Symbols & Settings
The Three Scaffolds
People Can Change
He Said What?
They Did WHAT!?
Random Trivia! (in no way related to the text, I just love trivia)
100
Growing wild outside the prison door, this hardy plant is offered by Hawthorne as a token of nature's pity.
What is the wild rosebush?
100
On the first scaffold, the Puritan matrons are outraged that Hester decorated her badge of shame with fancy stitches of this thread.
What is gold thread?
100
Because Hester spends years tirelessly caring for the poor and sick, townspeople begin saying her letter "A" stands for this.
What is "Able"?
100
In Chapter 1, Hawthorne offers the reader a rose to soften a dark tale of human "frailty and" this companion noun.
What is sorrow?
100
Hester makes clothing for funerals, christenings, and state officials, but Puritan tradition strictly bans her needlework from this item.
What is a bridal veil?
100
Out of all 26 letters in the English alphabet, this is the only one that does not appear anywhere on the periodic table of elements.
What is the letter J ("A" could never).
200
In Governor Bellingham’s hall, Hester sees her scarlet letter magnified to monstrous size in the curved reflection of this object.
What is a suit of armor? (or breastplate)
200
Dimmesdale secretly mounts the town scaffold for his second vigil under cover of darkness at this specific hour.
What is midnight?
200
Dimmesdale secretly suffers tremendous physical abuse and is even whipped this character.
Who is Arthur Dimmesdale?
200
During their tense prison meeting, Chillingworth forces Hester to swear an oath never to reveal this specific fact about him.
What is their marriage? (or that he's her husband)
200
When Reverend Wilson tests three-year-old Pearl on her religion, she shockingly claims she was not made by God, but plucked from this.
What is the rosebush?
200
In 1974, a Hungarian architecture professor invented this 3D twisty puzzle, originally marketing it as the "Magic Cube."
What is the Rubik's Cube?
300
While playing by the ocean, Pearl copies her mother's badge by shaping an uncorrupted green letter "A" out of this plant.
What is eel-grass?
300
During Dimmesdale's midnight vigil, this celestial event lights up the sky in the shape of a blazing red letter "A".
What is a meteor?
300
Chapter 9 shares its title with this old-fashioned word for a doctor, which also doubles as a symbol of Roger's parasitic nature.
What is "The Leech"
300
Refusing to stop torturing Dimmesdale, Chillingworth claims fate is in control, saying, "Let this dark ______ blossom as it may!"
What is flower?
300
In Chapter 10, Chillingworth dances in wild, demonic joy after sneaking a look under the sleeping minister’s vestments at this body part.
What is his chest?
300
Alaska is the northernmost, westernmost, and ____________ state.
What is easternmost? (the Aleutian Islands cross the 180th meridian, marking the arbitrary point where we have decided west becomes east.)
400
Free from Puritan law and magistrate surveillance, this wild location is the only place Arthur and Hester speak openly.
What is the forest?
400
On Election Day, Dimmesdale finally breaks Chillingworth's control by climbing the scaffold and making this public statement.
What is his confession?
400
In a surprising twist upon his death, Chillingworth leaves all his land in England and Massachusetts to this person.
Who is Pearl?
400
In the woods, Dimmesdale says Chillingworth’s cold malice is blacker than adultery because Roger violated the sanctity of this.
What is the human heart.
400
When Hester flings off her scarlet letter in the forest, she instantly regains her youth and beauty by doing this.
What is letting down her hair?
400
Due to the varying elasticity of its intestines, this Australian marsupial is the only animal on Earth that poops in distinct cubes.
What is a wombat?
500
The novel’s final sentence describes Hester and Dimmesdale’s shared tombstone using these two heraldic colors for black and red.
What are sable and gules?
500
Pearl's wild estrangement dissolves and she weeps human tears after giving Dimmesdale this simple gesture on the scaffold.
What is a kiss?
500
After living comfortably in Europe for years, Hester returns to Boston as an old woman and voluntarily chooses to do this.
What is wear the letter?
500
In the final chapter, Hawthorne distills the central moral of the book into this two-word command, repeated three times.
What is "Be true!"?
500
Hester’s secret plan to flee to England aboard a Spanish ship is shattered when she discovers this.
What is that Chillingworth has secured passage on the same ship?
500
In 1932, the Australian military waged an official, heavily armed war against 20,000 of these large flightless birds—and lost.
What are emus?
