Third Year Questions For The Scarlet Letter

Period Two BRAWL Questions

T3:
1. Throughout the novel, the author uses an omniscient third person perspective. How does this perspective contribute to a detached tone?
2. How does darkness and light contribute to the mood in the various parts of the novel? (meteor, forest scenes)
3. In the first chapter of the novel, Hawthorne describes the beauty of a rose bush. How does the dour mood described in the chapter contrast with the bush and why does Hawthorne provide this contrast? How does it change the reader’s view of the prison?
4. Many times Pearl is portrayed as innocent and full of light. Why does Hawthorne then describe her as witch-like and how does this relate to the theme of the human tendency to transgress?
5. Many people during

What was the significance of the brook separating Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne from Pearl in the forest? What does it represent? (chapter 14)
7. In the minister’s vigil, Pearl asks Dimmesdale if he will stand with Hester and her at the scaffolding the next day. How does this question display Dimmesdale’s internal struggle? (chapter 12)
8. IN chapter 23 dimmesdale dies and a symbol is revealed on his chest. What does this represent for Dimmesdale? What do you think the mark is?
Comparison
9. What was the significance of the brook separating Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne from Pearl in the forest? What does it represent? (chapter 14)
10. In the minister’s vigil, Pearl asks Dimmesdale if he will stand with Hester and her at the scaffolding the next day. How does this question display Dimmesdale’s internal struggle? (chapter 12)
11. IN chapter 23 dimmesdale dies and a symbol is revealed on his chest. What does this represent for Dimmesdale? What do you think the mark is?
12. Why do you think Hawthorne purposefully put Hester's cottage on the outskirts of town and at the edge of the forest?
13. The Scarlet Letter, A, is a work of art and is embroidered onto fancy and beautiful cloth. Although the letter A is a symbol of sin, why did Hester work so hard on it when it represents something as sinful as

Roger Chillingworth refrains from killing Arthur Dimmesdale when he discovered that he was the real father of Pearl and committed the crime of adultery with his wife Hester. Additionally, Chillingworth dies at the end of the book shortly after Dimmesdale’s death. This relationship sequentially develops more and more throughout the novel. Why does Hawthorne include this relationship between Roger Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale?
Unusual
21. How does the crowd play into the verbal irony and situational irony when Dimmesdale confesses his sins, but the audience reacts with praise?
22. "We have as yet hardly spoken of the infant; that little creature, whose innocent life had sprung, by the inscrutable decree of Providence, a lovely and immortal flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty passion" (Hawthorne Chapter 6). How does this quote provide a metaphor to signify the type of child Pearl was?
23. The last line of the book is, "On a field, sable, the letter A, gules." Why did Hawthorne choose to end the novel this way?
24. Throughout Chapter 19 the brook in the forest is mentioned several times. Hester and Pearl stand on opposite sides of the brook, it is described as: “the boundary between two worlds”. What does the brook symbolize between the two characters and how does it affect