Scarlet Letter MultiplePerspectives

Teaching Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
The Scarlet Letter

from Multiple Critical Perspectives
By Douglas Grudzina
Edited by Paul Moliken
ISBN: 1-58049-699-7
P.O. Box 658, Clayton, DE 19938

Copyright © 2005 Prestwick House, Inc. All rights reserved.
www.prestwickhouse.com
No portion may be reproduced without permission in writing (800) 932-4593
from the publisher.
Multiple Critical Perspectives
A Message to the Teacher of Literature:
Open your students’ eyes and minds with this new, exciting approach to
teaching literature.
In this guide, you will find reproducible activities, as well as clear and
concise explanations of three contemporary critical perspectives—feel free to
reproduce as much, or as little, of the material for your students’ notebooks.
You will also find specific suggestions to help you examine this familiar title
in new and exciting ways. Your students will seize the opportunity to discuss,
present orally, and write about their new insights.
What you will not find is an answer key. To the feminist, the feminist
approach is the correct approach, just as the Freudian will hold to the Freudian.
Truly, the point of this guide is to examine, question, and consider, not merely
arrive at “right” answers.
You will also find this to be a versatile guide. Use it in concert with our
Teaching Unit or our Advanced Placement Teaching Unit. Use it along with
our Response Journal, or use it as your entire study of this title. However you
choose to use it, we are confident you’ll be thrilled with the new life you find
in an old title, as well as in your students.
3 © Copyright 2005, Prestwick House, Inc.

The Scarlet Letter
Table of Contents
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE WORK .............................................6
NOTES ON THE FEMINIST APPROACH ...................................................12
ACTIVITY ONE:
Comparing Hester Prynne with Arthur Dimmesdale
and Roger Chillingworth.............................................................................16
ACTIVITY TWO:
Examining Hawthorne’s treatment of other female characters ...................18
ACTIVITY THREE:
Examining Hester as a symbol of womanhood ...........................................23
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS .....................................................................................25
Essays or Writing Assigments ........................................................................25
NOTES ON PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY ...................................................26
ACTIVITY ONE: Examining the effects of repression on physical and

emotional health of the characters ..............................................................31
ACTIVITY TWO: Examining Chillingworth as Id, Hester as Ego,

and Dimmesdale as Superego .....................................................................36
ACTIVITY THREE: Examining the role of superstition in the

events and outcome of the novel ................................................................37
© Copyright 2005, Prestwick House, Inc. 4

NOTES ON THE MYTHOLOGICAL/ARCHETYPAL APPROACH.............44
ACTIVITY ONE:
Examining archetypal images in the novel ................................................ 48
ACTIVITY TWO:
Examining archetypal characters ...............................................................49

The Scarlet Letter
Multiple Perspectives on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
The Scarlet Letter

GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE WORK
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 – 1864) first entered the United States literary
scene as a writer of short stories. With the publication of Twice-Told Tales, a col-
lection of previously published stories in 1837, he made his mark as a writer
of long fiction. His work became extremely popular even among other success-
ful writers of the period such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allen Poe, and
Herman Melville.
Although Hawthorne did not consider The Scarlet Letter (1850) to be his
best work, its well-drawn characters and sympathetic attitude toward human
weakness have made it an enduring classic.
Despite his literary success, Hawthorne always desired—and sought—politi-

cal appointments. He knew firsthand the vagaries—and often the disloyal-
ties—of the United States political machine. This sense of betrayal and distrust
of governmental authority is evident in the Custom House introduction and in
many of the characters and incidents in The Scarlet Letter.
Philosophically, Hawthorne was closely related to the Transcendentalists

who asserted that the human conscience was the ultimate determiner of all
right and wrong, and that at some point in the future, government would not
be necessary once humans learned to listen to the dictates of their consciences
and govern themselves.
Hawthorne and Melville, however, while desiring a world in which the

human conscience replaced the government, were somewhat less optimistic
about humanity’s ability to reach that state. Human passions ran too deep and
too strong for the individual to ever really be his/her own government of one.
These “anti-transcendentalist” sentiments are evident in much of The Scarlet
Letter.

INTRODUCTORY. THE CUSTOM-HOUSE

Hawthorne discusses the time he spent working as an agent in the Salem
Custom House and the occasion of his discovering the scarlet letter and a
diary telling the story of Hester Prynne. He claims that the one significant
alteration he is making in the story is to change the narrative point of view
from first to third person.
CHAPTER I. THE PRISON-DOOR

An expectant crowd of seventeenth-century New England colonists stands
outside the Boston prison house awaiting the emergence an apparently
infamous prisoner. The women of the village are especially interested in
the proceedings. The narrator describes at some length the ugliness of the
prison door contrasted with the beauty of a wild rose growing beside it.
CHAPTER II. THE MARKET-PLACE

The criminal emerges, a beautiful young woman with a baby. She wears on
her breast a gorgeously embroidered “A,” which marks her as an adulter-
ess. The magistrates, village minister, and townspeople follow the criminal
through the streets of the village to a scaffold erected in the center of town
where she must stand and face public humiliation as a part of her punish-
ment. The town’s minister beseeches her to name her partner in crime, the
father of her illegitimate child, but she refuses.
CHAPTER III. THE RECOGNITION

While standing on the scaffold, the woman, whose name is Hester Prynne,
recognizes someone standing in the crowd watching her. This man, a
stranger in town, asks a person standing near him to explain why the
woman and baby are on the scaffold, and the reader receives the back-
ground information regarding Hester, her missing husband, and her act of
adultery.
CHAPTER IV. THE INTERVIEW

Hester and the child are suffering nervous exhaustion after their afternoon
ordeal on the scaffold, and the stranger in town is identified as a doctor.
He comes into Hester’s cell to administer treatment, and the reader learns
that he is Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s missing husband. He promises not
to seek any sort of revenge against Hester for the wrong she has done him,
and he extracts from her a promise never to reveal his true identity.

The Scarlet Letter
CHAPTER V. HESTER AT HER NEEDLE

Her time in prison complete, Hester and her baby, Pearl, set up house in
a cottage between the village and the forest, not too far from the beach.
She earns her living sewing garments and accessories for the townspeople.
She is so skilled that her work becomes something of a fad, and she even
receives work from the magistrates and the governor of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony himself.
CHAPTER VI. PEARL

The narrative thread pauses to give the reader a glimpse of the growing
Pearl. Being brought up outside of the confines and rules of the village,
Pearl is willful and precocious. She is referred to as the “elf-child.”
CHAPTER VII. THE GOVERNOR’S HALL

Hester visits the governor’s mansion to deliver a pair of gloves she has
embroidered. While there, she intends to confront the governor with
rumors she has heard that the townspeople intend to take Pearl away
from her. The minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, and the physician, Roger
Chillingworth, are also present; and Hester tells the minister that he must
intercede for her. He does so, and Hester is allowed to keep Pearl.
CHAPTER VIII. THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER

While at the governor’s house, Pearl approaches Dimmesdale and acts in
an uncustomarily mild and compassionate manner.
CHAPTER IX. THE LEECH

The narrative pauses again to offer a closer view of Roger Chillingworth
and his scientific experiments. Images of his wandering through the forest,
searching under rocks, digging up roots, and gathering medicinal herbs
create an impression of a mad scientist or a witch.
CHAPTER X. THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT

Arthur Dimmesdale has become a powerful and popular speaker and a
compassionate, effective minister. But his apparent dedication to his work
and to his congregation have apparently hurt his health. Chillingworth
volunteers to serve as the young man’s physician and, suspecting that the
minister harbors some dark secret, begins to probe his heart and soul.

