Sample Notes PDF - Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel
Hawthorne’s
SCARLET LETTER
(Exam Notes by Arpita Karwa)
These are sample notes for B.A & M.A (English) Exams. You can take guidance & prepare your own notes in the similar manner.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

• He became acquainted with Ralph Waldo Emerson and the naturalist Henry David Thoreau. These
transcendentalist thinkers influenced much of Hawthorne's thinking about the importance of intuition
rather than intellect in uncovering the truths of nature and human beings.
• In 1846 he published Mosses from an Old Manse, a collection of essays and stories, many of which are
about early America. Herman Melville, among others, hailed Hawthorne as the “American
Shakespeare.”
ABOUT THE NOVEL

• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, adulteress Hester Prynne must wear a scarlet A to mark
her shame. Her lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, remains unidentified and is wracked with guilt, while her
husband, Roger Chillingworth, seeks revenge.
• Much of the novel's introductory section, "The Custom House," is true, and is based on Hawthorne's
employment in the building of that same name in Salem, Massachusetts. The part about finding a letter
A made of cloth that has been wrapped in a parchment manuscript, however, is entirely fictional.
• The Scarlet Letter has been adapted to numerous films, plays and operas and remains frequently
referenced in modern popular culture.
SCHOOL OF THOUGHT- ROMANCE

• His fiction works are considered part of the Romantic movement and, more specifically, Dark
romanticism.
• He contributed four major romances to the world's literature: The House of the Seven Gables, The
Blithedale Romance, The Marble Faun, and The Scarlet Letter. In each of these he sought, in the prefaces,
to define what romance meant to him.
• In the Custom House preface of The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne discusses part of his concept or definition
of the romance novel. He explains that life seen through moonlight is the subject of the novel.
• He called a "psychological romance" — one that would contain all the conventional techniques of
romance but add deep, probing portraits of human beings in conflict with themselves.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
SCARLET LETTER
• Within the framework of the romance, Hawthorne lays out his evidence of the psychological conflicts
within and around his characters.
• These definitions of Hawthorne's romance are also joined by another tradition: Gothic elements.
• Nature abounds in The Scarlet Letter, and darkness, shadows and moonlight are all part of the Gothic
ambience. The overall atmosphere of the novel is dark and gloomy, a proper milieu for the Gothic
tradition.
INTER TEXTUAL REFERNCE

• Complementing this intriguing theory of a new type of romance, Hawthorne's writing prior to 1850
hinted at the masterpiece yet to come. In "The Gentle Boy," he wrote of an emotional creature faced
with the hostility of Puritans, who did not understand emotions. The ambiguity of sin was the subject
of still another story, "Young Goodman Brown."
• Sin and knowledge are linked in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Bible begins with the story of Adam
and Eve, who were expelled from the Garden of Eden for eating from the tree of knowledge of good and
evil. As a result of their knowledge, Adam and Eve are made aware of their humanness, that which
separates them from the divine and from other creatures. The experience of Hester and Dimmesdale
recalls the story of Adam and Eve because, in both cases, sin results in expulsion and suffering. But it
also results in knowledge—specifically, in knowledge of what it means to be human. For Hester, the
scarlet letter functions as “her passport into regions where other women dared not tread,” leading her
to “speculate” about her society and herself more “boldly” than anyone else in New England. As for
Dimmesdale, the “burden” of his sin gives him “sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of
mankind, so that his heart vibrate[s] in unison with theirs.”
• Oscar wilde- every saint—sinner
• Hate the sin and not the sinner- Gandhi
CRITICAL RECEPTION
• Poe was the first major, or influential, writer to recognize the genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne. In his
review of Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales, Poe says that "Mr. Hawthorne is scarcely recognized by
the press or by the public . . . yet . . . he evinces extraordinary genius, having no rival either in America
or elsewhere."

