100 Fun Facts About The Scarlet Letter

What does Hester's daughter finally do as Dimmesdale lies dying on the scaffold?

Hester's daughter kisses him at last, and a spell is broken: her tears on his cheek pledge that she will grow up amid human joy and sorrow.

What does Hester Prynne's scarlet letter 'A' stand for?

Adultery was a capital crime under the colony's laws, but the magistrates spared Hester, sentencing her to three hours on the scaffold and a lifelong mark of shame.

What does the sexton hand Dimmesdale the day after his night vigil on the scaffold?

His black glove, the sexton says, was found on the scaffold, where Satan must have dropped it as a jest against the minister.

In The Scarlet Letter, who had held Hester's husband captive before he reached Boston?

Native Americans had held him captive, and when he finally reached Boston he found his wife on the scaffold, shamed for bearing a child in his absence.

What does Hester refuse to reveal from the scaffold in The Scarlet Letter?

Hester refuses to name her child's father, even when Dimmesdale urges her to speak, though he is the father himself.

What does Hester's husband make her swear when he visits her in prison?

Hester swears to keep his identity secret, which leaves him free to live in Boston as a stranger while he hunts for her lover.

What profession does Chillingworth take up in Boston?

Working as a physician, Chillingworth moves in with the ailing Dimmesdale, which lets him watch every change in the minister's health.

What reason does Hester give her daughter for wearing the scarlet letter?

Hester says she wears it for its gold thread, the first time she has ever lied about the letter.

How does Hester earn her living after leaving prison?

Hester's needlework earned her a living, but her disgrace meant that no one ever asked her to sew for a bride.

Which governor does Hester visit when colony leaders plan to take her daughter away in The Scarlet Letter?

Governor Bellingham let Hester keep her daughter after Dimmesdale argued that God had sent the child, partly as Hester's punishment.

What does Chillingworth find when he pulls aside the sleeping Dimmesdale's vestment?

Chillingworth finds a symbol of shame on his chest, and his wild joy is likened to how Satan acts when a precious soul is won into his kingdom.

Where do Hester and Dimmesdale meet to plan their escape from Boston?

In the forest, Hester flings away the scarlet letter, but her daughter refuses to come to her until she pins it back on.

On which day does Dimmesdale finally confess on the scaffold and die?

Election Day was meant to be his last in Boston, with their ship due to sail the next day, but instead he confessed before the town and died.

On his way home from planning their escape with Hester, what urge does Dimmesdale fight?

To speak blasphemy rose in him with each townsman he met, and he was even tempted to teach some very wicked words to small Puritan children.

What does the heraldic device on Hester and Dimmesdale's shared tombstone show?

A red A on black is what the device shows, fitting for Hester, who came back to Boston after years away and chose to wear the letter again until her death.

After years of Hester nursing the sick and needy, what do many townspeople say her A stands for?

Able is what many said it meant, and the narrator adds that the letter came to have the effect of the cross on a nun's bosom.

What celestial event does Dimmesdale see as a giant A during his night vigil on the scaffold?

A meteor lights up the sky, and its glare also reveals Chillingworth watching the minister, Hester and her daughter from nearby.

Which plant grows beside the prison door as a symbol of nature's beauty amid sorrow?

A rosebush grows by the prison door, and Hester's daughter later claims she was plucked from it, an answer that nearly gets her taken from her mother.

Which banished religious dissenter does the opening chapter of The Scarlet Letter mention?

Anne Hutchinson was tried and banished from Massachusetts in 1637, then founded a settlement with her followers at what is now Portsmouth, Rhode Island.

Which bitter-tempered sister of the Governor in The Scarlet Letter is later executed as a witch?

Ann Hibbins invites Hester to a night gathering in the woods, and Hester says she would have gone had the magistrates taken her daughter away.

Which biblical story is depicted in the tapestry in Dimmesdale's room?

David and Bathsheba share the tapestry with Nathan the Prophet, who confronted the king over his sin by telling him, 'Thou art the man.'

When Hester's daughter asks Dimmesdale to stand with them at noon tomorrow, when does he promise instead?

