The Scarlet Letter Trivia
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100 free The Scarlet Letter trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Scarlet Letter is the Puritan Boston novel that gave American literature its first great heroine and generations of students their first encounter with the word 'ignominy'. This quiz covers the book, its author and its afterlife. The easy questions ask what the A stands for, who Hester's daughter is, what her husband calls himself, which minister is hiding his guilt and where Hester must stand for three hours. From there it moves into the details: the rosebush by the prison door, the meteor over the scaffold, the meaning the townsfolk later gave the letter, the tombstone's heraldic epitaph and the historical figures such as Anne Hutchinson and Ann Hibbins who wander into the story. The harder end is for Hawthorne readers: the Custom-House sketch that enraged Salem, Ticknor and Fields and the 2,500 mechanised copies that sold in ten days, the $1,500 it earned over fourteen years, the myth about James T. Fields stretching a novelette, the 'w' Hawthorne added to escape a witch-trial judge, George Eliot's and D. H. Lawrence's verdicts, Elizabeth Pain's gravestone, Lillian Gish's silent Hester, the Demi Moore ending, John Updike's trilogy and Emma Stone's red A in Easy A. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on the novel, its author and its adaptations, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Moby-Dick, American literature and classic novels quizzes next.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does Hester's daughter finally do as Dimmesdale lies dying on the scaffold?
Kisses him
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.
Q 02What does Hester Prynne's scarlet letter 'A' stand for?
Adultery
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.
Q 03What does the sexton hand Dimmesdale the day after his night vigil on the scaffold?
His black glove
His black glove, the sexton says, was found on the scaffold, where Satan must have dropped it as a jest against the minister.
Q 04In The Scarlet Letter, who had held Hester's husband captive before he reached Boston?
Native Americans
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.
Q 05What does Hester refuse to reveal from the scaffold in The Scarlet Letter?
Her child's father
Hester refuses to name her child's father, even when Dimmesdale urges her to speak, though he is the father himself.
Q 06What does Hester's husband make her swear when he visits her in prison?
To keep his identity secret
Hester swears to keep his identity secret, which leaves him free to live in Boston as a stranger while he hunts for her lover.
Q 07What profession does Chillingworth take up in Boston?
Physician
Working as a physician, Chillingworth moves in with the ailing Dimmesdale, which lets him watch every change in the minister's health.
Q 08What reason does Hester give her daughter for wearing the scarlet letter?
For its gold thread
Hester says she wears it for its gold thread, the first time she has ever lied about the letter.
Q 09How does Hester earn her living after leaving prison?
Needlework
Hester's needlework earned her a living, but her disgrace meant that no one ever asked her to sew for a bride.
Q 10Which governor does Hester visit when colony leaders plan to take her daughter away in The Scarlet Letter?
Bellingham
Governor Bellingham let Hester keep her daughter after Dimmesdale argued that God had sent the child, partly as Hester's punishment.
Q 11What does Chillingworth find when he pulls aside the sleeping Dimmesdale's vestment?
A symbol of shame on his chest
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.
Q 12Where do Hester and Dimmesdale meet to plan their escape from Boston?
In the forest
In the forest, Hester flings away the scarlet letter, but her daughter refuses to come to her until she pins it back on.
Q 13On which day does Dimmesdale finally confess on the scaffold and die?
Election Day
Q 21Which biblical story is depicted in the tapestry in Dimmesdale's room?
David and Bathsheba
David and Bathsheba share the tapestry with Nathan the Prophet, who confronted the king over his sin by telling him, 'Thou art the man.'
Q 22When Hester's daughter asks Dimmesdale to stand with them at noon tomorrow, when does he promise instead?
On Judgment Day
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.
Q 23What is the title of the introductory sketch that opens The Scarlet Letter?
The Custom-House
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.
Q 14On his way home from planning their escape with Hester, what urge does Dimmesdale fight?
To speak blasphemy
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.
Q 15What does the heraldic device on Hester and Dimmesdale's shared tombstone show?
A red A on black
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.
Q 16After years of Hester nursing the sick and needy, what do many townspeople say her A stands for?
Able
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.
Q 17What celestial event does Dimmesdale see as a giant A during his night vigil on the scaffold?
A meteor
A meteor lights up the sky, and its glare also reveals Chillingworth watching the minister, Hester and her daughter from nearby.
Q 18Which plant grows beside the prison door as a symbol of nature's beauty amid sorrow?
A rosebush
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.
Q 19Which banished religious dissenter does the opening chapter of The Scarlet Letter mention?
Anne Hutchinson
Anne Hutchinson was tried and banished from Massachusetts in 1637, then founded a settlement with her followers at what is now Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
Q 20Which bitter-tempered sister of the Governor in The Scarlet Letter is later executed as a witch?
Ann Hibbins
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.
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.
Q 24What in the Governor's hall reflects Hester's scarlet letter in hugely magnified form?
A suit of armor
A suit of armor did it: its convex breastplate made the letter so gigantic that Hester seemed hidden behind it.
Q 25How did Hawthorne respond when The Scarlet Letter's opening sketch angered his Salem neighbors?
Reprinted it unchanged
He reprinted it unchanged, saying not a word was altered, and a new preface disclaimed any personal or political ill feeling behind the sketch.
Q 26What does Hester's daughter use to make her own letter A while playing on the seashore?
Eel-grass
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.
Q 27Who persuaded Hawthorne to make The Scarlet Letter a book of its own?
His publisher
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.
Q 28What does Hester's daughter throw at Dimmesdale from the graveyard beside his house?
A prickly burr
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.
Q 29Where does Hester set up home after her release from prison in The Scarlet Letter?
A cottage on the town's edge
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.
Q 30Which 20th-century novelist called The Scarlet Letter 'one of the greatest allegories in all literature'?
D. H. Lawrence
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.