CHAPTER XI. THE INTERIOR OF A HEART

A tormented Dimmesdale is suffering by carrying some unexposed sin.
Chillingworth tempts him to make it known, but Dimmesdale is simply
unable. He grows physically weaker as his sermons and dedication to his
work grow stronger.
CHAPTER XII. THE MINISTER’S VIGIL

An insomniac Dimmesdale makes a lonely midnight vigil on the same scaf-
fold where Hester stood seven years earlier. No one sees him except Hester
and Pearl who join him. Pearl challenges Dimmesdale to stand with them
on the scaffold in the daylight. Meteors flash across the sky, their fiery tales
tracing the letter “A.”
CHAPTER XIII. ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER

Hester becomes the village’s sister of mercy, visiting the sick—attending
the dying, encouraging the discouraged. The isolation and alienation that
are the results of her own sin enable her to enter places where “respect-
able” people dare not go. Some “forget” the true meaning of the scarlet
letter and say it stands for “able.”
CHAPTER XIV. HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN

Hester encounters Roger Chillingworth in the forest and tells him that
she intends to reveal his identity to Arthur Dimmesdale. She can tell that
Arthur is dying and fears that somehow Chillingworth is responsible.
CHAPTER XV. HESTER AND PEARL

Hester and Pearl are observed in a variety of settings. The main thrust of
the chapter is that Hester is burdened by the stigma of the scarlet letter and
tormented by Pearl's questions about what the letter means, why Hester
wears it, and who her father is.
CHAPTER XVI. A FOREST WALK

Having resolved to tell Dimmesdale the truth about Chillingworth’s iden-
tity, Hester visits the forest where she knows Dimmesdale will pass in the
course of his work.

The Scarlet Letter
CHAPTER XVII. THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER

Dimmesdale and Hester meet and talk. They confess their love for one
another, but Dimmesdale is too aware of his damnation. Hester offers to
leave Boston with him. They will go someplace—perhaps Europe—where
they will be free of the constraints of the Puritan society.
CHAPTER XVIII. A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE

Hester and Dimmesdale are resolved to leave as soon as he delivers the
prestigious Election Day sermon. In a celebratory moment, Hester removes
the scarlet letter from her breast and lets down her dark hair. The sun
comes out from behind a cloud and floods her with its light.
CHAPTER XIX. THE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE

A joyful Hester wants Pearl to meet her father, but the child will not
approach until Hester returns the scarlet letter to her breast. Even then,
Pearl is unfriendly to Dimmesdale.
CHAPTER XX. THE MINISTER IN A MAZE

Dimmesdale returns home to prepare his sermon. On his way, he encoun-
ters several parishioners and finds it very difficult to resist the temptation
to commit petty, silly sins.
CHAPTER XXI. THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY

Election Day (actually the day on which the new governor was inaugu-
rated, not elected) arrives. Pearl is astonished at the festival atmosphere
in the otherwise austere village. Hester has booked passage for herself,
Dimmesdale, and Pearl on a ship sailing in a few days for England. She is
told by one of the ship’s crew that Roger Chillingworth has booked passage
too.
CHAPTER XXII. THE PROCESSION

The stately procession passes on the way to the church where Dimmesdale
will deliver his sermon. Pearl recognizes him, and is puzzled that he shows
no sign of recognition. The church is too crowded for everyone, so Hester
and Pearl stand beside the scaffold.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER

The sermon—hailed as Dimmesdale’s best—is over, and everyone leaves
the church. Dimmesdale sees Hester and Pearl standing beside the scaffold.
He feels he is too weak—physically and morally—to make the sea voyage.
He climbs the scaffold, asks Hester and Pearl to join him, and confesses
his sin of adultery. He tears open his shirt and reveals a scarlet “A” embla-
zoned in his flesh. He dies. Chillingworth, deprived of his moment of vic-
tory, dies also.
CHAPTER XXIV. CONCLUSION

Hester and Pearl leave. Many years later, Hester returns. Rumors abound
that Pearl has married an English gentleman. Hester sews baby clothes and
sends them away. She receives letters and expensive gifts from overseas,
some bearing the crest of an ancient noble family. Eventually she dies
and they bury her beside—but not too near—Dimmesdale. A common
headstone is placed between the two graves, bearing a scarlet “A” on the
background of black stone.

The Scarlet Letter
NOTES ON THE FEMINIST APPROACH
Feminism is an evolving philosophy. Feminism in literature is an even newer

area of study and thought. The basis of the movement, both in literature and
society, is that the Western world is fundamentally patriarchal (i.e., created by
men, ruled by men, viewed through the eyes of men, and judged by men).
The social movement of feminism found its approach to literature in the
1960s. Of course, women had already been writing and publishing for centuries,
but the 1960s saw the rise of a literary theory. Until then, the works of female
writers (or works about females) were examined by the same standards as those
by male writers (and about men). Women were thought to be unintelligent (at
least in part because they were generally less formally educated than men), and
many women accepted that judgement. It was not until the feminist movement
was well under way that women began examining old texts to reevaluate the
portrayal of women and writing new works to fit the “modern woman.”
The feminist approach is based on finding suggestions of misogyny (negative
attitudes about women) within pieces of literature and exposing them. Feminists
are interested in exposing elements in literature that have been accepted as
the norm by both men and women. They have even dissected many words in
Western languages that are clearly rooted in masculinity. Feminists argue that
since the past millennia in the West have been dominated by men—whether
they be the politicians in power or the historians recording it all—Western
literature reflects a masculine bias, and consequently, represents an inaccurate
and harmful image of women. In order to fix this image and create a balanced
canon, works by females and works about females should be added and judged
on a different, feminine scale.
Three main areas of study/points of criticism:

1. differences between men and women
2. women in power or power relationships between men and women
3. the female experience
1. Differences between men and women

• The basic assumption is that gender determines everything, includ-
ing values and language.

• The canon must be expanded to include the study of those genres in

which women “traditionally” write: journals, diaries, and personal
letters.
• Note the differences in both the topics or issues about which men
and women write and the perspectives from which they write about
them.
2. Women in power or power relationships between men and women

• Note and attack the social, economic, and political exploitation of
women. Note whether women have any power and what type it is.
• Society has not treated all of its constituencies with equality, and lit-
erature is a means by which inequities can be identified, protested,
and possibly rectified.
• Note the division of labor and economics between men and women.
• Note how men and women interact with one another in a variety of
relationships (romantic, professional, etc.) Does the woman act in
any way subservient to the man? Does the man treat the woman like
an adult? A political and economic equal?
3. The female experience

• On the most basic level, women experience different things in life
than men do. Examine what aspects of feminine life are included in
the work. Note the point of view through which the events are told. Is
it male or female? Pay attention to how the narrator, male or female,
treats the events. For example, are they depicted with sensitivity,
harshness, etc.
• Reject any view of female personality in contrast to male personality.

Feminists believe that the female personality is a separate entity from
the male personality, and if judged by the same measures, is judged
incorrectly. The female personality can stand independent of the male
personality, just as the male can stand independent of the female.

The Scarlet Letter
• Examine (and possibly celebrate) the creative, life-giving role of

femininity. Though traditionally women have been portrayed as
dependent on men for everything, the fact is that men are dependent
on women for the most basic necessity in the world—birthing chil-
dren. A male’s relationship to his mother has always been portrayed
as a very strong bond (whether in the Freudian theory of the Oedipal
complex or modern phrases such as “Mama’s boy”).
• Explore the concept that men and women are both incomplete with-
out each other (women cannot conceive without men, etc.) not of
feminine “incompleteness” alone (Adam’s rib, Freudian theories on
sexuality, etc.).
Essential questions for a feminist reading:
1. What stereotypes of women are present? Are female characters oversimpli-

fied? Weak? Foolish? Excessively naive?
2. Do the female characters play major or minor roles in the action of

the work? Are they supportive or independent? Powerless or strong?
Subservient or in control?
3. If the female characters have any power, what kind is it? Political?
Economic? Social? Psychological?
4. How do the male characters talk about the female characters?
5. How do the male characters treat the female characters?
6. How do the female characters act toward the male characters?
7. How do the female characters act toward each other?
8. Is the work in general sympathetic to female characters? Too

sympathetic?