SCARLET LETTER
• On the other hand, 20th-century writer D. H. Lawrence said that there could not be a more perfect
work of the American imagination than The Scarlet Letter.
• Henry James once said of the novel, "It is beautiful, admirable, extraordinary; it has in the highest
degree that merit which I have spoken of as the mark of Hawthorne's best things
CONCLUSION
• The Puritan community sees Hester as a fallen woman, Dimmesdale as a saint, and would have seen the
disguised Chillingworth as a victim — a husband betrayed. Instead, Hawthorne ultimately presents
Hester as a woman who represents a sensitive human being with a heart and emotions; Dimmesdale as
a minister who is not very saint-like in private but, instead, morally weak and unable to confess his
hidden sin; and Chillingworth as a husband who is the worst possible offender of humanity and single-
mindedly pursuing an evil goal.
QUOTES
• When she meets Dimmesdale in the forest in Chapter 18, Hawthorne says, "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."
• Dimmesdale sees Pearl as the "freedom of a broken law"
• he describes Hester as a woman marked by "natural dignity…force of character…[and] free will."
• Hawthorne says that, "All were characterized by the sternness and severity which old portraits so
invariably put on; as if they were the ghosts, rather than the pictures, of departed worthies, and were
gazing with harsh and intolerant criticism at the pursuits and enjoyments of living men."
• “Mother,” said little Pearl, “the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is
afraid of something on your bosom. . . . It will not flee from me, for I wear nothing on my bosom yet!”
• The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair,
Solitude! These had been her teachers
• "But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose.
• "A pure hand needs no glove to cover it."
• "But she named the infant 'Pearl,' as being of great price- purchased with all she had- her mother's only
pleasure.

SCARLET LETTER
• Hawthorne states in Chapter 20, "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 true."
THEMES
SIN
•Hawthorne's novel consistently calls into question the notion of sin and what is necessary for
redemption.
• Is the sin, then, committing adultery with Dimmesdale and breaking her vow and commitment, or is the
sin first marrying Chillingworth without thinking it through
• Essentially abandoning his wife for so long upon their marriage, or failing to forgive her once he knew
of the crime
• Is Dimmesdale's sin his adultery or his hypocritical failure
• For each kind of sin, we wonder if the punishment fits the crime
• Centered first on a sin committed by Hester Prynne and her secret lover before the story ever
begins, the novel details how sin affects the lives of the people involved. For Hester, the sin forces
her into isolation from society and even from herself. Her qualities that Hawthorne describes at the
opening of the book, i.e. her beauty, womanly qualities, and passion are, after a time, eclipsed by the
'A' she is forced to wear.
• The book argues that true evil arises from the close relationship between hate and love.
• Hester's defiant response to her punishment and her attempts to rekindle her romance with
Dimmesdale and flee with him to Europe shows that she never considered her affair with Dimmesdale
to be a sin.
• The narrator supports Hester's innocence and instead points the finger at the novel's two real sinners:
Dimmesdale and Chillingworth. Chillingworth's sin was tormenting Dimmesdale almost to the point of
death
• Dimmesdale is a greater sinner than Hester. First, he defiles the purity of his profession; secondly,
he tries to conceal his crime from the public. He adds hypocrisy to his sin.

PURITANISM
• The early Puritans who first came to America in 1620 founded a precarious colony in Plymouth,
Massachusetts. These first settlers were followed ten years later by a wave of Puritans that continued

SCARLET LETTER
in the 1630s. The second group in the 1630s settled in the area of present-day Boston in a community
they named Massachusetts Bay Colony. It is this colony that forms the setting of The Scarlet Letter.
• These early Puritans followed the writings of a French Protestant reformer named John Calvin (1509-
1564), whose teachings saw the world as a grim conflict between God and Satan. Calvinists were a very
introspective lot who constantly searched their souls for evidence that they were God's Elect. The Elect
were people chosen by God for salvation. According to Puritans, a merciful God had sent His son, Jesus
Christ, to earth to die for the sins of man, but only a few would be saved. The rest, known as the
"unregenerate," would be damned eternally.
• Those who were male and members of the church could vote.
• In addition, ministers guided the elected officials of the colony; consequently, there was a close tie
between Church and State. In The Scarlet Letter, those two branches of the government are represented
by Mr. Roger Wilson (Church) and Governor Bellingham (State).
• These "iron men and their rules" provide a backdrop for Hawthorne's story that keeps the conflict alive
because public appearances and penance were dramatically important parts of the Puritan community.