On Judgment Day, he said, yet he later called mother and daughter up beside him on the scaffold before the whole town as he confessed.

What is the title of the introductory sketch that opens The Scarlet Letter?

The Custom-House tells how the narrator found old papers and a faded scarlet A in an unfinished upstairs room, the find he says inspired the tale.

What in the Governor's hall reflects Hester's scarlet letter in hugely magnified form?

A suit of armor did it: its convex breastplate made the letter so gigantic that Hester seemed hidden behind it.

How did Hawthorne respond when The Scarlet Letter's opening sketch angered his Salem neighbors?

He reprinted it unchanged, saying not a word was altered, and a new preface disclaimed any personal or political ill feeling behind the sketch.

What does Hester's daughter use to make her own letter A while playing on the seashore?

Eel-grass made her green A, and asked why her mother wears hers, she said it was for the same reason the minister keeps his hand over his heart.

Who persuaded Hawthorne to make The Scarlet Letter a book of its own?

His publisher, James T. Fields, talked him out of his first plan, which was to print it as one long tale among shorter ones in a collection called Old-Time Legends.

What does Hester's daughter throw at Dimmesdale from the graveyard beside his house?

A prickly burr made the minister shrink, and she urged her mother away before the Black Man, who had already caught him, caught them too.

Where does Hester set up home after her release from prison in The Scarlet Letter?

A cottage on the town's edge became her home, and children would creep close to spy on her, then run off in fear when they saw the letter.

Which 20th-century novelist called The Scarlet Letter 'one of the greatest allegories in all literature'?

D. H. Lawrence praised its 'marvellous under-meaning', urging readers to trust the book's art rather than what its 'sugary' author says for himself.

What word did Hawthorne prefer to 'novel' in the subtitle of The Scarlet Letter?

Romance was his word for a form free to leave the probable course of ordinary life for a 'neutral territory, somewhere between the real world and fairy-land.'

How was Hawthorne's surname originally spelled?

Hathorne was the family's spelling, and Nathaniel is thought to have added the w to distance himself from his notorious Puritan ancestors.

Which religious group did Hawthorne's first American ancestor, a Puritan magistrate, persecute?

Quakers remembered his hard severity in their histories, and Hawthorne wrote that he took shame upon himself for his forebears and prayed any curse on the family be removed.

What post did Hawthorne hold in Salem from 1846 until a change in government cost him the job?

Surveyor of the port was his post until the Whig victory of 1848 got him dismissed, which gave him the time to write The Scarlet Letter.

Which college did Hawthorne attend, where he formed a lifelong friendship with future president Franklin Pierce?

Bowdoin is where the friendship began, and Hawthorne later wrote Pierce's campaign biography and was rewarded with the post of American consul at Liverpool.

Which writer became Hawthorne's close friend while both men were living in the Berkshires in 1850?

Herman Melville, 15 years younger and then at work on Moby-Dick, went on to dedicate that novel to Hawthorne in admiration of his genius.

Which novel did Hawthorne publish in 1851, the year after The Scarlet Letter?

The House of the Seven Gables follows the Pyncheons, whose ancestor took a humble man's land after pressing witchcraft charges against him.

Where did Hawthorne die in May 1864, while traveling with his friend Franklin Pierce?

Plymouth, New Hampshire is where he died, on a trip through the state's hill country with Pierce that he had hoped would restore his failing health.

Which silent-film star played Hester Prynne in the 1926 film of The Scarlet Letter?

Lillian Gish asked MGM's Louis B. Mayer to make the film, though the studio feared censors and church groups would object to the story on screen.

Who played Hester Prynne in the 1995 film of The Scarlet Letter?

Demi Moore starred in a version that swapped the novel's tragic close for a happy ending, with Hester and Dimmesdale leaving Massachusetts together.

What does Dimmesdale do with his half-written sermon after he and Hester agree to flee?

He burns it and starts anew, writing through the night, and the finished sermon draws loud applause, the high point of his life.

Which 2010 film was partly inspired by The Scarlet Letter?

Easy A follows Olive, who is labeled promiscuous after a white lie spreads through her school, and who then plays up the undeserved reputation.