9. Are the female characters and situations in which they are placed oversim-
plified or presented fully and in detail?
10. What are the predominant images? Are they images usually associated
with women? Why or why not?
11. Do any of the work’s themes touch upon any idea that could be seen as a
feminist issue? Is the theme supportive or disparaging of women?
12. Overall, do you think that the female characters are believable (based on
women you know)? For that matter, do you think that the male characters
are believable?

The Scarlet Letter
Activity One: Comparing Hester Prynne with Arthur Dimmesdale

and Roger Chillingworth
First have students reread Chapter 5 (about Hester’s life after her scaffold
humiliation), Chapter 13 (the evolution of Hester’s reputation), Chapter 17
(Hester’s conversation with Dimmesdale), and Chapter 18—focusing on Hester’s
actions, attitude, and reaction to her initial sin.
Secondly, have students reread Chapter 4 (Hester’s first conversation with

Chillingworth), Chapter 9 (Hawthorne’s close-up view of Chillingworth),
Chapter 10 (a view of Chillingworth and Dimmesdale’s relationship), and
Chapter 23 (the ruin of Chillingworth’s plan and Chillingworth’s death)—focus-
ing on Chillingworth, his relationship to Hester, and his reaction to her initial
sin.
Finally, have students reread Chapter 2 (especially Dimmesdale’s reaction

to Hester’s refusal to name the baby’s father), Chapter 7 (especially Hester’s
demand that Dimmesdale intercede for her with the governor), Chapters 11
and 12 (contrasting Dimmesdale’s interior guilt with his inability to confess
as well as his stated reasons for being unable to confess), Chapters 17 and 18
(Dimmesdale’s inability to see beyond his sin and his reaction to the idea of
fleeing), Chapter 20 (Dimmesdale’s almost juvenile reaction to his “liberation”),
and Chapter 23 (Dimmesdale’s final disclosure and death)—focusing obviously
on Dimmesdale’s actions and reactions to the initial sin.
Discuss with the class (or divide the class into smaller, gender-mixed groups
of 4 or 5 students to discuss and answer) the following questions:
1. Of the three, who can be said to be the most successful in worldly terms?
2. Of the three, who can be said to be the most satisfied with his/her life?
3. What is the source (or sources) of this satisfaction?
4. Would you classify Hester as a weak or strong person? What evidence in

the novel supports your classification?

5. Would you classify Chillingworth as a weak or strong person? What evi-

dence in the novel supports your classification?
6. Would you classify Dimmesdale as a weak or strong person? What evi-

dence in the novel supports your classification?
7. What, then, might Hawthorne be suggesting about gender differences and

gender equality?

The Scarlet Letter
Activity Two: Examining Hawthorne’s treatment of

other female characters
Have students review the following passages, answer the questions pertain-
ing to each individual passage, and then discuss the general questions:
(From Chapter 2)
It was a circumstance to be noted on the summer morning when our story

begins its course, that the women, of whom there were several in the crowd,
appeared to take a peculiar interest in whatever penal infliction might be
expected to ensue. The age had not so much refinement, that any sense of
impropriety restrained the wearers of petticoat and farthingale from stepping
forth into the public ways, and wedging their not unsubstantial persons, if occa-
sion were, into the throng nearest to the scaffold at an execution. Morally, as
well as materially, there was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of old
English birth and breeding than in their fair descendants, separated from them
by a series of six or seven generations; for, throughout that chain of ancestry,
every successive mother had transmitted to her child a fainter bloom, a more
delicate and briefer beauty, and a slighter physical frame, if not character of less
force and solidity than her own. The women who were now standing about the
prison-door stood within less than half a century of the period when the man-
like Elizabeth had been the not altogether unsuitable representative of the sex.
They were her countrywomen: and the beef and ale of their native land, with a
moral diet not a whit more refined, entered largely into their composition. The
bright morning sun, therefore, shone on broad shoulders and well-developed
busts, and on round and ruddy cheeks, that had ripened in the far off island,
and had hardly yet grown paler or thinner in the atmosphere of New England.
There was, moreover, a boldness and rotundity of speech among these matrons,
as most of them seemed to be, that would startle us at the present day, whether
in respect to its purport or its volume of tone.
“Goodwives,” said a hard-featured dame of fifty, “I’ll tell ye a piece of my
mind. It would be greatly for the public behoof if we women, being of mature
age and church members in good repute, should have the handling of such
malefactresses as this Hester Prynne. What think ye, gossips? If the hussy stood

up for judgment before us five, that are now here in a knot together, would she
come off with such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded?
Marry, I trow not.”
“People say,” said another, “that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly
pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come
upon his congregation.”
“The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch--that is
a truth,” added a third autumnal matron. “At the very least, they should have
put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead. Madame Hester would
have winced at that, I warrant me. But she--the naughty baggage--little will she
care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, look you, she may cover
it with a brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as
brave as ever!”
“Ah, but,” interposed, more softly, a young wife, holding a child by the hand,
“let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart.”
“What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of her gown
or the flesh of her forehead?” cried another female, the ugliest as well as the
most pitiless of these self-constituted judges. “This woman has brought shame
upon us all, and ought to die; is there not law for it? Truly there is, both in the
Scripture and the statute-book. Then let the magistrates, who have made it of
no effect, thank themselves if their own wives and daughters go astray.”
“Mercy on us, goodwife!” exclaimed a man in the crowd, “is there no virtue
in woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear of the gallows? That is the
hardest word yet! Hush now, gossips for the lock is turning in the prison-door,
and here comes Mistress Prynne herself.”
1. To what social standard is Hawthorne referring when he writes: “The age

had not so much refinement, that any sense of impropriety restrained the
wearers of petticoat and farthingale from stepping forth into the public
ways”?
2. What is Hawthorne suggesting about the “evolution” of the female gender

when he writes, “…throughout that chain of ancestry, every successive
mother had transmitted to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicate and
briefer beauty, and a slighter physical frame, if not character of less force
and solidity than her own.”

The Scarlet Letter
3. Who is the “the man-like Elizabeth,” and in what ways could she be said
to have been “man-like”?
4. What is significant about the fact the Hawthorne would use an expression
like “man-like” to describe this Elizabeth?
5. How does the physical description of the women indicate their attitude as
it is revealed in this passage?
(From Chapter 7)
As they descended the steps, it is averred that the lattice of a chamber-

window was thrown open, and forth into the sunny day was thrust the face of
Mistress Hibbins, Governor Bellingham’s bitter-tempered sister, and the same
who, a few years later, was executed as a witch.
“Hist, hist!” said she, while her ill-omened physiognomy seemed to cast a
shadow over the cheerful newness of the house. “Wilt thou go with us to-night?
There will be a merry company in the forest; and I well-nigh promised the Black
Man that comely Hester Prynne should make one.”
“Make my excuse to him, so please you!” answered Hester, with a trium-
phant smile. “I must tarry at home, and keep watch over my little Pearl. Had
they taken her from me, I would willingly have gone with thee into the forest,
and signed my name in the Black Man’s book too, and that with mine own
blood!”
“We shall have thee there anon!” said the witch-lady, frowning, as she drew
back her head.
But here—if we suppose this interview betwixt Mistress Hibbins and Hester
Prynne to be authentic, and not a parable—was already an illustration of the
young minister’s argument against sundering the relation of a fallen mother to
the offspring of her frailty. Even thus early had the child saved her from Satan’s
snare.
1. What does Hawthorne mean when he notes Mistress Hibbins’ “ill-omened

physiognomy”?
2. Mistress Hibbins was the widow of one Massachusetts governor and the
sister of another. What is Hawthorne suggesting when he notes that she
was indeed executed as a witch?

