The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter Chapters 3 – 8 Questions and Answers

Question 1 • What explanation does the stranger make to the townsman he speaks with that accounts for his combination of “civilized and savage costume” (Chapter 3)? • The stranger explains that he was shipwrecked on his journey from Europe (civilized) and held captive by the Indians (savage).

Question 2 • What seems to particularly perturb the stranger after he has learned of the sentence imposed on Hester? Why does this bother him so? What is his response to this situation (his declaration) [Chapter 3]? • He is disturbed to learn that the identity of the child’s father remains unknownand that Hester is having to suffer this punishment alone. His declaration is that the father of the child will be known (he repeats this 3 times).

Question 3 • Where is Roger Chillingworth, the stranger from Chapter 3, to lodge while the authorities work out his ransom with the Indians? What two kinds of experience equip him to be a physician (Chapter 4)? • He is to lodge in the prison until his ransom can be negotiated between the Indians and the Bostonians. • His studies in alchemy and his time spent with the Indians equipped him to be a physician.

Question 4 • Why does Hester at first resist Chillingworth’s attempts to give the baby medicine (Chapter 4)? • She fears that he may take his revenge out on the baby and poison it.

Question 5 • Why does Chillingworth say that he seeks no vengeance against Hester? What promise does he make her give him (Chapter 4)? • Chillingworth feels that he has wronged Hester as much as she has wronged him, by asking someone young and beautiful to marry someone old and decrepit as himself. Also, he feels that the wearing of the scarlet letter will be punishment / agonizing enough and that letting her live as a punishment in and of itself. • He makes her promise not to reveal to anyone who he is.

Question 6 • What do you think Chillingworth means when he says of the father of her child, “I shall read (the letter of infamy – evil reputation or fame) on his heart (Chapter 4)? • He will determine by the man’s shame and guilt who he is, that the man cannot hide his sin from him (Chillingworth).

Question 7 • At the end of the chapter, Chillingworth says, “Not thy soul…No, not thine!” What do you think he means (Chapter 4)? • He does not want to ruin Hester’s soul but he does intend to ruin the soul of the child’s father.

Question 8 • What reasons does Hawthorne give for Hester remaining in Boston, where she is an outcast (Ch 5)? • Fate compels her to stay in the place where the great event of her life took place (sin / punishment). • The father of the child is still there and she loves him still. • She will be able to work out her redemption at the scene of her earthly guilt and punishment.

Question 9 • Explain whose “human eye” it is that Hawthorne is referring to in this passage: • “But sometimes, once in many days, or perchance in many months, she felt an eye – a human eye – upon the ignominious brand, that seemed to give a momentary relief, as if half of her agony was shared. The next instant, back it all rushed again…for in that brief interval, she had sinned anew. Had Hester sinned alone?” • In what way had Hester “sinned anew” (Ch 5)? • The human eye refers to that of the father of the child, Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester sins anew (again) by continuing to love / want him.

Question 10 • How does Hester account for the aspects of Pearl’s character that trouble her? How does Hawthorne characterize the disciplining of children in the early days of the Boston Colony? What grim games did the children play? What was the first object Pearl seemed to become aware of (Ch 6)? • Hester believes that her agitation during her pregnancy may account for the troubling aspects of Pearl’s character and also blames it on how Pearl was conceived (through an adulterous affair.)

Question 10 (Continued) • Children were scolded, rebuked, and whipped. These punishments were coupled with the Scriptures in order that the child may grow in both respectful responsibility and spirituality. • The Puritan children played at going to church, at scourging Quakers, at taking scalps in a fight with the Indians, or at scaring one another with freakish, imitative witchcraft. • The first object Pearl became familiar with was Hester’s Scarletletter.

Question 11 • Hawthorne states the following paradox: • “How strange, indeed! Man had marked this woman’s sin by a scarlet letter, which had such potent and disastrous efficacy that no human sympathy could reach her…God, as a direct consequence of the sin which man thus punished, had given her a lovely child…to connect her parent forever with the race and descent of mortals, and to finally be a blessed soul in heaven.” • What point about the strict moral Puritan moral code is Hawthorn trying to convey here (Ch 6)?

Question 11 Answered • Hawthorne is trying to express that although Hester sinned, God still blessed her which is against everything the code would say should be in the realm of possibilities. And through this blessing, Hester is thus still connected to the world and people around her, and through this child, she may find a place in heaven after all. • It indicates Hawthorne’s inability to reconcile the Puritan moral code with the realities of the human condition and with the Christian idea that nature (and therefore natural processes like getting pregnant and having a baby) is a product of divine wisdom.

Question 12 • What two contrasting reasons did the church members put forth that would ensure Hester’s losing custody of Pearl (Ch 8)? • Church members argued that if Pearl were a demon offspring, her remaining with Hester would endanger Hester’s soul; however, if she were a normal child, she would have a better chance of growing up a good Christian under other guardianship than Hester’s.

Question 13 • When Governor Bellingham demands to know what Hester can teach Pearl concerning the “truths of heaven and earth,” what is Hester’s response (Ch 8)? • She can teach Pearl what the scarlet letter has taught her. She goes on to say that the lessons she has learned from wearing the scarlet letter will make her daughter wiser and better, although it has not made her so.

Question 14 • Summarize the Reverend Dimmesdale’s argument on behalf of allowing Hester to keep Pearl. Which side, if either, does Chillingworth take in the question of whether Pearl should be taken away from Hester (Ch 8)? • Dimmesdale says that it was God’s divine providence that placed the child with her mother and that they had no right to interfere with what God put in motion because in doing so, they would be saying that God made a mistake in giving Pearl to Hester. He goes on to say that God gave Hester knowledge of Pearl and what she needed to do to ensure that Pearl was raised right. He also says that God gave Pearl to Hester to work on Hester’s heart, and to ultimately take Hester to heaven with her.

The Scarlet Letter