Which utopian community did Hawthorne join in 1841, a year before his marriage?

Brook Farm drew him less by its ideals than as a way to save money to marry Sophia Peabody, and he left later that same year.

Along with the scarlet letter, what else does Hester take off when she and Dimmesdale plan to flee?

Her cap came off too, letting her hair fall loose, and at that moment sunshine burst out all around them.

Which novelist reworked The Scarlet Letter in a trilogy including S. and Roger's Version?

John Updike wrote S. as a modern Hester Prynne's own story, with the heroine renamed Sarah Worth and finally allowed to have her say.

What physical flaw does Hester notice in her husband as he watches from the crowd?

A raised shoulder marked him, and as he preyed on the minister, townsfolk saw something ugly and evil come into his face.

Which colonial governor dies on the night of Dimmesdale's midnight vigil on the scaffold?

John Winthrop had died that night, and Hester, on her way home from his deathbed after measuring him for a robe, joined the minister on the scaffold.

What becomes of Hester's husband in the year after Dimmesdale's confession?

He withers and dies, like an uprooted weed left in the sun, since revenge had been his whole reason for living.

When Dimmesdale tells his congregation he is the worst of sinners, how do they respond?

They revere him more, taking his words for a saint's humility, which only deepens his torment, since he feels he is lying to them.

What did hearing The Scarlet Letter's ending give Hawthorne's wife?

A headache sent her to bed with her heart broken, and Hawthorne told a friend he looked upon that as a triumphant success.

What name does Hester Prynne give her daughter in The Scarlet Letter, as being of great price?

Pearl is named for the jewel in the parable, bought with all its buyer had: the child cost Hester her good name and is her only treasure.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's great-great-grandfather was a judge in which notorious proceedings in colonial Massachusetts?

The Salem witch trials of 1692 saw this ancestor question the accused, and unlike fellow judge Samuel Sewall he is not known to have repented.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, was born in 1804 on which American national holiday?

Independence Day 1804 was his birthday: he was born on July 4, and his birthplace is preserved and open to visitors.

Which Golden Raspberry Award did the 1995 film of The Scarlet Letter actually win, among its many nominations?

Worst Remake or Sequel was its only Razzie at the March 1996 ceremony, where Showgirls beat it to Worst Picture.

Which Taylor Swift hit borrows the image of a scarlet letter to describe a forbidden romance?

Love Story uses the scarlet letter as shorthand for forbidden love, a reference one Slant Magazine critic called inexplicable.

What does Roger Chillingworth make the ruling principle of his life once he begins to suspect Arthur Dimmesdale?

Revenge so consumes the old scholar that he tells Hester he was once kind and just, and has since turned himself into a fiend.

What does Hester Prynne do of her own free will when she returns to New England years after leaving?

Wear the letter again is her own choice, for no magistrate would have demanded it; in time the badge draws awe and respect instead of scorn.

Which English actor played Arthur Dimmesdale in Roland Joffé's 1995 film of The Scarlet Letter?

Gary Oldman took the role of the tormented minister, and in 2011 he still named the much-mocked film among four he would take to a desert island.

Which showman's New York museum staged a play of The Scarlet Letter in February 1858?

P. T. Barnum hosted George L. Aiken's adaptation at his American Museum, with George C. Howard and his wife as Dimmesdale and Hester.

Under Massachusetts law in The Scarlet Letter, what penalty have the magistrates mercifully spared Hester Prynne?

Death is what the statute demands, a townsman explains, but the judges held back because Hester is young, fair and was doubtless strongly tempted.

What fate do the Boston magistrates think most likely for Hester Prynne's husband, who sent her ahead to New England?

Drowned at sea is the town's best guess, since some two years have passed with no word of the learned Englishman; in fact he is watching from the crowd.

Which habitual gesture of Arthur Dimmesdale does Hester Prynne's daughter press her mother to explain?

Hand over his heart is how the minister stands and walks: what began as a casual gesture becomes a constant habit as his cheek grows paler and thinner.

Under the sentence passed on Hester Prynne, for what span must the scarlet letter stay on her gown?

