Study Questions & Essay Topics
Study Questions
1. Discuss the
relationship between the scarlet letter and Hester's identity. Why
does she repeatedly refuse to stop wearing the letter? What is the
difference between the identity she creates for herself and the
identity society assigns to her?
2. In what
ways could
The Scarlet Letter be read as a commentary
on the era of American history it describes? How does Hawthorne's
portrayal of Europe enter into this commentary? Could the book also
be seen as embodying some of the aspects it attributes to the nation
in which it was written?
3. This novel
makes extensive use of symbols. Discuss the difference between the
Puritans' use of symbols (the meteor, for example) and the way that
the narrator makes use of symbols. Do both have religious implications?
Do symbols foreshadow events or simply comment on them after the
fact? How do they help the characters understand their lives, and
how do they help the reader understand Hawthorne's book?
Suggested Essay Topics
1. Discuss the function of physical
setting in The Scarlet Letter. What is the relationship
between the book's events and the locations in which these events
take place? Do things happen in the forest that could not happen
in the town? What about time of day? Does night bring with it a
set of rules that differs from those of the daytime?
2. Is The Scarlet Letter a
protofeminist novel? Had Hester not been a woman, would she have
received the same punishment? When Hester undertakes to protect
other women from gender-based persecution, can we interpret her actions
as pointing to a larger political statement in the text as a whole?
3. Describe Chillingworth's “revenge.”
Why does he choose to torture Dimmesdale and Hester when he could
simply reveal that he is Hester's husband? What does this imply
about justice? About evil?
4. Discuss the function of the
past in this novel. The narrator tells a two-hundred-year-old story
that is taken from a hundred-year-old manuscript. Why does Hawthorne
use a framing story for this novel rather than simply telling the story?
Why are the events set in such distant history?
5. Children play a variety of
roles in this novel. Pearl is both a blessing and a curse to Hester,
and she seems at times to serve as Hester's conscience. The town
children, on the other hand, are cruel and brutally honest about
their opinion of Hester and Pearl. Why are children presented as
more perceptive and more honest than adults? How do children differ
from adults in their potential for expressing these perceptions?
6. Native Americans make a few
brief and mysterious appearances in this novel. What role do they
play? In what ways might their presence contribute to the furthering
of the book's central themes?