• The narrator depicts Puritan society as drab, confining, unforgiving, and narrow-minded that unfairly
victimizes Hester.
• The rules governing the Puritans came from the Bible, a source of spiritual and ethical standards.
• These rules were definite, and the penalties or punishments were public and severe.
• Hester's turn on the scaffold and her scarlet letter were similar to those who were branded or forced
to wear an M for murderer.
• Adultery was a capital sin that required the execution of both adulterer and adulteress
• By committing the crime of adultery, Hester Prynne has broken a great moral law and a long-
established social convention. Society, therefore, condemns her with the three hours standing on
the scaffold and with the life-long wearing of the scarlet letter on her bosom. Hester is put to public
disgrace and social boycott, her isolation leads to a moral deterioration.

• Puritan society demanded conformity because it considered any breach of that conformity a threat to
its security and its religion.
• Hester doesn't conform and she suffers the consequences: the townspeople punish, shun, and humiliate
her. The town seeks to use Hester as an example to frighten any other would-be nonconformists from
breaking the strict moral rules of Puritanism.
• Yet Hester's unshakable faith in herself, her love for Dimmesdale, and her devotion to her daughter
empower her to resist and transcend enforced Puritan conformity.

SCARLET LETTER

• Hawthorne's embodiment of these characters is denied by the Puritan mentality: At the end of the
novel, even watching and hearing Dimmesdale's confession, many members of the Puritan community
still deny what they saw.
• Where Puritanism is merciless and rigid, nature is forgiving and flexible. This contrast is made clear
from the very first page, when the narrator contrasts the "black flower" of the prison that punishes sin
with the red rose bush that he imagines forgives those sentenced to die.
• On the other hand, the society built by the Puritans was stern and repressive, with little room for
individualism. In this society, the "path of righteousness" was very narrow and taught through stern
sermons on guilt and sin.
• The irony, of course, is in the difference between public knowledge and private actions. Dimmesdale
and Chillingworth, both "sinners" for their part in this drama, are valued and revered members of this
repressive community, while Hester is an outcast because of her publicly acknowledged sin.
• While the community calls for Hester's blood, those who are equally sinful remain silent. The irony of
public appearance and private knowledge are themes throughout this story.
• The Puritans had great difficulty in loving the sinner and hating the sin in Massachusetts Bay Colony.’
• Here Hester and Dimmesdale plan their escape to Europe where they can follow their hearts and forget
the rigid rules of their Puritan society.
• But the Puritan conscience is too deeply ingrained in Dimmesdale, and though he dabbles in sin on his
way back to the Puritan stronghold, he is still a Calvinist at heart
LOVE-

• On the other hand, it makes the two lovers strong – morally and spiritually.
• Under the influence of this love, they grow to a tragic height of character which they otherwise
would probably not have attained to.
• Love makes us rise.
• After disclosing the identity of her husband to Dimmesdale, Hester assumes the role of a true
beloved. She asks a thousand pardons for concealing Chilingworth’s identity from Dimmesdale, and
the love pardons her freely. She presses his head against her bosom until he grants pardon to her.
• Hester and Dimmesdale, no doubt, come out with flying colors through the test through their
unflinching devotion to each other.

SCARLET LETTER
• Evil is not found in Hester and Dimmesdale’s lovemaking, Evil, in its most poisonous form, is found in
the carefully plotted and precisely aimed revenge of Chillingworth, whose love has been perverted.

SYMBOLS
• In literature, a symbol is most often a concrete object used to represent an idea more abstract and
broader in scope and meaning — often a moral, religious, or philosophical concept or value.
• Some of Hawthorne's symbols change their meaning, depending on the context, and some are static.
Examples of static symbols are the Reverend Mr. Wilson, who represents the Church, or Governor
Bellingham, who represents the State.
SCARLET LETTER
• The letter is an immense red A in the sky, a green A of eel-grass arranged by Pearl, the A on Hester's
dress decorated by Pearl with prickly burrs, an A on Dimmesdale's chest seen by some spectators at the
Election Day procession, and, finally, represented by the epitaph "On a field, sable, the letter A, gules"
(gules being the heraldic term for "red") on the tombstone Hester and Dimmesdale share.
• The scarlet letter is meant to be a symbol of shame, but instead it becomes a powerful symbol of identity
to Hester.
• It is a sign of adultery, penance, and penitence. It brings about Hester's suffering and loneliness and also
provides her rejuvenation.
• Initially it marks Hester out as an ‘adulteress’, it is a symbol of her sin. As Hester transforms herself
into a sister of mercy, it comes to signify ‘Able’ to many people of settlements.
• The community initially sees the letter on Hester's bosom as a mark of just punishment and a symbol to
deter others from sin.
• Hester is a Fallen Woman with a symbol of her guilt.
• Hester is treated as a social outcast and the scarlet letter makes her feel a burning sensation on her
bosom.
• In all these examples, the meaning of the symbol depends on the context and sometimes the interpreter.
• As Dimmesdale stands on the scaffold with Hester and Pearl in Chapter 12, a meteor traces out an “A”
in the night sky. To Dimmesdale, the meteor implies that he should wear a mark of shame just as Hester
does. The meteor is interpreted differently by the rest of the community, which thinks that it stands for
“Angel” and marks Governor Winthrop’s entry into heaven.

