Directions: As a Review of the Novel S Major Concepts, Consider the Following Quotes And/Or

The Scarlet Letter Quote Analysis (Chapters 20-24) AP Language and Composition Sample and Sandvick 2014

I. Directions: As a review of the novel’s major concepts, consider the following quotes and/or answer the related questions. This is not meant to be comprehensive, but it should help to ensure that the reader understands some of the pivotal moments in the text.

Chapter 20 1. Paraphrase the following quote: “No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true” (196). How does this quote help explain the chapter’s title, “The Minister in a Maze”? ______

2. Read the following quote: “He could not but recall how feebly, and with what frequent pauses for breath he had toiled over the same ground only two days before” (187). Where does the minster’s new vigor spring, and why is this transformation occurring? ______

3. The imagery in the following quote parallels which of Hester’s actions? “’Go, seek your minister, and see if his emaciated figure […] be not flung down there, like a cast-off garment’” (198). ______

4. Recount the three temptations of the minster. ______

5. What is the “deliberate choice” that the minster makes which was a “deadly sin” (202)?

______

Chapter 21 6. Paraphrase the following quote: “Pearl […] betrayed […] the emotions which none could detect in the marble passiveness of Hester’s brow” (208). What does this description of Pearl reveal about Hester’s current emotional state? ______The Scarlet Letter Quote Analysis (Chapters 20-24) AP Language and Composition Sample and Sandvick 2014

7. Read the paragraph that begins with “’What a strange and, sad man is he!’” (209). Then, discuss how this paragraph develops the motif of light and darkness. ______

8. Considering the following quote, what is Hawthorne’s opinion concerning his contemporary society? “The generation next to the early emigrants, wore the blackest shade of Puritanism. [….] We have yet to learn again the forgotten art of gayety” (211). ______

9. What is the narrator’s warning in this quote? “Let men tremble to win the hand of women, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart” (159). ______

9. Why is it not an abnormality for Chillingworth to “enter the market place in the close and familiar talk with the commander of the questionable vessel” (213)? Also, why is he talking to the pirate? ______

Chapter 22 10. Considering that one of the tenants of the Romantic genre is ‘highly charged emotional events,’ why is the setting of ‘Election Day’ incredibly important? (We briefly discussed the Romantic genre during tutoring.) ______

11. Pearl is often described as a bird; in this chapter she is likened to a “floating sea bird” (215). Why? ______

12. The procession is described as consisting of three stages. What are the three stages, and what does the order of groups tell the reader about Puritan society? (215-17) ______The Scarlet Letter Quote Analysis (Chapters 20-24) AP Language and Composition Sample and Sandvick 2014

13. Why is Hester concerned in the following quote: “For being able so completely to withdraw himself from their mutual world, while she groped darkly, and stretched forth her cold hands, and found him not” (218). ______

14. What supernatural commentary does Mistress Hibbins make about Dimmesdale? (230) What part of her conversations reveals that even she, with her supernatural intuition, finds it difficult to believe that Dimmesdale is black with sin? ______

15. Read the following quote: “It was this that gave the clergyman his most appropriate power” (222). What is the antecedent for it? (Do not give an exact quote from the book. Instead, explain paraphrase Dimmesdale’s delivery of his sermon.) ______

16. Who attempts to snatch a kiss from Pearl in this chapter? What is the meaning of the message that this person asks Pearl to tell Hester? (223) ______

17. Who is missing of the group of matrons that Hester sees staring at her scarlet letter? What is the significance of this person’s absence? (224) ______

Chapter 23 18. From whose perspective is the following quote: “How fared it with him? Were there not the brilliant particles of a halo in the air about his head? So etherealized by the spirit he was, and so apotheosized by worshipping admirers, did his footsteps, in the procession, really tread upon the dust of the earth?” (228). ______

19. “’Madman, hold! what is your purpose?’ whispered [Chillingworth]. ‘Wave back that woman! Cast off this child! [….] Would you bring infamy on your scared profession?’” (230). Why does Chillingworth not want Dimmesdale to reveal his sin? Following Chillingworth’s warning, note what Dimmesdale accuses him of doing. The Scarlet Letter Quote Analysis (Chapters 20-24) AP Language and Composition Sample and Sandvick 2014 ______

