In my class, students are always encouraged to speak their minds. They are more than welcome to oppose my opinions about a particular work of fiction, and more often than not, they also debate with one another. I facilitate these heated discussions through a carefully selected group of discussion questions that are designed to instigate controversy among students. This is one of the only ways I have found to involve my students in material, and to get their minds thinking “outside the box”.
These are my discussion questions for The Scarlet Letter. Feel free to expand upon them as they suit your classroom. I have also given a few sample essay questions at the end of this article.
1. Hester Prynne is considered the protagonist of The Scarlet Letter, but she is not always considered the heroine of the piece. Does Hester show heroic qualities in The Scarlet Letter? If so, what are those heroic qualities? If not, what is the difference between a protagonist and a heroine (or hero)?
2. All of the characters in The Scarlet Letter make mistakes. They all have their own agendas, and they all succumb at one point or another to human desires and fallacies. So who is the antagonist in The Scarlet Letter? Who is the chief villain that orchestrates the largest amount of trouble for the characters? If there isn’t an antagonist, why?
3. Many people believe that the government should not be allowed to regulate personal behavior, and yet we have laws that tell us we have to wear seatbelts, that we cannot be intoxicated in a public place, and that we cannot commit suicide. In The Scarlet Letter, adultery was a crime. What laws today do we disagree with, and where should the government be stopped in creating laws for personal regulation?
4. In The Scarlet Letter, witchcraft was considered a stigma on society. Mistress Hibbons, Governor Bellingham’s sister, was shunned from society for practicing witchcraft. Today, however, the practice of neopagan religions and beliefs is no longer a topic of disgust, but rather a growing trend among teenagers and adults alike. Why have we grown accepting of that behavior, and what has changed in society to facilitate that growth?
5. Hester Prynne was forced to wear the scarlet letter A as an advertisement of her adulterous crime. She took pride and courage, however, and made the A elaborate and elegant, perhaps flaunting her crime in the faces of those who condemned her. Today, people do this as well. Can you give me examples? How does this help to shape and change society?
6. Children who grow up in adverse or difficult conditions are often forced to grow up much more quickly than other children. They learn the ways of the world much sooner than they would have otherwise, and this can be both a blessing and a curse. Pearl was like those children, displaying adult characteristics as a young child. Does this seem like a realistic character trait? Why or why not?
7. There are hundreds of examples of perceived symbolism in The Scarlet Letter. Some are rather blatant, while others require a certain amount of “reaching”. Which examples of symbolism do you believe were included in the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and which have been inferred by literary experts?
ESSAY QUESTIONS
1. Discuss how setting plays a part in the furthering of the story in The Scarlet Letter. How do descriptions of scenery, characters and weather make the novel more or less dark?
2. Explain and discuss the signficance of the three scenes on the scaffold. How are they connected, and what can we infer from them?
3. What parts do Mistress Hibbons and Governor Bellingham play in the overall understanding of sin and of the life lived during the time of the Scarlet Letter?
4. Expand upon the conflict created between the laws of the Puritans and the natural human laws of the world.