SCARLET LETTER
• Like Pearl, the letter functions as a physical reminder of Hester’s affair with Dimmesdale. The child has
been sent from God, or at least from nature, but the letter is merely a human contrivance.
• She cannot see her mother without the scarlet letter. When Hester takes it off and throws it away
during her meeting with Arthur Dimmesdale in the forest, the act disturbs Pearl. Only when Hester
picks it up and places it on her bosom that Pearl is mollified.
• Symbolically, when Hester removes the letter and takes off the cap, she is, in effect, removing the
harsh, stark, unbending Puritan social and moral structure.
• Sometimes she flings wild flowers at the letter and dances joyfully or she arranges prickly burrs
along its lines of on her mother’s bosom and once she frames the letter ‘A’ with eel-grass on her won
bosom.
• Pearl keeps pestering her mother about the meaning and significance of the symbol, thus, torturing
her with incessant reminders of her moral trespass.

COLOR
• Black and gray are colors associated with the Puritans, gloom, death, sin.
• The Puritans in that scene wear gray hats, and the darkness of the jail is relieved by the sunshine of the
outside
• In Chapter 16, Hester and Dimmesdale meet in the forest with a "gray expanse of cloud" and a narrow
path hemmed in by the black and dense forest. The feelings of the lovers, weighed down by guilt, are
reflected in the darkness of nature.
• The color black represents Chillingworth, an evil man who often is compared to the devil.
• Showing how the color black symbolizes his satanic qualities, Pearl exclaims, “Come away, mother!
Come away, or yonder old Black Man [or devil] will catch you! He hath got hold of the minister already.
Come away, mother, or he will catch you!”
• Chillingworth grows more sinister every time Hester sees him, like “how his dark complexion seemed
to have grown duskier”.
• Darkness is always associated with Chillingworth.
• Scarlet (red) has always been a symbol of "lust," or "passion."
• It is red because that is the color associated with the devil, and the Puritans believed that Hester's sin
was a mark of Satan.
• In contrast, she dresses Pearl in bright colors, especially crimson, in defiance of the scarlet letter and as
a symbol of the child's free spirit.
LIGHT & DARKNESS

SCARLET LETTER
• When the rays of sunshine fall on Pearl but do not reach Hester, they symbolize her inability to find
happiness or warmth. The pervading darkness is suggestive of the dull gloom in her life. That darkness
is dispelled when she meets with Dimmesdale and plans to flee from Boston with him. As a symbol of
her freedom, she throws away the scarlet letter and undoes her hair. Appropriately, a flood of sunshine
illuminates the forest, dispelling the darkness.
• The sun is the symbol of untroubled, guilt-free happiness, or perhaps the approval of God and nature.
It also seems to be, at times, the light of truth and grace.
• Dimmesdale's confession, and daylight is the symbol of exposure. Nighttime, however, is the symbol of
concealment, and Dimmesdale stands on the scaffold at midnight, concealing his confession from the
community.
SETTING
• The scaffold is a symbol of penitence and God's platform on the Day of Judgment.
• The Puritan village with its marketplace and scaffold is a place of rigid rules, concern with sin and
punishment, and self-examination.
• The collective community that watches, at beginning and end, is a symbol of the rigid Puritan point of
view with unquestioning obedience to the law.
• The Church and State are ubiquitous forces to contend with in this colony, as Hester finds out to her
dismay. They see Dimmesdale as a figure of public approval, Chillingworth, at least initially, as a man of
learning to be revered, and Hester as the outcast.
• The forest represents a natural world, governed by natural laws, as opposed to the artificial, Puritan
community with its man-made laws. Here the sun shines on Pearl, and she absorbs and keeps it. In this
world, Hester can take off her cap, let down her hair, and discuss plans with Dimmesdale to be together
away from the rigid laws of the Puritans.
• As part of this forest, the brook provides "a boundary between two worlds." Pearl refuses to cross this
boundary into the Puritan world when Hester beckons to her.( A natural stream of water smaller than
a river). Dimsdale says- I have a strange fancy that the brook is the boundary between two worlds, and
that thou canst never meet thy Pearl
• Another symbol employed in the novel is the brook flowing with a sad murmuring sound. It seems to
be burdened with many sorrows, a reminder of her own sorrows to Hester.
• The rose bush growing across from the prison respresents a constant reminder of salvation and hope
to all the prisoners. Later in the book Pearl states that she was plucked from the rosebush and was born.

