The Scarlet Letter. Study Guide

“In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A.” (Ch. II)

Hawthorne’s novel represents one of the major novels of American Literature. His romance shows the rigidity and cruelty of Puritanism. The protagonist, Hester Prynne, finds herself in an inescapable suffering after committing a sin. Is there in the whole world such a sin that cannot be pardoned?


Study Guide

1.Who is the narrator of the story?

2.What’s the function of the preface in relation to the whole narrative?

3.Identify the setting in time and place.

4.Compare and contrast Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale.

5.Explain Pearl’s wildness. How does she change towards the end of the novel?

6.Why is Roger Chillingworth called a “leech” (1)?
7.Explain the climax (2) of the novel.

8.How does the meaning of the Scarlett Letter change towards the end of the novel?

9.The Scarlet Letter is an historical romance as well and as an allegory, says Luciana Piré in her introduction to the novel. Explain the two characteristics in relation to the novel.(3)

10.Choose one of the following quotations and explain it:

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without getting bewildered as to which may be the true”. (Ch. XX)

“The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair Solitude! These had been her teachers –stern and wild ones- and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.” (Ch. XVIII)

“It kept him down, on a level with the lowest; him, the man of ethereal attributes, whose voice the angels might have listened to and answered! But this very burden it was, that gave him sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind” (Ch. XI)

Allegory: a more or less symbolic fictional narrative that conveys a secondary meaning not explicitly set forth in the literal narrative. Literary allegories typically express situations, events or abstract ideas in terms of material objects, persons and actions or interactions.

Notes
1) 1. Any of various chiefly aquatic bloodsucking or carnivorous annelid worms of the class Hirudinea, of which one species (Hirudo medicinalis) was formerly used by physicians to bleed patients and is now sometimes used as a temporary aid to circulation during surgical reattachment of a body part. 2. One that preys on or clings to another; a parasite. 3. Archaic A physician.
2)Climax: crisis, decisive moment. The point of highest dramatic tension or a major turning point in the action of a play, story or other literary composition.
3)Historical novel: a novel that has as its setting a period of history and that attempts to convey the spirit, manners and social conditions of a past age with realistic detail and fidelity to historical fact. The work may deal with actual historical personages […] or it may contain a mixture of fictional and historical characters.


BIBLIOGRAPHY USED:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com
Merriam Webster’s Reader’s Handbook, Massachusetts, Merriam-Webster Incorporated: 1997.
Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter. Firenze, Giunti Gruppo Editoriale: 2005. (Edited with and Introduction by Luciana Piré)