hypocricy ( chapter 7) of the magistrates and the
Governor
The narrator
-Preface: Customs House (immgration house/ tariffs collected)
-Hawthorn was in charge of this position
-No love for working in the customs house- hawthorn feels that he is living in a
burocratic gray existence
- judges everybody- learn the narrators values- who he can forgive and not forgive- consistent
throughout the novel
- nothing objective to it
Presentation 5-8
- bounded between the church, jail and the scaffold
- Chapter 5
o Sphere of isolation
o Hester’s cap – oppression – conforming to women hood in this society
o Hester’s motivation for staying in Salim
 2nd paragraph of chapter 5
 once she is released she is allowed to go anywhere
 her choice

-
by working out her life here where she committed her
crime she would work to another purity
 the idea of redemption
 actual motivation for staying- union with Dimmsdale
 burning in hell forever together
 Hester is disturbed
Hester has to play the good Puritan
Chapter 6
Chapter 8
o Intuition from Pearl about her father
o Innate sense of how to get adults angry
Cause and Effect
Main catalyst of transition
o Roger believes Dimmesdale is the father by the end of chapter 8
Chapters 9 -12
- Chapter 9
- Chillingworth and Dimmesdale move in- not random
- chillingworth is manipulating this situation
- putting his plan into effect-Chapter 8-11
-Chillingworth is using the scientific method
- tell him his secrets so his health won’t fail
- Saying to Dimmesdale – theres something your hiding- saying this as
his physcian – Dimmesdale needs to confess something
- Conversation in chapter 10
-confess to him
- Chillingworth-identity is a total secret
- knows dimmesdale is not going to confess
-keeps pressuring him to confess to torture him (make his existence
worse and worse)
-Black weed – suggests to us the black flower of civilized society
- Chillingworth uses this to start his conversation about unconfessed
sin
- Dimmesdale storms out of the room – Chillingworth uses inductive
reasoning
- Chillingworth says look how passion takes this man out of himself- Chillingworth has freed the passion of Dimmesdale- if it exists
here it can exist somewhere else
- drugged Dimmesdale
-Roger Chillingworth walks up on Dimmesdale (hands on
chest) – estatic – looks like satan- description of his features
have become uglier- becoming more evil
-argument on human nature and evil
- Roger Chillingworth now knows from feeling his chest- must have
seen the scarlet letter- (hard proof)- something is growing on his
chest (tumor) in terms of what the novel puts out there
Dimmesdale sickness
- not a physical sickness (moral sickness)
- producing a physical sickness
Narrative lens- public view-9
-chapter ten – both of them
-chapter 11- Dimmesdale
- Dimmesdale is whipping himself, not sleeping (long vigils) , fasting
- Fasting as self punishment,
- body is not capable of healing
-guilt is making him sick
- guilt and illness
Dimmesdale on the scaffold
- Mr. Hibbins hears him
- Chillingsworth sees him and Hester and Pearl- have knowledge
- Wilson is Dimmesdales menter
- walks right past him when hes on the scaffold
- Not willing to see Dimmesdale as who he really is
- argument about Puritan society not willing to see him how he truly is
Chapter 9
- mental make up – track of a faith to follow
- he needs the pressure of a faith about him “constraining him” – iron frame
- energy is vibrant in matter
CHAPTERS 13-15
- turning point on the novel
-Hester changes
- they have forgotten her scarlet letter- A stands for able now
- takes a stand , positive breaking point
- She takes action – sees that it is her fault, agreeing to keep Chillingworth
secret- regrets this but she is
- first morally good action other than just caring for Pearl
- why did she stay silent: Chillingworth elicited a promise from her
- male/ female contrast – male dominance – silencing of Hester
- how can she break her silence
- chapter 13: her reflection, how negative her mind
- cut off from society: a women in a society that doesn’t value womenfundamentally did the wrong thing to be silent (ordered by
Chillingworth)dark state of mind- suicide because of this women silencing
- always been confused about Pearl , should she tell her what the scarlet
letter mean – chapter 15
- hester concerned with Pearl’s sympathy – Pearl has not treated her
mother very nice- only companion in the world but receives no
sympathy back, self denial- all though I want her sympathy I want to
protect her innocence
- transitional situation – Pearls play place in Chapter 14
- playing in tide pools
- Bind mom dad and child together
- closet- closed system – degenerating in this downward spiral,
Metaphor for Dimmesdale- tries to confess but he is still in this
locked closet
- Hester- labrinth motif
- Pearl and the tide pools
- connected to a larger source of life
- Dimmesdale- reaching his breaking point
Chapter 16-19
Why Pearl is so strange?
