Scarlet Letter Study Guide
English 11
The Scarlett Letter, Nathanial Hawthorne
Chapters I and II
1. What two necessities, according to Hawthorne, must the founders of a new colony provide immediately?
- Prison and a cemetery
2. Under whose footsteps was the rose-bush outside the prison supposed to have sprung up? Sainted Anne Hutchinson
3. What kind of spectacle have the townspeople of Boston gathered to witness?
The public humiliation of Hester Prynne
4. What is the significance of the scarlet letter A which is embroidered on Hester’s gown?
Show that she was an adulteress
5. What conclusion can you draw from the fact that every new colony must provide a prison and cemetery at once?
People will commit crimes or die
6. How do most of the townspeople regard Hester’s punishment as too severe, too lenient, or appropriate?
Too lenient and that she should be hanged
7. Do you agree that the harshest aspect of punishment by pillory was that it prevented the confined person from hiding his or her face?
No, because the crime was not severe enough to merit humiliation
Yes, because it was harsh enough to stop other’s from doing it again
8. Hester thinks of her childhood home as she stands on the scaffold. What does this glimpse of her past suggest about her family background?
They started off with money and her family became poor. She married someone with money and her husband sent here (America). Husband is older, he marries her. Hester’s first crime is married for the wrong reasons (money). Married for her (Hester) own self-gratification.
9. Hawthorne says the Puritan townspeople were “stern enough to look upon her (Hester’s) death, had that been the sentence” but not fearless enough to mock and ridicule her. Do you agree that scornful mockery would be crueler than the attitudes Hawthorne describes here?
Yes, it is like “rubbing salt in the wound” too be mean to her would be too much. To mock her would be to ruin her entire life.
Chapter III
1. The stranger who
The Scarlett Letter, Nathanial Hawthorne
Chapters I and II
1. What two necessities, according to Hawthorne, must the founders of a new colony provide immediately?
- Prison and a cemetery
2. Under whose footsteps was the rose-bush outside the prison supposed to have sprung up? Sainted Anne Hutchinson
3. What kind of spectacle have the townspeople of Boston gathered to witness?
The public humiliation of Hester Prynne
4. What is the significance of the scarlet letter A which is embroidered on Hester’s gown?
Show that she was an adulteress
5. What conclusion can you draw from the fact that every new colony must provide a prison and cemetery at once?
People will commit crimes or die
6. How do most of the townspeople regard Hester’s punishment as too severe, too lenient, or appropriate?
Too lenient and that she should be hanged
7. Do you agree that the harshest aspect of punishment by pillory was that it prevented the confined person from hiding his or her face?
No, because the crime was not severe enough to merit humiliation
Yes, because it was harsh enough to stop other’s from doing it again
8. Hester thinks of her childhood home as she stands on the scaffold. What does this glimpse of her past suggest about her family background?
They started off with money and her family became poor. She married someone with money and her husband sent here (America). Husband is older, he marries her. Hester’s first crime is married for the wrong reasons (money). Married for her (Hester) own self-gratification.
9. Hawthorne says the Puritan townspeople were “stern enough to look upon her (Hester’s) death, had that been the sentence” but not fearless enough to mock and ridicule her. Do you agree that scornful mockery would be crueler than the attitudes Hawthorne describes here?
Yes, it is like “rubbing salt in the wound” too be mean to her would be too much. To mock her would be to ruin her entire life.
Chapter III
1. The stranger who