Readers Place

About the Book

Hester Prynne is a beautiful young woman. She is also an outcast. In the eyes of her neighbours she has committed an unforgivable sin. Everyone knows that her little daughter, Pearl, is the product of an illicit affair but no one knows the identity of Pearl s father. Hester s refusal to name him brings more condemnation upon her. But she stands strong in the face of public scorn, even when she is forced to wear the sign of her shame sewn onto her clothes: the scarlet letter A for Adulteress

Starting Points for Discussion

• Critics are divided over Hawthorne’s attitude to Hester’s affair, and whether the novel ultimately condemns or condones her actions. What do you think Hawthorne’s views are? What are your own?

• Where Hawthorne does seem to uncritically hold Hester up for our admiration is in her steadfast refusal to name Pearl’s father. Why do you think this is? Do you share his admiration for this action?

• As noted in the biography section, Hawthorne changed his name in his early 20s, adding a W to the original Hathorne. Some critics have suggested this was to distance himself from famous Puritan ancestors, particularly one forebear who presided over the Salem Witch Trials. From your reading of the book, do you think this could be true? How does Hawthorne depict the Puritan community and their leaders?

• The priest in the story, Dimmesdale, is a figure of hypocrisy who preaches virtue from the pulpit and refuses to take his daughter’s hand in public – but pays a terrible personal price for his actions. What points do you think Hawthorne is trying to make about organised religion? How far is Dimmesdale responsible for his own actions and how much are the townsfolk responsible for forcing him into his position?

• The critic Kathryn Harrison has written that Hester is ‘the herald of the modern American heroine, a mother of such strength and stature that she towers over her progeny much as she does the citizens of Salem’. Do you agree?

• Because the novel is set before the time in which he is writing, Hawthorne deliberately uses an old-fashioned style with some archaic language. Do you find this effective or a distraction?

• ‘She saw again her native village, in Old England, and her paternal home: a decayed house of gray stone, with a poverty-stricken aspect, but retaining a half-obliterated shield of arms over the portal, in token of antique gentility.’ From The Scarlet Letter Early in the novel Hawthorne hints that Hester is descended from an impoverished but formerly noble family in England. Later he suggests that Pearl may have returned to these roots by marrying into a wealthy European family, possibly also nobility. What role, more generally, does class play in the novel?

• How does Hawthorne describe the Scarlet Letter itself and in what different forms does it appear in the novel?

• ‘Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man’s faculty of transforming himself into a devil.’ What role does the character of Hester’s estranged husband, Roger Chillingworth play? Do you think he is morally more degenerate than Hester and her lover, or do you have sympathy for his campaign of revenge? Do you think he redeems himself at all with his bequest to Pearl at the end of the story?

Other Books by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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  A Wonder-Book For Boys And…

  The first major retelling of the Greek myths and legends, A WONDER-BOOK was …

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  The Scarlet Letter

  Hester Prynne is a beautiful young woman. She is also an outcast. In the eyes…

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  The Scarlet Letter: A Romance…

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Suggested Further Reading

• Tess of the D’Urbervilles ~ Thomas Hardy
• The L-Shaped Room ~ Lynn Reid-Banks
• Moby Dick ~ Herman Melville