SCARLET LETTER
This symbolizes that Pearl is the key to not only Hester's salvation, but to Dimmesdale and indirectly
to Chillingsworth.
ROLE OF NARRATOR
• The narrator is an unnamed customhouse surveyor who writes some two hundred years after the
events he describes took place. He has much in common with Hawthorne but should not be taken
as a direct mouthpiece for the author’s opinions.
• The narrator is omniscient, because he analyzes the characters and tells the story in a way that
shows that he knows more about the characters than they know about themselves.
• Yet, he is also a subjective narrator, because he voices his own interpretations and opinions of
things. He is clearly sympathetic to Hester and Dimmesdale. This is what makes the narrative so
heart-felt.

CHARACTER SKETCH- HESTER

• She married the much older Roger Chillingworth, who spent long hours over his books and
experiments; yet she convinced herself that she was happy. When they left Amsterdam for the New
World, he sent her ahead, but he was reportedly lost at sea, leaving Hester alone among the Puritans
of Boston. Officially, she is a widow. While not a Puritan herself, Hester looks to Arthur Dimmesdale
for comfort and spiritual guidance. Somewhere during this period of time, their solace becomes
passion and results in the birth of Pearl.
• Her inner strength, her defiance of convention, her honesty, and her compassion
• Dimmesdale implores her to name the father of the baby and her penance may be lightened. Hester
says "Never!" When asked again, she says "I will not speak!" . It also shows Hester's determination
to stand alone despite the opinion of society. Despite her lonely existence, Hester somehow finds an
inner strength to defy both the townspeople and the local government.
• Her loneliness is described in the Chapter 5 as she considers how she can support herself and Pearl,
a problem that she solves with her needlework.
• A second quality of Hester is that she is, above all, honest: She openly acknowledges her sin.
• Hester becomes known for her charitable deeds. She offers comfort to the poor, the sick, and the
downtrodden. When the governor is dying, she is at his side. "She came, not as a guest, but as a

SCARLET LETTER
rightful inmate, into the household that was darkened by trouble." Yet Hester's presence is taken
for granted, and those that she helps do not acknowledge her on the street.
CHARACTER SKETCH- ARTHUR

• At worst, Dimmesdale is a symbol of hypocrisy and self-centered intellectualism; he knows what is
right but has not the courage to make himself do the public act.
• His first words to Hester are in the form of an admonition to reveal, and yet not to reveal, the name
of her fellow sinner. He has no courage to face the condemnation of the people. He is thus morally a
coward.
• Dimmesdale a symbol of the secret sinner is also what redeems him. Sin and its acknowledgment
humanize Dimmesdale. As a symbol, he represents the secret sinner who fights the good fight in his
soul and eventually wins.
• Dimmesdale’s conscience allows him no rest; it is rather source of his constant trouble.
• He knows his actions have fallen short of both God's standards and his own, and he fears this
represents his lack of salvation.
• In an attempt to seek salvation, he fasts until he faints and whips himself on the shoulders until he
bleeds. But these punishments are done in private rather than in public and do not provide the
cleansing Dimmesdale seeks and needs.
• Dimmesdale is, therefore, a ceaseless sufferer.
• Dimmesdale is tormented inwardly, while Hester is tormented outwardly.
• Accordingly, his wonderful sermons are applauded by all for a reason his listeners don't
understand: Sin and agony have enabled the intellectual scholar-minister to recognize and
empathize with other sinners.
• Dimmesdale's confession in the third scaffold scene and the climax of the story is the action that
ensures his salvation.
CHARACTER SKETCH- ROGER

• Chillingworth is consistently a symbol of cold reason and intellect unencumbered by human
compassion.
• While Dimmesdale has intellect but lacks will, Chillingworth has both. He is fiendish, evil, and intent
on revenge.
• In his first appearance in the novel, he is compared to a snake, an obvious allusion to the Garden of
Eden.