- She is a child- still fully developing
- No perspective on Pearl (no narration from the perspective of Pearl)
- Hawthorn’s presentation of Pearl
- all of the ways she is perceived- she is a natural force – a child
- sympathy of nature
- Mythic scope to who pearl is – Pearl is just a child (children seem
magical)
chapters 13-15
Symbolism- Pearl represents a meter of something going on between the individuals
- Black man- Pearl says “where is the black man”.. Hester responds with “this
is the Black man’s letter” – Dimmesdale is often reffered to in his black robespriest- Puritans have a very strict concept of evil- can not recognize the evil
around them
- Forest- mirrors whatever humanity brings to it, acts in sympathy with
humanity, Rose bush involved with the sympathy of nature- going back to
chapter 1
- To hawthorn the ethical code of the novel- nature exists in sympathy with
the experiences of humanity
- the Brooke- carries the sorrows of the townspeople, receive sympathy ,
- Pearl in the forest chapters- playing on the other side of the Brooke, wont
come back across the Brooke until hester puts the A back on
- plays on a Puritan folktale
- stream of adult sorrows separates pearl from her adult mother until
she puts her A back on
- Pearls A- made out of seaweed, green color suggests growth,
regrowth/redemption, Pearl has a chance at redemption- Hesters conversation with Chillingworth- stop messing with Dimmesdale,
Chillingworth’s response, says he won’t, he can’t
- Cant stop tormenting dimmesdale
- two reasons
- He has but increased the debt- Dimmesdale side of the
scale has been loaded heavier- his inability to confess
- Hester says Chillingworth has the power to forgive
- image of the maze, no way out of this
dimmesdale maze
- power to forgive
- Chillingworth responds with “I have no such
power as you tell me of” –all has been a dark
necessity
- fatalistic worldview- can not change what is
going to happen
- Hester is not fatalistic- trying to change
Chillingworth – take an action trying to break a
cycle
- Chillingworth becomes most evil- given a
choice and denies it – “let the black flower
blossom as it may”
Chapter 18- Interpretive problem – Pearl is the Scarlet Letter
- how could Pearl allow Hester to take the A off
- Pearl is free all the time
- Pearl is jealous of Dimmesdale
- Pearl reacting to Dimmesdale
- reactions of different nature
- first two interactions
- Chance of other people around
- kind to him in public, rejecting of him when he wants to be private
- last two
- alone
- wants the truth – associated with love – only in love are people seen
how they truly are- free of the baggage of judgement – message of the
forest chapters and Pearls relationship with Dimmesdale- can not
accept his love until it is an open relationship
- Pearl asks Dimmesdale to stand with them on the scaffold
-wants him to acknowledge her as her father
- Pearl is a sort of measuring stick of what is going on with her parents
- Pearl is the conscious, voice of reason
- Not ok to run away from this unjust society
Chapters 20-23
- “This effervescence made her flit with a bird- like movement, rather than
walk by her mother’s side”
- Notion of Evil
- Dimmesdale comes out of the forest- tempted to corrupt other people (appear evil)
- Forest is freedom of human nature – Dimmesdale needs the framework of religion,
pressure of faith about him confines him, when he comfronts freedom he doesn’t
have the strength to be good without confinement- puts him in conflict with Hesterjuxtaposition of the two strengths of the characters.
Redemption- Pearl kisses him,