(From Chapter 20)
After parting from the old church member, he met the youngest sister of them
all. It was a maiden newly-won—and won by the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale’s
own sermon, on the Sabbath after his vigil—to barter the transitory pleasures
of the world for the heavenly hope that was to assume brighter substance as life
grew dark around her, and which would gild the utter gloom with final glory. She
was fair and pure as a lily that had bloomed in Paradise. The minister knew well
that he was himself enshrined within the stainless sanctity of her heart, which
hung its snowy curtains about his image, imparting to religion the warmth of
love, and to love a religious purity. Satan, that afternoon, had surely led the poor
young girl away from her mother’s side, and thrown her into the pathway of this
sorely tempted, or—shall we not rather say?—this lost and desperate man. As
she drew nigh, the arch fiend whispered him to condense into small compass,
and drop into her tender bosom a germ of evil that would be sure to blossom
darkly soon, and bear black fruit betimes. Such was his sense of power over this
virgin soul, trusting him as she did, that the minister felt potent to blight all the
field of innocence with but one wicked look, and develop all its opposite with
but a word. So—with a mightier struggle than he had yet sustained—he held
his Geneva cloak before his face, and hurried onward, making no sign of rec-
ognition, and leaving the young sister to digest his rudeness as she might. She
ransacked her conscience—which was full of harmless little matters, like her
pocket or her work-bag—and took herself to task, poor thing! for a thousand
imaginary faults, and went about her household duties with swollen eyelids the
next morning.
1. What terms does Hawthorne use to describe the young girl?
2. Characterize Dimmesdale’s reason for not speaking to the girl on this occa-
sion.
3. Characterize the girl’s reaction to Dimmesdale’s snub.

The Scarlet Letter
General Discussion questions:
1. Not including Hester, how complete and well-rounded a view of women

does Hawthorne present?
2. Given the passages above, what seem to be women’s strengths?
3. Given the passages above, what seem to be women’s weaknesses?
4. Including Hester, who seems to have the political power in the society of
the book?
5. Who seems to have the moral power?
6. In your opinion, which is more important? Why?

Activity Three: Examining Hester as a symbol of womanhood
Again, have students examine what Hawthorne shows of Hester in Chapters

5, 13, 17, and 18.
Next have students read the following passage from Chapter 13 and consider
the questions that follow:
Indeed, the same dark question often rose into her mind with reference to
the whole race of womanhood. Was existence worth accepting even to the hap-
piest among them? As concerned her own individual existence, she had long
ago decided in the negative, and dismissed the point as settled. A tendency to
speculation, though it may keep women quiet, as it does man, yet makes her
sad. She discerns, it may be, such a hopeless task before her.
As a first step, the whole system of society is to be torn down and built up
anew. Then the very nature of the opposite sex, or its long hereditary habit,
which has become like nature, is to be essentially modified before woman can
be allowed to assume what seems a fair and suitable position. Finally, all other
difficulties being obviated, woman cannot take advantage of these preliminary
reforms until she herself shall have undergone a still mightier change, in which,
perhaps, the ethereal essence, wherein she has her truest life, will be found to
have evaporated. A woman never overcomes these problems by any exercise
of thought. They are not to be solved, or only in one way. If her heart chance
to come uppermost, they vanish. Thus Hester Prynne, whose heart had lost
its regular and healthy throb, wandered without a clue in the dark labyrinth
of mind; now turned aside by an insurmountable precipice; now starting back
from a deep chasm. There was wild and ghastly scenery all around her, and a
home and comfort nowhere. At times a fearful doubt strove to possess her soul,
whether it were not better to send Pearl at once to Heaven, and go herself to
such futurity as Eternal Justice should provide.
The effect of the symbol—or rather, of the position in respect to society that
was indicated by it—on the mind of Hester Prynne herself was powerful and
peculiar. All the light and graceful foliage of her character had been withered
up by this red-hot brand, and had long ago fallen away, leaving a bare and harsh
outline, which might have been repulsive had she possessed friends or compan-
ions to be repelled by it. Even the attractiveness of her person had undergone
a similar change. It might be partly owing to the studied austerity of her dress,

The Scarlet Letter
and partly to the lack of demonstration in her manners. It was a sad transfor-
mation, too, that her rich and luxuriant hair had either been cut off, or was so
completely hidden by a cap, that not a shining lock of it ever once gushed into
the sunshine. It was due in part to all these causes, but still more to some-
thing else, that there seemed to be no longer anything in Hester’s face for Love
to dwell upon; nothing in Hester’s form, though majestic and statue like, that
Passion would ever dream of clasping in its embrace; nothing in Hester’s bosom
to make it ever again the pillow of Affection. Some attribute had departed from
her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a woman. Such is
frequently the fate, and such the stern development, of the feminine character
and person, when the woman has encountered, and lived through, an experi-
ence of peculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she survive, the
tenderness will either be crushed out of her, or—and the outward semblance is
the same—crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself more.
The latter is perhaps the truest theory. She who has once been a woman, and
ceased to be so, might at any moment become a woman again, if there were
only the magic touch to effect the transformation. We shall see whether Hester
Prynne were ever afterwards so touched and so transfigured.
1. What is that “fair and suitable position” to which Hawthorne refers in this
passage?
2. What characteristic—whether instinctive or habitual—must be altered for

Woman to attain this position?
3. What, according to Hawthorne, has Hester lost so that she is no longer a

woman?

Discussion Questions:
1. What stereotypes of women do you see in The Scarlet Letter?
2. Do the female characters play major or minor roles in the action of The
Scarlet Letter? Are they supportive or independent? Powerless or strong?
Subservient or in control?
3. If the female characters have any power, what kind is it? Political?
Economic? Social? Psychological?
4. Is The Scarlet Letter, in general, sympathetic to female characters? Too sym-

pathetic?
5. In general, in The Scarlet Letter, are the female characters and situations in
which they are placed oversimplified or presented fully and in detail?
6. Do any of The Scarlet Letter’s themes touch upon any idea that could
be seen as a feminist issue? Is the theme supportive or disparaging of
women?
Essays or Writing Assignments:
1. Discuss The Scarlet Letter as either a feminist or anti-feminist work. Be cer-

tain to support your thesis with information about feminism and feminist
theory as well as evidence from the work itself.
2. Based solely on what you learn of Puritan New England in The Scarlet
Letter, what social values, customs, and assumptions would need to be
changed in order to achieve a more gender-equitable society? Make certain
to use evidence from the novel to support all of your assertions.

The Scarlet Letter
NOTES ON PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
The terms “psychological,” or “psychoanalytical,” or “Freudian Theory”

seem to encompass essentially two almost contradictory critical theories. The
first focuses solely on the text itself with no regard to outside influences; the
second focuses on the author of the text.
According to the first view, reading and interpretation are limited to the
work itself. One will understand the work by examining the conflicts, charac-
ters, dream sequences and symbols. In this way, the psychoanalytic theory of
literature is very similar to the Formalist approach to literature. One will fur-
ther understand that a character’s outward behavior might conflict with inner
desires, or might reflect as-yet-undiscovered inner desires.
Main areas of study/points of criticism of the first view:

• There are strong Oedipal connotations in this theory: the son’s desire
for his mother, the father’s envy of the son and rivalry for the mother’s
attention, the daughter’s desire for her father, the mother’s envy of
the daughter and rivalry for the father’s attention. Of course, these
all operate on a subconscious level, to avoid breaking a serious social
more.
• There is an emphasis on the meaning of dreams. This is because

psychoanalytic theory believes that dreams are where a person’s
subconscious desires are revealed. What a person cannot express
or do because of social rules will be expressed and done in dreams,
where there are no social rules. Most of the time, people are not even
aware what it is they secretly desire until their subconscious goes
unchecked in sleep.
• According to psychoanalytic theory, there are three parts to the sub-

conscious, which is the largest part of the human personality. The
three parts are:

1. The id—the basic desire. The id is the fundamental root of what each
person wants. There is no sense of conscience in it, thus making it
everyone’s “inner child.” Children, before they are taught social skills,
operate entirely through the id. They cry in public, wet their diapers,
and demand immediate gratification of their needs and desires, to
name just a few things.
2. The superego—the opposite of the id. This is the repository of all

socially imposed behavior and sense of guilt. While the id is innate,
the superego is learned through parental instruction and living in
society. Humans develop a superego by having parents scold them
and other members of society criticize or teach them.
3. The ego—reality. The balance between the id and the superego. The
ego takes the desires of the id and filters them through the rule base
in the superego and comes up with an action that satisfies both enti-
ties. The ego realizes that the id must be satisfied, but that there are
certain socially acceptable ways to go about satisfying it.
Main areas of study/points of criticism of the second view:
According to the second view, an essential relationship exists between the

author of the work and the work itself. This view is in direct contrast to the
Formalist approach to literature. In order to understand a work, one must fully
understand the author’s life and emotional stance, and vice versa. Though a
work might not be blatantly autobiographical, psychoanalysts argue that there is
always something of the author in the work, whether it is a character, character
trait, theme, or motif. Often, authors will satirize people they dislike or will be
overtly sympathetic to people they do like. This author bias often has an effect
on the reader, which is exactly what the author wants. When reading, people are
very vulnerable to the author’s chosen point of view (the only way they hear the
story is through the author’s narrator). This view of the psychoanalytic view is a
very subjective and controversial approach to literature, but the psychoanalysts
of the world argue it is a valid and important type of literary study.

The Scarlet Letter
This type of psychoanalytic reading includes the following:
1. Reference to what is known or surmised about the author’s personality

is used to explain and interpret a literary work. For example, Charles
Dickens grew up poor and later wrote books very sympathetic to boys who
grew up poor.
2. Reference to a literary work is made in order to establish an understanding

of the mind of the author. For example, judging by Harper Lee’s To Kill a
Mockingbird, one might reasonably conclude that Harper Lee herself was
sympathetic to the plight of black Americans.
3. Studying the literary work of an author is a means of knowing the author

as a person. The more novels by Charles Dickens one reads, the clearer
idea one can infer about the author’s beliefs, values, hopes, fears, etc.
4. An artist may put his or her repressed desires on the page in the form of
actions performed by characters. Pay attention to behaviors that are not
socially “normal” to see if there is any evidence of the id at work. For
example, an author who consistently writes stories in which his female
characters are weak, dependent, or unintelligent might be expressing
latent misogynist tendencies.
Essential questions for a psychoanalytic reading:
1. What are the traits of the main character?
2. How does the author reveal those traits?
3. What do you learn about the character through the narrator?
4. What do you learn about the character from the way other characters
relate to him or her?

5. What do you infer about the character from his/her thoughts, actions, and
speech?
6. What discrepancies exist between the author’s portrayal of the character

and how other characters react to him or her?
7. What discrepancies exist between the author’s portrayal of the character

and the reader’s inferences?
8. Is the main character a dynamic character (does he or she change through-

out the course of the story)? If so, how and why?
9. How does the character view him or herself ?
10. What discrepancies exist between a character’s view of him or herself and
other characters’ reactions, the author’s portrayal, and/or reader infer-
ence?
11. How do the characters view one another?
12. Is there any discrepancy between a character’s personal opinion of himself

and how others think about him?
13. What types of relationships exist in the work?
14. What types of images are used in conjunction with the character? What do
they symbolize?
15. What symbols are used in the course of the story? What do they symbol-
ize?
16. Do any characters have dreams or inner monologues? What is revealed

about a character through dreams that would not otherwise be revealed?
17. Are there any inner conflicts within the character? How are these conflicts
revealed?

The Scarlet Letter
18. How are they dealt with? Are they ever resolved? How?
19. Do any characters perform uncharacteristic actions? If so, what? What

could these actions mean?

Activity One: Examining the effects of repression on physical

and emotional health of the characters
Have students do some general research in the psychological phenomenon

of “repression.” Then have them reread the following passages that trace the
changes in physical appearance and mental and emotional health of Roger
Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale. Then have them, either as a whole class
or in small groups, discuss the questions that follow:
First description of Chillingworth, Chapter 3
He was small in stature, with a furrowed visage, which as yet could hardly be
termed aged. There was a remarkable intelligence in his features, as of a person
who had so cultivated his mental part that it could not fail to mould the physical
to itself and become manifest by unmistakable tokens. Although, by a seemingly
careless arrangement of his heterogeneous garb, he had endeavoured to conceal
or abate the peculiarity, it was sufficiently evident to Hester Prynne that one of
this man’s shoulders rose higher than the other.
Chapter 9
A large number—and many of these were persons of such sober sense and
practical observation that their opinions would have been valuable in other
matters—affirmed that Roger Chillingworth’s aspect had undergone a remark-
able change while he had dwelt in town, and especially since his abode with Mr.
Dimmesdale. At first, his expression had been calm, meditative, scholar-like.
Now there was something ugly and evil in his face, which they had not previ-
ously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to sight the oftener they
looked upon him.
Chapter 10
Old Roger Chillingworth, throughout life, had been calm in temperament,

kindly, though not of warm affections, but ever, and in all his relations with the
world, a pure and upright man. He had begun an investigation, as he imagined,
with the severe and equal integrity of a judge, desirous only of truth, even
as if the question involved no more than the air-drawn lines and figures of a

The Scarlet Letter
geometrical problem, instead of human passions, and wrongs inflicted on him-

self. But, as he proceeded, a terrible fascination, a kind of fierce, though still
calm, necessity, seized the old man within its gripe, and never set him free again
until he had done all its bidding.
Chapter 14
All this while Hester had been looking steadily at the old man, and was
shocked, as well as wonder-smitten, to discern what a change had been wrought
upon him within the past seven years. It was not so much that he had grown
older; for though the traces of advancing life were visible he bore his age well,
and seemed to retain a wiry vigour and alertness. But the former aspect of
an intellectual and studious man, calm and quiet, which was what she best
remembered in him, had altogether vanished, and been succeeded by an eager,
searching, almost fierce, yet carefully guarded look. It seemed to be his wish
and purpose to mask this expression with a smile, but the latter played him
false, and flickered over his visage so derisively that the spectator could see his
blackness all the better for it. Ever and anon, too, there came a glare of red light
out of his eyes, as if the old man’s soul were on fire and kept on smouldering
duskily within his breast, until by some casual puff of passion it was blown into
a momentary flame. This he repressed as speedily as possible, and strove to look
as if nothing of the kind had happened.
In a word, old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man’s faculty
of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of
time, undertake a devil’s office. This unhappy person had effected such a trans-
formation by devoting himself for seven years to the constant analysis of a heart
full of torture, and deriving his enjoyment thence, and adding fuel to those fiery
tortures which he analysed and gloated over.
Chapter 15
So Roger Chillingworth—a deformed old figure with a face that haunted

men’s memories longer than they liked—took leave of Hester Prynne, and went
stooping away along the earth. He gathered here and there a herb, or grubbed
up a root and put it into the basket on his arm. His gray beard almost touched
the ground as he crept onward.