SCARLET LETTER
• Even Pearl recognizes that Chillingworth is a creature of the Black Man and warns her mother to
stay away from him.
• Instead, as the scholar, he studied their knowledge of herbs and medicines to learn. This study of
herbs and medicines later links his work to the "black medicine" and helps him keep his victim alive.
• In Chillingworth, Hawthorne has created the "man of science," a man of pure intellect and reason
with no concern for feelings.
• These men of science have lost the spiritual view of human beings because they are so wrapped up
in the scientific intricacies of the human body
• Obsession, vengeance, and hatred consumed him, but, despite all this, he leaves his fortune to Pearl,
a child of love and passion, the living symbol and personification of the scarlet letter. Perhaps this
act can, to some degree, redeem the person whose sin was the blackest.
CHARACTER SKETCH- PEARL

• Pearl is also the imagination of the artist, an idea so powerful that the Puritans could not even
conceive of it
• She is natural law unleashed, the freedom of the unrestrained wilderness, the result of repressed
passion.
• When Hester meets Dimmesdale in the forest, Pearl is reluctant to come across the brook to see
them because they represent the Puritan society in which she has no happy role. Here in the forest,
she is free and in harmony with nature.
• Pearl is a sort of living version of her mother’s scarlet letter.
• Pearl is more than a mere punishment to her mother: she is also a blessing. She represents not only
“sin” but also the vital spirit and passion that engendered that sin. Thus, Pearl’s existence gives her
mother reason to live,
• Dimmesdale is revealed to be Pearl’s father that Pearl can become fully “human.” Until then, she
functions in a symbolic capacity as the reminder of an unsolved mystery.
ENDING OF SCARLET LETTER

• This third and final scaffold scene serves as a catharsis, as all unsettled matters are given resolution.
• Moreover, despite the fact that the resolution takes place before the assembled townspeople, the
Puritan elders have no power to judge or punish in this situation. Instead, Dimmesdale serves as his
own prosecutor and judge.

SCARLET LETTER
• He also provides a commentary on them, addressing the novel’s main themes of sin, evil, and
identity within society. One might think that the people’s shock at their minister’s secret life would
provoke them into contemplation of their punitive system. That is, if Dimmesdale is capable of such
a sin, then surely every individual must be; perhaps sinfulness should be acknowledged as an
inescapable element of the human condition.
• Given an “earthly father” for the first time, Pearl finally, according to the narrator, becomes “human.”
• Pearl returns to Europe and marries into an aristocratic family. Notably, she does not go to England,
which is the society against which the Puritans define themselves.
• Chillingworth shrivels up and vanishes because his revenge has consumed him and made him
inhuman. Without his victim, he has no reason to live.
• Even in death Dimmesdale and Hester are not allowed to mingle their dust. Perhaps Dimmesdale
was right in questioning whether they would have a life together beyond this one. While their graves
are slightly apart, the last irony is that they share a common tombstone. They could not be together
in life, but in death they share a scarlet letter.

OPENING OF SCARLET LETTER
• The Puritan society is symbolized in the first chapter by the plot of weeds growing so profusely in
front of the prison. Nevertheless, nature also includes things of beauty, represented by the wild
rosebush.
• Finally, the author points toward many of the images that are significant to an understanding of the
novel. In this instance, he names the chapter "The Prison Door." The reader needs to pay particular
attention to the significance of the prison generally and the prison door specifically.

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Nathaniel

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE NOVEL

SCHOOL OF THOUGHT- ROMANCE

INTER TEXTUAL REFERNCE

LIGHT & DARKNESS

CHARACTER SKETCH- HESTER

CHARACTER SKETCH- ARTHUR

CHARACTER SKETCH- ROGER

CHARACTER SKETCH- PEARL

ENDING OF SCARLET LETTER

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