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🅰️ TEST - The Scarlet Letter

Last updated about 1 year ago
26 questions
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0

Write your name in the space below to sign the Honor Pledge.

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4

Drag 3 Character Descriptions to the correct character on the right (3 per character)

  • I obtained my seminary degree from a prestigious university in England
  • I am a skilled emboirderer and seamstress
  • I am hiding much... don't look under my shirt!
  • Some say I'm possessed my a wicked spirit, or that I'm even the child of Satan himself!
  • Some people think I may be a witch
  • I am deeply respected and admired by society
  • I wear the Scarlet Letter on my bosom
  • I am very curious about the Scarlet Letter... and why the minister keeps his hand over his heart...
  • I wander the earth like a ghost, dead to society, until a "magic touch" awakens me
  • I am married to Hester
  • This actually isn't my real name
  • I say that I am a physician
  • Hester Prynn
  • Arthur Dimmesdale
  • Roger Chillingworth
  • Pearl
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Drag 1 Key Quote to the correct character on the right.

  • "...his eloquence and religious fervor had already given the earnest of high eminence in his profession. He was a person of very striking aspect, with a white, lofty, and impending brow, large, brown, melancholy eyes, and mouth, which, unless when he forcibly compressed it, was apt to be tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibility and a vast power of self restraight.... his hand laid upon his heart."
  • "... There was a fire in her and throughout her; she seemed the unpremeditated offshoot of a passionate moment. ... [she was dressed in] a crimson velvet tunic... abundantly embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold-thread... indeed, her whole appearance... reminded the beholder of the token which [her mother] was doomed to wear upon her bosom. It was the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life!"
  • "Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity... something which should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to redeem the world.
  • "... the man of skill - the kind and friendly physician - strove to go deep into his patient's bosom, delving among his principles, prying into his recollections, and probing everything with a cautious touch, like a treasure-seeker into a dark cavern."
  • Hester
  • Dimmesdale
  • Chillingworth
  • Pearl
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Who is "the leech"?

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Where was Pearl born?

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Why does Hester wear a letter A on her chest?

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When Hester is released from prison, why doesn't she run away to a different settlement or to join the neighboring indigenous tribe?

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Which character is a "known" witch, who will be executed a few years after the end of the book on accusations of witchcraft?

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Who swears not to reveal Chillingworth's true identity?

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What sin torments Dimmesdale?

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What sin corrupts and changes Chillingworth?

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During the Minster's Vigil, Hester, Dimmesdale, and Pearl stand in the midnight darkness on the scaffold together for the first time. They are revealed by...

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Annotate the text below by clicking passages that BEST show Dimmesdale's inner conflict and his belief that he cannot/should not seek God's forgiveness.

(Select the 5 most Relevant Quotes)

“The people reverence thee,” said Hester. “And surely thou workest good among them! Doth this bring thee no comfort?”

“More misery, Hester!—only the more misery!” answered the clergyman, with a bitter smile. “As concerns the good which I may appear to do, I have no faith in it. It must needs be a delusion. What can a ruined soul, like mine, effect towards the redemption of other souls?—or a polluted soul towards their purification? And as for the people’s reverence, would that it were turned to scorn and hatred! Canst thou deem it, Hester, a consolation, that I must stand up in my pulpit, and meet so many eyes turned upward to my face, as if the light of heaven were beaming from it!—must see my flock hungry for the truth, and listening to my words as if a tongue of Pentecost were speaking!—and then look inward, and discern the black reality of what they idolize? I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am! And Satan laughs at it!”

“You wrong yourself in this,” said Hester, gently. “You have deeply and sorely repented. Your sin is left behind you, in the days long past. Your present life is not less holy, in very truth, than it seems in people’s eyes. Is there no reality in the penitence thus sealed and witnessed by good works? And wherefore should it not bring you peace?”

“No, Hester, no!” replied the clergyman. “There is no substance in it! It is cold and dead, and can do nothing for me! Of penance, I have had enough! Of penitence, there has been none! Else, I should long ago have thrown off these garments of mock holiness, and have shown myself to mankind as they will see me at the judgment-seat. Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret! Thou little knowest what a relief it is, after the torment of a seven years’ cheat, to look into an eye that recognizes me for what I am! Had I one friend,—or were it my worst enemy!—to whom, when sickened with the praises of all other men, I could daily betake myself, and be known as the vilest of all sinners, methinks my soul might keep itself alive thereby. Even thus much of truth would save me! But, now, it is all falsehood!—all emptiness!—all death!” (173)

Carefully re-read the passage below, then answer the question that follows using evidence from this passage.

(excerpt from: The Scarlet Letter, Ch. 18: A Flood of Sunshine, page 135)

Arthur Dimmesdale gazed into Hester’s face with a look in which hope and joy shone out, indeed, but with fear betwixt them, and a kind of horror at her boldness, who had spoken what he vaguely hinted at, but dared not speak.