Chapter 24
Nothing was more remarkable than the change which took place, almost
immediately after Mr. Dimmesdale’s death, in the appearance and demeanour
of the old man known as Roger Chillingworth. All his strength and energy—all
his vital and intellectual force—seemed at once to desert him, insomuch that he
positively withered up, shrivelled away and almost vanished from mortal sight,
like an uprooted weed that lies wilting in the sun.
First description of Dimmesdale: Chapter 3
The directness of this appeal drew the eyes of the whole crowd upon the
Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale—young clergyman, who had come from one of the
great English universities, bringing all the learning of the age into our wild for-
est land. His eloquence and religious fervour had already given the earnest of
high eminence in his profession. He was a person of very striking aspect, with a
white, lofty, and impending brow; large, brown, melancholy eyes, and a mouth
which, unless when he forcibly compressed it, was apt to be tremulous, express-
ing both nervous sensibility and a vast power of self restraint. Notwithstanding
his high native gifts and scholar-like attainments, there was an air about this
young minister—an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look—as of a
being who felt himself quite astray, and at a loss in the pathway of human exis-
tence, and could only be at ease in some seclusion of his own. Therefore, so
far as his duties would permit, he trod in the shadowy by-paths, and thus kept
himself simple and childlike, coming forth, when occasion was, with a fresh-
ness, and fragrance, and dewy purity of thought, which, as many people said,
affected them like the speech of an angel.
Chapter 8
…the young minister at once came forward, pale, and holding his hand over
his heart, as was his custom whenever his peculiarly nervous temperament was
thrown into agitation. He looked now more careworn and emaciated than as we
described him at the scene of Hester’s public ignominy; and whether it were his
failing health, or whatever the cause might be, his large dark eyes had a world
of pain in their troubled and melancholy depth.

The Scarlet Letter
Chapter 9
…with every successive Sabbath, his cheek was paler and thinner, and his
voice more tremulous than before—when it had now become a constant habit,
rather than a casual gesture, to press his hand over his heart?
Chapter 12
The minister felt for the child’s other hand, and took it. The moment that he
did so, there came what seemed a tumultuous rush of new life, other life than
his own pouring like a torrent into his heart, and hurrying through all his veins,
as if the mother and the child were communicating their vital warmth to his
half-torpid system. The three formed an electric chain.
Chapter 13
In her late singular interview with Mr. Dimmesdale, Hester Prynne was
shocked at the condition to which she found the clergyman reduced. His nerve
seemed absolutely destroyed. His moral force was abased into more than child-
ish weakness. It grovelled helpless on the ground, even while his intellectual
faculties retained their pristine strength, or had perhaps acquired a morbid
energy, which disease only could have given them.
Chapter 22
It was the observation of those who beheld him now, that never, since Mr.
Dimmesdale first set his foot on the New England shore, had he exhibited such
energy as was seen in the gait and air with which he kept his pace in the pro-
cession. There was no feebleness of step as at other times; his frame was not
bent, nor did his hand rest ominously upon his heart. Yet, if the clergyman were
rightly viewed, his strength seemed not of the body. It might be spiritual and
imparted to him by angelical ministrations. It might be the exhilaration of that
potent cordial which is distilled only in the furnace-glow of earnest and long-
continued thought. Or perchance his sensitive temperament was invigorated
by the loud and piercing music that swelled heaven-ward, and uplifted him

on its ascending wave. Nevertheless, so abstracted was his look, it might be

questioned whether Mr. Dimmesdale even heard the music. There was his body,
moving onward, and with an unaccustomed force. But where was his mind?
Chapter 23
How feeble and pale he looked, amid all his triumph! The energy—or say,
rather, the inspiration which had held him up, until he should have delivered
the sacred message that had brought its own strength along with it from heav-
en—was withdrawn, now that it had so faithfully performed its office. The glow,
which they had just before beheld burning on his cheek, was extinguished, like
a flame that sinks down hopelessly among the late decaying embers. It seemed
hardly the face of a man alive, with such a death-like hue: it was hardly a man
with life in him, that tottered on his path so nervously, yet tottered, and did not
fall!
1. From a psychological standpoint, what would ugliness or ill health repre-

sent?
2. On this psychological level, what accounts for Chillingworth’s deteriorat-

ing physical appearance from a middle-aged, mildly-deformed man at the
beginning of the book to the gnarled dwarf-like thing he has become by
the end?
3. Similarly, what accounts for Dimmesdale’s physical and emotional deterio-

ration?
4. What could account for Dimmesdale’s apparent, though temporary,

improvement in Chapters 12 and 22?
5. Why doesn’t Hester exhibit a similar physical or emotional deterioration?

The Scarlet Letter
Activity Two: Examining Chillingworth as Id, Hester as Ego, and

Dimmesdale as Superego
A. Review with students and have them research Freud’s concepts of id

(desire, passion), superego (conscience), and ego (mediator between id
and superego).
B. Divide the class into three groups (or a number of groups divisible by
three).
C. Assign each group (or let each group choose) a different term (id, super-
ego, ego) and have them examine the text for evidence that Chillingworth’s
desire for vengeance is id-like; that Dimmesdale’s self-imposed torment
calls to mind the superego; and that Hester’s ability to make herself useful
to the community and to envision a life beyond the colony where she and
Dimmesdale might actually be happy allows her to function in the novel
like the ego.
NOTE: You may choose, especially if you have more than three groups, to have
students also consider Pearl as the id.

Activity Three: Examining the role of superstition in the events

and outcome of the novel
A. Have students reread all of the references to “the Black Man” in the novel
and answer the following questions:
1. What literal persons would the New England Puritans have seen and
possibly feared to give them this notion of the “Black Man”?
2. In the following passages, with what characters is the Black Man

associated?
3. What is significant about Pearl’s curiosity about/fascination with the

Black Man?
“Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us? Hast
thou enticed me into a bond that will prove the ruin of my soul?”—Hester
to Chillingworth, Chapter 4
“Wilt thou go with us to-night? There will be a merry company in the

forest; and I well-nigh promised the Black Man that comely Hester Prynne
should make one.”—Mistress Hibbins to Hester, Chapter 8.
Hester Prynne, likewise, had involuntarily looked up, and all these
four persons, old and young, regarded one another in silence, till the
child laughed aloud, and shouted—”Come away, mother! Come away, or
yonder old black man will catch you! He hath got hold of the minister
already. Come away, mother or he will catch you! But he cannot catch little
Pearl!”—Pearl to Hester, Chapter 10
“Oh, a story about the Black Man,” answered Pearl, taking hold of her
mother’s gown, and looking up, half earnestly, half mischievously, into her
face.
“How he haunts this forest, and carries a book with him a big, heavy
book, with iron clasps; and how this ugly Black Man offers his book and

The Scarlet Letter
an iron pen to everybody that meets him here among the trees; and they
are to write their names with their own blood; and then he sets his mark
on their bosoms. Didst thou ever meet the Black Man, mother?”—Pearl to
Hester, Chapter 16
“And, mother, the old dame said that this scarlet letter was the Black
Man’s mark on thee, and that it glows like a red flame when thou meetest
him at midnight, here in the dark wood. Is it true, mother? And dost thou
go to meet him in the nighttime?”—Pearl to Hester Chapter 16
“But, mother, tell me now! Is there such a Black Man? And didst thou
ever meet him? And is this his mark?” —Chapter 16
“Once in my life I met the Black Man!” said her mother. “This scarlet
letter is his mark!”—Hester to Pearl, Chapter 16
I would have thee betake thyself to play, and leave me to speak with him
that comes yonder.”
“Is it the Black Man?” asked Pearl.
“Wilt thou go and play, child?” repeated her mother, “But do not stray far
into the wood. And take heed that thou come at my first call.”
“Yes, mother,” answered Pearl, “But if it be the Black Man, wilt thou
not let me stay a moment, and look at him, with his big book under his
arm?”
“Go, silly child!” said her mother impatiently. “It is no Black Man! Thou
canst see him now, through the trees. It is the minister!”
“And so it is!” said the child. “And, mother, he has his hand over his
heart! Is it because, when the minister wrote his name in the book, the
Black Man set his mark in that place? But why does he not wear it outside
his bosom, as thou dost, mother?”—Pearl-Hester exchange Chapter 16
“When the Black Man sees one of his own servants, signed and sealed,
so shy of owning to the bond as is the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, he hath
a way of ordering matters so that the mark shall be disclosed, in open day-
light, to the eyes of all the world!”—Mistress Hibbins to Hester Chapter 22

