Scarlet letter 1
The colony the novel is set in.
What is Boston?
This is Hester's sin and punishment.
What is adultery and public condemnation/humiliation via wearing the scarlet letter while standing on the scaffold, and temporary jail time?
The usual punishment for adultery and the reason Hester's punishment less severe.
What is death; and the magistrates do not know who the husband/adulterer yet?
Two reasons why Hester does not leave the colony.
What is she wants to repent for her sin and wants to stay close to the father of the baby?
How has Roger Chillingworth changed in the past 7 years?
He has changed from an intellectual look to a guarded, ominous one
The symbol the rose has for the reader?
What is pain or beauty?
Hester thinks about this while she is on the scaffold.
What is past memories; e.g. her youth and school days, sports, childish quarrels, traits of her maiden years, and her husband?
Dimmesdale asks Hester her to reveal this.
What is the name of the child's father?
What does the Scarlet Letter mean to Pearl?
It is her play thing
What questions does Pearl ask her mother? Why does this trouble Hester?
What the scarlet letter means, why she wears it, and why Dimmesdale holds his hand over his heart.
It troubles Hester b/c she does not know whether or not to tell Pearl; as if, whether she is at the right age
Name three crimes and the punishments that the Puritans might witness
Execution, whipped children, Indian intrusion
This is how old Hester's baby is when she stands on the scaffold?
What is three months?
The relationship between Chillingworth and Hester.
What is they are husband and wife?
The change that Rev. Dimmesdale has gone through since Hester's public humiliation.
What is he has become more tired/unhappy and scrawny; his health has deteriorated?
How has Dimmesdale's secret sin affected his life?
He has become miserable and guilty and feels that his role as a minister has depleted.
The relationship between religion and law in Puritan New England is this.
What is they are one?
The detail given to suggest that the baby was born in jail.
What is it had "been acquainted only to the grey twilight of the prison?"
The secret that Chillingworth asks Hester to keep.
What is don't tell anyone that they are married?
The reason Dimmesdale lived with guilt and did not confess his sin openly.
What is he is afraid of how it will affect his congregation?
What is Dimmesdale's reaction to the truth of who Chillingworth really is?
At first he is shocked, but he calms down and forgives Hester, seeing Chillingworth is the core sinner.
If it were left up to them, this is the punishment the Puritan women would have given Hester Prynne.
What is branding her forehead?
The prior reference made in Chapter 2 that reminds the reader of the unnamed man standing on the outskirts of the crowd in the opening scenes.
What is the flashback of Hester looking in the mirror and seeing a man with a scholar like face.
The Black man symbolizes this in the book.
What is the devil?
How has the townspeople's view changed toward Hester?
They no longer bear such a strong scorn for her; regard the scarlet "A" as able (strong-willed, indp)
When Hester throws down her scarlet letter, the transfiguration foreshadowed Chapter 13 occurs, and Hester's beauty returns. What is the "magic touch" that effects the transformation?
The undoing of her hair cap that contained it