Scarlet Letter Notes 3 (ch. 6-8)

 

Ignominy
1. Great personal dishonor or humiliation.

2. Shameful or disgraceful action, conduct, or character. An act deserving disgrace; an infamous act.

 

Chapter 6: Pearl

  • Describe Pearl’s character
    • What is just a playful child, what is her worry over her being tainted? Is Pearl a bad kid? Why is she so angry at other children?
    • 62 “There was an absolute circle of radiance around her”
    • 62 “The child could not be made amenable to rules”
    • 65 “a shadowy reflection of the evil that had existed in herself”
  • Social commentary: what does Hawthorne think of Puritan society?
    • Chapter 2 description of women,
    • p. 64 description of children
  • First object Pearl noticed was the scarlet letter 66
  • Irony “I have no Heavenly Father!” 67

 

Chapter 7: The Governor’s Hall

  • What is the governor’s rationale for removing Pearl from Hester’s care?
  • Dresses Pearl to mirror the scarlet letter: “It was the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life!” (70)
  • “The mother herself . . . has carefully wrought out the similitude; lavishing many hours of morbid ingenuity, to create an analogy between the object of her affection, and emblem of her guilt and torture. But in truth, Pearl was the one, as well as the other: and only in consequence of that identity had Hester contrived so perfectly to represent the scarlet letter in her appearance.” (70)

 

Chapter 8: The Elf-Child and the Minister

  • Pearl is three years old, but wise beyond her years—makes people uncomfortable
  • Hester’s rationale for keeping Pearl
    • “This badge has taught me,--it daily teaches me,--it is teaching me at this moment,--lessons whereof my child may be the wiser and better, albeit they can profit nothing to myself”
      • What has the scarlet letter done to Hester? How does it influence her? Should she ever be forgiven for her sins? When? Has she repented?
    • “God gave me the child . .  . He gave her, in requital of all things else, which ye had taken from me. She is my happiness!—she is my torture, none the less! Pearl keeps me here in life Pearl punishes me too! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being love, and so endowed with a million-fold the power of retribution for my sin? Ye shall not take her! I will die first!” (77)
      • quotation reflection on this passage
  • Who is right? Should Pearl remain with Hester or be given to adoptive parents? Why?
  • Should Chillingworth claim Hester? Why does he not acknowledge her? Is he right to leave her to suffer the consequences of her actions?
  • Dimmesdale’s reasoning—how does it compare to Hester’s
    • “to remind her at every moment, of her fall, -- but yet to teach her, as it were by the Creator’s sacred pledge, that, if she bring the child to heaven, the child also will bring its parent thither! Herein is the sinful mother happier than the sinful father”
    • How does Dimmesdale treat Hester?
  • “You speak, my friend, with a strange earnestness,” said old Roger Chillingworth, smiling at him.
  • How does Pearl treat Dimmesdale? P. 79
  • What provokes this tenderness? How does he react? What does this suggest? Why do you think Pearl acts the way she does? In this instance and overall?
  • Hester still appears beautiful, but Chillingworth has become uglier—why? Dimmesdale’s appearance?
  • Mistress Hibbins- who is the Black man—witch trials (The Crucible)