B. Have students examine other events around which superstitions have

evolved and then answer the questions that follow:
The wild rosebush:
But on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was
a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems,
which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the
prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to
his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to
him.
This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history; but
whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so long
after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally overshadowed it,
or whether, as there is fair authority for believing, it had sprung up under
the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson as she entered the prison-
door, we shall not take upon us to determine.
The meteor shower:
But before Mr. Dimmesdale had done speaking, a light gleamed far and
wide over all the muffled sky. It was doubtless caused by one of those
meteors, which the night watcher may so often observe burning out to
waste, in the vacant regions of the atmosphere. So powerful was its radi-
ance, that it thoroughly illuminated the dense medium of cloud betwixt
the sky and earth. The great vault brightened, like the dome of an immense
lamp. It showed the familiar scene of the street with the distinctness of
mid-day, but also with the awfulness that is always imparted to familiar
objects by an unaccustomed light. The wooden houses, with their jutting
storeys and quaint gable peaks; the doorsteps and thresholds with the
early grass springing up about them; the garden-plots, black with freshly-
turned earth; the wheel-track, little worn, and even in the market-place
margined with green on either side—all were visible, but with a singularity
of aspect that seemed to give another moral interpretation to the things of
this world than they had ever borne before. And there stood the minister,
with his hand over his heart; and Hester Prynne, with the embroidered
letter glimmering on her bosom; and little Pearl, herself a symbol, and the
connecting link between those two. They stood in the noon of that strange

The Scarlet Letter
and solemn splendour, as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets, and
the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another.
• • • • • • •
Nothing was more common, in those days, than to interpret all mete-
oric appearances, and other natural phenomena that occurred with less
regularity than the rise and set of sun and moon, as so many revelations
from a supernatural source. Thus, a blazing spear, a sword of flame, a bow,
or a sheaf of arrows seen in the midnight sky, prefigured Indian warfare.
Pestilence was known to have been foreboded by a shower of crimson
light. We doubt whether any marked event, for good or evil, ever befell
New England, from its settlement down to revolutionary times, of which
the inhabitants had not been previously warned by some spectacle of its
nature. Not seldom, it had been seen by multitudes. Oftener, however, its
credibility rested on the faith of some lonely eye-witness, who beheld the
wonder through the coloured, magnifying, and distorted medium of his
imagination, and shaped it more distinctly in his after-thought. It was,
indeed, a majestic idea that the destiny of nations should be revealed, in
these awful hieroglyphics, on the cope of heaven. A scroll so wide might
not be deemed too expensive for Providence to write a people’s doom
upon. The belief was a favourite one with our forefathers, as betokening
that their infant commonwealth was under a celestial guardianship of
peculiar intimacy and strictness. But what shall we say, when an individual
discovers a revelation addressed to himself alone, on the same vast sheet of
record. In such a case, it could only be the symptom of a highly disordered
mental state, when a man, rendered morbidly self-contemplative by long,
intense, and secret pain, had extended his egotism over the whole expanse
of nature, until the firmament itself should appear no more than a fitting
page for his soul’s history and fate.
We impute it, therefore, solely to the disease in his own eye and heart
that the minister, looking upward to the zenith, beheld there the appear-
ance of an immense letter—the letter A—marked out in lines of dull red
light. Not but the meteor may have shown itself at that point, burning
duskily through a veil of cloud, but with no such shape as his guilty imagi-
nation gave it, or, at least, with so little definiteness, that another’s guilt
might have seen another symbol in it.

“But did your reverence hear of the portent that was seen last night? a
great red letter in the sky—the letter A, which we interpret to stand for
Angel. For, as our good Governor Winthrop was made an angel this past
night, it was doubtless held fit that there should be some notice thereof!”
1. What attitude does the narrator take toward the “supernatural” nature of
these two events?
2. What possible themes are served by presenting these events and then offer-
ing multiple interpretations?
C. Have students answer the following questions:
1. What purpose does superstition serve the people in the world of the
novel?
2. Why doesn’t Hawthorne allow his readers merely to accept the super-
stitions of the characters?

The Scarlet Letter
1. Is Hester a dynamic character? If so, how does she change and why?
2. Is Dimmesdale a dynamic character? If so, how does he change and

why?
3. Is Chillingworth a dynamic character? If so, how does he change and

why?
4. How does Hester view herself ? Dimmesdale? Chillingworth?
5. Are there discrepancies between the characters’ opinions of themselves

and how others view them?
6. What types of relationships exist in The Scarlet Letter?
7. What types of images are used in conjunction with Hester? What do they
symbolize?
8. What types of images are used in conjunction with Dimmesdale? What do

they symbolize?
9. What types of images are used in conjunction with Chillingworth? What

do they symbolize?
10. What symbols are used in the course of the story? What do they symbol-
ize?
11. Are there any inner conflicts within the characters? How are these conflicts
revealed?
12. How are they dealt with? Are they ever resolved? How?

1. Using whatever you can infer from The Scarlet Letter, write an essay in
which you explain Hawthorne’s transcendental/anti-transcendental view.
2. Write an essay in which you show how Freud’s theories of Oedipal rela-
tionships between parents and children operates in this story of Hester,
Pearl, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth.

The Scarlet Letter
NOTES ON THE MYTHOLOGICAL/ARCHETYPAL APPROACH
Mythological, archetypal, and psychological criticism are all very closely

interrelated. This is because Freud formulated many theories around the idea
of the social archetype, and his pupil, Carl Jung, expanded and refined Freud’s
theories into a more cross-cultural philosophy.
Critics who read texts with the mythological/archetypal approach are look-
ing for symbols. Jung said that an archetype is “a figure...that repeats itself in the
course of history wherever creative fantasy is fully manifested.” He believed that
human beings were born innately knowing certain archetypes. The evidence
of this, Jung claimed, lies in the fact that some myths are repeated throughout
history in cultures and eras that could not possibly have had any contact with
one another. Many stories in Greek and Roman mythology have counterparts
in Chinese and Celtic mythology (long before the Greek and Roman Empires
spread to Asia and northern Europe). Most of the myths and symbols represent
ideas that human beings could not otherwise explain (the origins of life, what
happens after death, etc.) Every culture has a creation story, a life after death
belief, and a reason for human failings, and these stories—when studied com-
paratively—are far more similar than different.
When reading a work looking for archetypes or myths, critics look for very
general recurring themes, characters, and situations. In modern times, the same
types of archetypes are used in film, which is why it has been so easy for film-
makers to take a work like Jane Austen’s Emma and adapt it into the typical
Hollywood film Clueless. By drawing on those feelings, thoughts, concerns, and
issues that have been a part of the human condition in every generation, modern
authors allow readers to know the characters in a work with little or no expla-
nation. Imagine how cluttered stories would be if the author had to give every
detail about every single minor character that entered the work!
Three main points of study:

• archetypal characters
• archetypal images
• archetypal situations

1. Archetypal characters—
• the HERO: a figure, larger than life, whose search for self-identity
and/or self-fulfillment results in his own destruction (often accom-
panied by the destruction of the general society around him). In the
aftermath of the death of the hero, however, is progress toward some
ideal. While this applies to modern superheroes such as Superman
(Clark Kent searching for the balance between his super self and
his mortal self), it also applies to the Christian faith’s Jesus Christ (a
mortal man who comes to terms with his destiny as the Messiah) and
thousands of other literary and religious figures throughout history.
• the SCAPEGOAT: an innocent character on whom a situation is

blamed—or who assumes the blame for a situation—and is punished
in place of the truly guilty party, thus removing the guilt from the
culprit and society.
• the LONER or OUTCAST: a character who is separated from (or sep-

arates him or herself from) society due to a physical impairment or an
emotional or physiological realization that makes this character dif-
ferent. Jesus goes into the desert to discern his destiny; Buddha leaves
society to come to terms with his philosophy. Victor Frankenstein
travels to remote locales to avoid people when he realizes that he has
created a monster. Often the Hero is an outcast at some point in his
or her story.
• the TEMPTRESS: the female who possesses what the male desires
and uses his desire as a means to his ultimate destruction. Examples
are Eve, Juliet, Lady Macbeth.
• the EARTH MOTHER / GODDESS: Mother Nature, Mother Earth, the

nurturing, life-giving aspect of femininity.
• the SPIRIT or INTELLECT: the often-unidentified feminine inspi-

ration for works of art and literature. Examples would be Dante’s
Beatrice, Shakespeare’s Dark Lady, etc.