The rest of her life is the term, on top of three hours standing on the pillory platform; a stranger in the crowd calls it a wise sentence.

In The Scarlet Letter's opening, what must every new colony's founders set land aside for, besides a prison?

A cemetery and a jail come first, Hawthorne says, whatever Utopia the settlers set out to build: every colony must plan for crime and for dying.

According to Hester Prynne's daughter, what runs away and hides because it fears something on Hester's bosom?

The sunshine keeps slipping away from Hester on their walk, the girl says, but it will not flee a child who wears nothing on her own breast yet.

What does Hester Prynne's daughter refuse to cross until her mother fastens the scarlet letter back on?

A stream lies between them, and the girl stamps and shrieks on the far bank until the letter is back in place; only then does she bound across.

In the story Hester Prynne's daughter has heard about the Black Man, what must people do with his iron pen?

Sign his book in blood, the child reports, after which he sets his mark on their bosoms; Hester replies that her own letter is that mark.

What was the occupation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's father, who died of yellow fever in Suriname in 1808?

A ship's captain, he died far from home while Nathaniel was a small child, and the family went to live with relatives named the Mannings.

Which painter and illustrator, one of three notable Massachusetts sisters, did Nathaniel Hawthorne marry in 1842?

Sophia Peabody was among the first professional women artists in America; Hawthorne had flirted publicly with her sister Elizabeth before courting her.

Which future Fireside Poet was Nathaniel Hawthorne's college classmate, graduating alongside him in 1825?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow stayed loyal for life: he was a pallbearer at Hawthorne's funeral and afterwards wrote an elegy for his old classmate.

Which writer planted a vegetable garden at the Old Manse just before the newlywed Hawthornes moved in?

Henry David Thoreau dug the plot as a wedding gift, stocking it with beans, peas, cabbages and squash before the couple arrived.

In which Massachusetts town is Nathaniel Hawthorne buried, on a hill now known as Authors' Ridge?

Concord holds his tomb in Sleepy Hollow; Emerson, Alcott and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. were among the pallbearers.

In which English city did Nathaniel Hawthorne serve as United States consul, a reward from President Franklin Pierce?

Liverpool was the posting, granted in 1853; Hawthorne commuted to the consulate on the steamboat from Rock Ferry.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1860 novel The Marble Faun, inspired by a statue he saw on his travels, is set in which country?

Italy is the setting: Hawthorne spent a year and a half there as a tourist and got the idea from the Faun of Praxiteles in a museum in Rome.

What word do Boston's townspeople take a glowing letter A in the night sky to stand for in The Scarlet Letter?

Angel is their reading, the sexton says, because a beloved governor had died that very night and heaven was thought to be marking his passing.

What does Arthur Dimmesdale hide under lock and key in a private closet to punish himself in The Scarlet Letter?

A bloody scourge hangs there, and the minister often plies it on his own shoulders, laughing bitterly at himself as he strikes.

What does Hester Prynne's small daughter fling one by one at the scarlet letter, dancing whenever she hits it?

Wild-flowers are her missiles one summer afternoon; Hester fights the urge to cover herself and sits erect and pale until the handfuls run out.

How does Hester Prynne's little daughter react when the Puritan children of Boston gather around her?

Throws stones at them is the short answer: she snatches them up with shrill cries that make Hester tremble, so like curses in some unknown tongue.

At which European university did Arthur Dimmesdale win the scholarly renown he brought to Puritan Boston?

Oxford still remembered the young divine, Hawthorne writes, while his Boston admirers thought him little less than a heaven-ordained apostle.

In which Dutch city had Hester Prynne's English husband long lived before sending her ahead to Massachusetts?

Amsterdam was home to the learned Englishman, a townsman explains; he stayed behind to settle some necessary affairs and then failed to arrive.

What does an elderly Boston clergyman ask Hester Prynne's three-year-old to test her Christian upbringing?

Who made her is the question, and the child perversely refuses to say, though Hester has taught her enough to pass an exam in the New England Primer.

What do troubled women come to Hester Prynne's door seeking in her final years in The Scarlet Letter?