But Hester Prynne, with a mind of native courage and activity, and for so long a period not merely estranged, but outlawed, from society, had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation as was altogether foreign to the clergyman. She had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness; as vast, as intricate and shadowy, as the untamed forest, amid the gloom of which they were now holding a colloquy that was to decide their fate. Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods. For years past she had looked from this estranged point of view at human institutions, and whatever priests or legislators had established; criticising all with hardly more reverence than the Indian would feel for the clerical band, the judicial robe, the pillory, the gallows, the fireside, or the church. The tendency of her fate and fortunes had been to set her free. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers,—stern and wild ones,—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.

The minister, on the other hand, had never gone through an experience calculated to lead him beyond the scope of generally received laws; although, in a single instance, he had so fearfully transgressed one of the most sacred of them. But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose. Since that wretched epoch, he had watched, with morbid zeal and minuteness, not his acts,—for those it was easy to arrange,—but each breath of emotion, and his every thought. At the head of the social system, as the clergymen of that day stood, he was only the more trammelled by its regulations, its principles, and even its prejudices. As a priest, the framework of his order inevitably hemmed him in. As a man who had once sinned, but who kept his conscience all alive and painfully sensitive by the fretting of an unhealed wound, he might have been supposed safer within the line of virtue than if he had never sinned at all.

Thus, we seem to see that, as regarded Hester Prynne, the whole seven years of outlaw and ignominy had been little other than a preparation for this very hour. But Arthur Dimmesdale! Were such a man once more to fall, what plea could be urged in extenuation of his crime? None; unless it avail him somewhat, that he was broken down by long and exquisite suffering; that his mind was darkened and confused by the very remorse which harrowed it; that, between fleeing as an avowed criminal, and remaining as a hypocrite, conscience might find it hard to strike the balance; that it was human to avoid the peril of death and infamy, and the inscrutable machinations of an enemy; that, finally, to this poor pilgrim, on his dreary and desert path, faint, sick, miserable, there appeared a glimpse of human affection and sympathy, a new life, and a true one, in exchange for the heavy doom which he was now expiating. And be the stern and sad truth spoken, that the breach which guilt has once made into the human soul is never, in this mortal state, repaired. It may be watched and guarded; so that the enemy shall not force his way again into the citadel, and might even, in his subsequent assaults, select some other avenue, in preference to that where he had formerly succeeded. But there is still the ruined wall, and, near it, the stealthy tread of the foe that would win over again his unforgotten triumph." (135)
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Based on the passage above, Compare/Constrast Hester and Dimmesdale's inner conflict in this scene. Explain: How and why are they experiencing this conflict similarly/differently?

6+ sentences, cite the text above at least twice in your response

(Bonus: Make a connection in your response to Hawthorne's dark romantic purpose/meaning here!)

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After confronting Dimmesdale in the woods and confessing that Chillingworth knows their secret and is out for revenge, what does Hester suggest they do next?

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Dimmesdale agrees to Hester's plan above, but....

"...And now this fateful interview had come to a close. The dell was to be left a solitude among its dark, old trees, which, with their multitudinous tongues, would whisper long of what had passed there, and no mortal be the wiser. And the melancholy brook would add this other tale to the mystery with which its little heart was already overburdened, and whereof it still kept up a murmuring babble, with not a whit more cheerfulness of tone than for ages heretofore." (142)
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A student underlined this passage, and left just the word "BROOK" on the margin of their paper.

Finish their annotation. In this passage, the brook represents...

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Add to the annotation - Which of the following literary devices is used to illustrate the sound of the brook in this passage?

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Which character ultimately spills Dimmesdale's dark secret in the end of the novel?

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What does Dimmesdale tell the people of Boston before he died?

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Match the meaning to the symbol/motif (2 per symbol/motif))

  • morals / lessons
  • exposed / revealed secrets
  • agony / inner pain
  • the eyes of God
  • shame / guilt
  • beauty / youth
  • public shaming
  • confession
  • flowers and blossoms
  • the scarlet "A"
  • the scaffold
  • noontide sun / sunlight
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"... one tombstone served for both. All around, there was monuments carved with armorial bearings; and on this simple slab of slate - as the curious investigator may still discern, and perplex himself with the purport - there appeared the semblence of an engraved escutcheon. It bore a device, a herald's wording of which might serve for a motto and brief description for our now concluded legend; so sombre is it, and relieved only by one ever-glowing point of light gloomier than the shadow: -- "ON A FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER A, GULES."

Based on the ending passage above, describe and explain what is on this tombstone Why? (3+ sentences)

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Dark Romanticism is synonymous with...

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How is this novel Dark Romantic?

Check all of the following that are true of BOTH Dark Romanticism and The Scarlet Letter.

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What of the following aspect(s) of Puritan society does Hawthorne criticize in The Scarlet Letter?

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"Finding [this rose-bush] so directly on the threshold of our narrative . . . we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers, and present it to the reader. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow."

What "sweet moral blossom" were we intended to find in The Scarlet Letter? What is the author's purpose in writing this novel? Answer in detail using supporting details from the events or ideas in the text. (5+ sentences)