The Scarlet Letter
2. Archetypal images—
• COLORS: red as blood, anger, passion, violence; gold as greatness,
value, wealth; green as fertility, luxury, growth; blue (the color of the
sky) as God-like holiness, peace, serenity; white as purity; etc.
• NUMBERS: three for the Christian trinity; four for the four seasons,
the four ancient elements (earth, water, fire, air); twelve for the
months of the solar year, etc.
• WATER: the source of life and sustenance; cleansing or purification;

baptism.
• GARDENS: natural abundance; easy, beautiful life; new birth, hope;

Eden, the original Paradise from which humankind was expelled.
• GEOMETRIC SHAPES: a triangle for the trinity; a circle for perfec-

tion and eternity, wholeness, union.
• CELESTIAL BODIES: the sun (masculine) is both the giver and

destroyer of life; the moon (feminine) marks the passage of time and
controls the course of human events. Seedtime, harvest, etc., are all
determined more by the phases of the moon than the phases of the
sun.
• YIN AND YANG: any scheme that suggests that each of a pair of
opposites partakes of the other’s nature, complements the other, and
essentially completes the other; without it, the world would erupt
into chaos.

3. Archetypal situations—
• the QUEST: the hero’s endeavor to establish his or her identity or
fulfill his or her destiny.
• the RENEWAL OF LIFE: death and rebirth, resurrection as seen in

the cycle of the seasons, the phases of the day, sleeping and waking.
Examples are “Sleeping Beauty,” “The Secret Garden,” etc.
• INITIATION: coming of age, rites of passage. Some examples would

be the first hunt, weddings, teenage angst films.
• THE FALL: any event that marks a loss of innocence, a devolution

from a paradisiacal life and viewpoint to a tainted one.
• REDEMPTIVE SACRIFICE: any voluntary loss, especially a loss of

life, that results in another’s gaining or regaining a desired state.
Essential questions for a mythological/archetypal reading:
1. Examine all of the characters—major and minor— and their situations.

What archetypes seem to be present?
2. How do any of the characters change over time? What events or people
make them change?
3. What is suggested in the setting (time of day, season of year, location—gar-

den, body of water, etc.) that might suggest an archetypal reading?
4. What types of symbols are used? What do they represent?
5. How are the symbols in this work different in any way from the traditional
use of that symbol? What is significant about this difference?
6. What myths are at work in different parts of this work? What features of
the story are reminiscent of other stories you know?

The Scarlet Letter
Activity One: Examining archetypal images in the novel
A. Divide the class into four groups (or a number of groups divisible by four)
and assign each group one of the following possible archetypal images:
• COLORS: especially the color of the scarlet letter itself, and the refer-
ences to red roses
• WATER: consider the proximity of Hester’s cottage to the beach and

the scenes in which Pearl plays in and by water
• GARDENS: especially the description of the weeds and wild rosebush

just outside the prison door (Chapter 1), the comparison of Governor
Bellingham’s garden with the gardens of Old England (Chapter 7),
and the various descriptions of the forest
• YIN AND YANG: especially the relationship between Dimmesdale

and Chillingworth
B. Have each group examine the book for the use of these images, keeping in
mind their archetypal significance.
C. Have each group report back to the class.

Activity Two: Examining archetypal characters
A. Divide the class into five groups (or a number of groups divisible by five)
and assign each group one of the following possible archetypal charac-
ters:
Hester as SCAPEGOAT
Chillingworth as OUTCAST
Dimmesdale as OUTCAST
Hester as TEMPTRESS (consider especially how Hester is essentially

the root of both Dimmesdale’s and Chillingworth’s destruction)
Hester as EARTH MOTHER
B. Have each group examine the book for the use of these characters, keeping
in mind their archetypal significance.
C. Have each group report back to the class.

The Scarlet Letter
1. How do the juxtaposed settings of town and forest suggest an archetypal

reading of the novel?
2. What types of symbols are used? What do they represent? What do they
contribute to the meaning of the novel?
3. How are the symbols in this work different in any way from the traditional
use of that symbol? What is significant about this difference?
4. What myths seem to be at work in different parts of this work? What fea-
tures (characters, plot developments, settings) of the story remind you of
other stories you know?
1. Write an essay in which you examine The Scarlet Letter as a “contempo-

rary” Garden of Eden story.
2. Write an essay in which you explain the end of the novel—Hester’s death,
her burial near Dimmesdale, and the puzzling gravestone they share—in
mythic terms.

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Teaching Nathaniel Hawthorne’s

The Scarlet Letter

P.O. Box 658, Clayton, DE 19938

A Message to the Teacher of Literature:

3 © Copyright 2005, Prestwick House, Inc.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE WORK .............................................6

NOTES ON THE FEMINIST APPROACH ...................................................12

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS .....................................................................................25

Essays or Writing Assigments ........................................................................25

NOTES ON PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY ...................................................26

ACTIVITY ONE: Examining the effects of repression on physical and

ACTIVITY TWO: Examining Chillingworth as Id, Hester as Ego,

ACTIVITY THREE: Examining the role of superstition in the

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS .....................................................................................42

Essays or Writing Assigments ........................................................................43

© Copyright 2005, Prestwick House, Inc. 4

NOTES ON THE MYTHOLOGICAL/ARCHETYPAL APPROACH.............44

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS .....................................................................................50

Essays or Writing Assigments ........................................................................50

5 © Copyright 2005, Prestwick House, Inc.

Multiple Perspectives on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s

The Scarlet Letter

Despite his literary success, Hawthorne always desired—and sought—politi-

Philosophically, Hawthorne was closely related to the Transcendentalists

Hawthorne and Melville, however, while desiring a world in which the

© Copyright 2005, Prestwick House, Inc. 6

INTRODUCTORY. THE CUSTOM-HOUSE

CHAPTER I. THE PRISON-DOOR

CHAPTER II. THE MARKET-PLACE

CHAPTER III. THE RECOGNITION

CHAPTER IV. THE INTERVIEW

7 © Copyright 2005, Prestwick House, Inc.

CHAPTER V. HESTER AT HER NEEDLE

CHAPTER VI. PEARL

CHAPTER VII. THE GOVERNOR’S HALL

CHAPTER VIII. THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER

CHAPTER IX. THE LEECH

CHAPTER X. THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT

© Copyright 2005, Prestwick House, Inc. 8

CHAPTER XI. THE INTERIOR OF A HEART

CHAPTER XII. THE MINISTER’S VIGIL

CHAPTER XIII. ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER

CHAPTER XIV. HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN

CHAPTER XV. HESTER AND PEARL

CHAPTER XVI. A FOREST WALK

9 © Copyright 2005, Prestwick House, Inc.

CHAPTER XVII. THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER

CHAPTER XVIII. A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE

CHAPTER XIX. THE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE

CHAPTER XX. THE MINISTER IN A MAZE

CHAPTER XXI. THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY

CHAPTER XXII. THE PROCESSION

© Copyright 2005, Prestwick House, Inc. 10

CHAPTER XXIII. THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER

CHAPTER XXIV. CONCLUSION

11 © Copyright 2005, Prestwick House, Inc.

NOTES ON THE FEMINIST APPROACH

Feminism is an evolving philosophy. Feminism in literature is an even newer

Three main areas of study/points of criticism:

1. Differences between men and women

© Copyright 2005, Prestwick House, Inc. 12

• The canon must be expanded to include the study of those genres in

2. Women in power or power relationships between men and women

3. The female experience