The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne English 11- Honors American Literature Summer Reading
1.3.11 B, D, E
This is a topic—the conflict between personal law and public law— that appears in a great number of
important literary works, such as Antigone, Crime and Punishment, and The Crucible, to name just a few.
6. What courses of action does Hester suggest to Dimmesdale so that he can rid himself of
Chillingworth's menace? Why are none of them satisfactory to him?
Chapter 18—A Flood of Sunshine
1. Again Hawthorne gives a positive result of the scarlet letter—it was Hester's "passport into regions
where other women dared not tread."
2. Was Dimmesdale's sin a sin of passion or of principle?
3. In paragraph 4, Hawthorne gives a very succinct statement concerning Dimmesdale's predicament:
"between fleeing as an avowed criminal, and remaining as a hypocrite, conscience might find it hard to
strike the balance ...." This is an example of a dilemma, a choice between two equally unpleasant
alternatives. To be in such a situation we say is to be "on the horns of a dilemma." If you interpret the
metaphor to suggest being tossed by a bull, you see immediately how painful that can be.
4. What does Dimmesdale, after a struggle, resolve to do? What are his reasons?
5. What does Hester do to make it as though the past had never been? (Don't let this question go
unanswered. We've been waiting seven years ...)
6. How does she feel after she has done this significant thing? Note the line, "She had not known the
weight until she felt the freedom."
7. The paragraph beginning, "The stigma gone ..." is important. Hester removes her cap and her letter,
and lets her hair fall down. Look back to chapter 13, where the letter, cap, and hair had been mentioned
as symbols of Hester's "sad transformation" from beauty to plainness. These same symbols are used here
to reveal Hester's natural beauty. Notice that this chapter is called "A Flood of Sunshine," a title
involving a metaphor, Hester's hair is another such flood. What happens, concerning the sunshine, when
Hester's hair falls down? This is one the great pathetic fallacies in all of literature.
8. Notice how Nature reacts to the love between Hester and Dimmesdale. "Such was the sympathy of
Nature ..." Hawthorne uses the word "sympathy" in its more general sense of feeling the same ("sym"
meaning the same and "pathos" meaning feeling) rather than feeling sorry for someone.
9. Pearl is standing in a beam of sunshine, of course. The flickering light makes her look "now like a real
child, now like a child's spirit." How Hawthorne loves visual ambiguity!
10. How do the animals of the forest treat Pearl? Note the hearsay: "A wolf, it is said— but here the tale
has surely lapsed into the improbable."
11. Why does Pearl approach slowly when she is called?
Chapter 19—The Child at the Brook side
1. Hester and Dimmesdale talk very lovingly of their child.