Study Questions Chapters 5-8 The Scarlet Letter Study Questions Chapters 5-8
1. What does Hester’s decision to remain in Boston and her reaction to the Puritan’s mockery of her show about her character?
Answer: She was strong and able to endure these trials. She was patient and had a lot of self- control.
2. Describe Hester and Pearl’s lifestyle 2. Describe Hester and Pearl’s lifestyle. How does Hester support both of them?
Answer: Hester supported herself and her child by sewing and doing needlework for people in the community.
3. Specifically, how did the people and the children of the town treat Hester? Name three things that often happened to her.
Answer: Clergymen paused in the street and exhorted Hester to repentance with addresses which drew a large crowd. She often found herself the subject of the Sunday sermon. Children ran after her with shrill cries and called her an ugly name which they had heard from their parents.
4. How had the scarlet letter helped to change Hester’s inner thoughts about herself and others?
Answer: She seemed to have another sense toward the feelings in others. She seemed to recognize some form of hidden shame in other people.
5. Why did Hester name her little girl “Pearl”?
Answer: To Hester, she was her mother’s only treasure, and she had been purchased with all she had.
6. What was the first thing that baby Pearl noticed about her mother 6. What was the first thing that baby Pearl noticed about her mother? What did Pearl do?
Answer: She noticed the scarlet letter on Hester’s dress, and she reached up to touch it.
7. What was Pearl’s relationship like with the children of the town?
Answer: Pearl was isolated from them. She wouldn’t speak to them. If they crowded around her, she would chase them away by throwing stones at them.
8. Describe Pearl’s character 8. Describe Pearl’s character. Why do you think her behavior was different from the behavior of the other children?
Answer: She was mischievous, she didn’t behave well, and she didn’t learn her manners or religious instructions. She may have behaved differently because of her isolation from other children and her mother’s isolation from the community.
9. Hester had two reasons for visiting Governor Bellingham 9. Hester had two reasons for visiting Governor Bellingham. What were they?
Answer: She was taking him a pair of gloves she had embroidered for him, and she wanted an opportunity to speak to him about some people in Boston who wanted to take Pearl away from her.
10. When questioned by Rev. Wilson, where did Pearl tell him that she came from?
Answer: She said that she had been plucked by her mother from the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison door.
11. What does Hester mean when she says of Pearl, “She is my happiness—she is my torture?”
Answer: Hester feels Pearl is truly a gift of love, but Pearl reminds her every day of the sin she committed.
12. What is the distinction between “the sinful mother” and “the sinful father?”
Answer: Hester has a chance for redemption through Pearl, and Dimmesdale doesn’t. Hester and Pearl remind him daily of his fall.