Counsel and comfort are what she gives, assuring them that in some brighter period men and women will stand on a surer ground of mutual happiness.

What unwelcome news does a shipmaster give Hester Prynne on the holiday, wrecking her plan to leave Boston?

Her husband will sail too: the mariner cheerfully says another berth is needed, since Chillingworth claims to be a close friend of the gentleman she spoke of.

Which single virtue does the narrator of The Scarlet Letter urge three times over as the moral of Dimmesdale's story?

Being true is the lesson: show the world freely, the narrator adds, if not your worst, then some trait by which the worst may be guessed.

What do letters with armorial seals suggest has become of Hester Prynne's grown daughter?

She has married abroad, the gossips conclude, and happily; luxuries only wealth could buy arrive for Hester, who never cares to use them.

Nathaniel Hawthorne lost his government post when the Whigs took the presidency because he belonged to which party?

The Democrats were his party, so the change of administration swept him out; the Whigs then attacked the letter of protest he sent to a Boston daily.

Which 1837 story collection, its publishing risk covered by a college friend, first made Nathaniel Hawthorne known?

Twice-Told Tales gathered stories he had published anonymously; Horatio Bridge put up $250 against losses and later named the author in a review.

For which English city is the vessel from the Spanish Main bound when Hester Prynne secures passage on it?

Bristol was the destination, with the sailing three days off; Hester knew the crew through her work as a self-enlisted Sister of Charity.

Where does Roger Chillingworth say he found the dark, flabby-leaved weeds he shows Arthur Dimmesdale?

An unmarked grave grew them, he says, as if they stood for some hideous thing the dead man took with him unconfessed.

Which real-life elder of the Boston clergy preaches on sin over Hester Prynne's head as she stands on display?

John Wilson, the eldest clergyman in Boston, dwells on the letter for an hour or more, until it seems to take its hue from the flames of the infernal pit.

Which Boston church names the burying ground where Hawthorne buries Hester Prynne in the final paragraph?

King's Chapel had not been built in Hester's day, as the narrator notes; Elizabeth Pain's stone in its burying ground is the traditional inspiration.

Which first novel did Nathaniel Hawthorne publish anonymously in 1828, then burn the unsold copies of?

Fanshawe drew on his college days and flopped; he had printed it at his own expense of $100 and later tried to suppress it altogether.

Which American-born novelist published a book-length critical study titled simply Hawthorne in 1879?

Henry James ranked the novels from The Scarlet Letter down, and stirred controversy by listing what he felt American life lacked for a novelist.

Which English novelist ranked The Scarlet Letter beside The Song of Hiawatha as America's two most masterly works?

George Eliot called the pair the two most indigenous and masterly productions in American literature, high praise from across the Atlantic.

Which German director made a 1973 film of The Scarlet Letter with Senta Berger as Hester Prynne?

Wim Wenders planned to shoot in Salem, Massachusetts, but filmed in Spain instead; Yella Rottländer, who played Hester's daughter, starred in his Alice in the Cities a year later.

Which playwright reworked The Scarlet Letter as In the Blood, one of her two Red Letter Plays?

Suzan-Lori Parks made her Hester a penniless mother of five, condemned by the men who once loved her; the play premiered in 1999.

Which composer's opera of The Scarlet Letter, first staged in Boston in 1896, had a libretto by Hawthorne's son-in-law?

Walter Damrosch had his own opera company give the premiere at the Boston Theatre; a devoted Wagnerian, he was dismissed by more than one critic as an imitator of Wagner.

Some Boston leaders want Hester Prynne's daughter removed on the supposition that the child is of what origin?

Demon origin is the rumour, so they argue that a Christian interest in Hester's soul requires removing such a stumbling-block from her path.

With whom do Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth lodge once friends arrange for the two men to live together?

A pious widow of good social rank takes them in, giving the minister a sunny front room and the older man rooms on the other side.

Which official, with a sword at his side and a staff of office, leads Hester Prynne out of the prison?

The town beadle steps out first like a shadow, but at the threshold Hester shrugs off his hand and walks into the open air as if by choice.