20. “Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken” (233). What is the spell? ______

21. What is Dimmesdale’s fate? (234) ______

Chapter 24 22. What is Chillingworth’s fate? (237)

______

23. What is Pearl’s fate? (238) ______

24. What is Hester’s fate? (238-_) ______

25. “[Hester’s] grave was near that old and sunken grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle” (240). Who are the two sleepers? What is the significance of the explanation? ______

II. Thematic Concepts

A. How is Pearl both beautiful and evil at the same time? How does this represent Hawthorne’s perception of sin? The Scarlet Letter Quote Analysis (Chapters 20-24) AP Language and Composition Sample and Sandvick 2014 B. How does Pearl help redeem her mother? (Think back on the conversation where Mistress Hibbins invites Hester to join her in her visit to the devil.) How might have Hester carried the scarlet letter differently if she had not be given Pearl?

C. Read the following passage from a review from The Atlantic (1886). How does it help to clarify Hawthorne’s view of the Puritan culture? “But this carnival of refined cruelty, as is abundantly evident, can be productive of nothing but evil to all concerned; evil to the victim, and still more evil, if possible, to the executioner, who, finding himself transformed by his own practices from a peaceful scholar to a fiend, makes Dimmesdale answerable for the calamity, and proposes to wreak fresh vengeance upon him on that account. And it demonstrates the truth that the only punishment which man is justified in inflicting upon his fellow is the punishment which is incidental to his being restrained from further indulgence in crime. Such restraint acts as a punishment, because the wicked impulse is thereby prevented from realizing itself; but it is intrinsically an act not of revenge, but of love, since the criminal is thereby preserved from increasing his sinful burden by accomplishing in fact what he had purposed in thought. The Puritan system was selfish and brutal, merely; Chillingworth's was satanically malignant; but both alike are impotent to do anything but inflame the evils they pretend to assuage.”

D. Consider how Hester has seemingly redeemed herself with her charitable actions. What thoughts or actions in the last few chapters of the novel show that the scarlet letter failed in its duty to complete transform Hester? E. Read the following passage from the same review from The Atlantic. Do you agree that the below idea was one of Hawthorne’s main arguments? What in the novel proves this statement to be true? (Hint: It is true.) “From the fate of Hester and Dimmesdale we may learn that it avails not the sinner to live a life of saintly deeds and aims, but to be true; not to scourge himself, to wear sackcloth, or to redeem other souls, but openly to accept his shame.”

F. Dimmesdale felt uncomfortable outside the realm of familiar doctrine, so he spent almost a decade appearing to be holy when he was not. Considering the quote in question ‘E,’ what is Dimmesdale’s greatest flaw that causes him to falter in the eyes of Hawthorne? The Scarlet Letter Quote Analysis (Chapters 20-24) AP Language and Composition Sample and Sandvick 2014 G. The following excerpt from The Atlantic journal is a MUCH more precise and intelligent perception of blurring of the motifs of nature and light/dark. That’s right. You do not need to DO anything for this point except read and understand the following passage. 

“Hawthorne, however, with characteristic charity, forbears to claim a verdict even against his reprobate. "To all," he says, "we would fain be merciful;" and he goes so far as to put forth a speculation as to whether "hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom." But hatred grows from self-love; and if love and self-love be not opposites, then neither are light and darkness, or good and evil. It is doubtless true, on the other hand, that we can never be justified in treating the most iniquitous persons as identical with their iniquity, although, in discussing them, it may not always be possible to make the verbal discrimination. In real life there will always be saving clauses, mitigating circumstances, and special conditions whereby the naked crudity of the abstract presentment is modified, as soil and vegetation soften the hard contour of rocks, or as the atmosphere diffuses light and tempers darkness.”

III. Literary Terms: Be able to identify the following devices in a quote. a. Personification b. Allusion c. Simile d. Metaphor e. Anaphora f. Oxymoron