The Scarlet Letter Essay Topics:

1. Pearl’s Multifarious Roles

(a) Voice of the author (“Will you hold my hand?”) throws the

prickly burrs at Dimmesdale

(b) Sweet moral blossom? (how? Why? Author’s suggestions

about this)

(c) Example of Nature (fox, squirrel, etc.) She behaves according

to her own nature.

(d) Imp – product of sin? (townspeople view point)

2. The Three Scaffold Scenes: Sin (or witness to the sinfulness),

Atonement (or concealment of the sin), Redemption

3. Hester: Saint or Sinner?

Saint: townspeople’s view point of her.

Hester’s viewpoint

Chillingworth / Mistress Hibbens

4. Puritanism: City on A Hill Or Hell on Earth?

(For Puritans, City on a Hill; for Dimmesdale and Hester, hell)

5. The Scarlet Letter A: Effective or Not?

(yes, for townspeople; no, for Hester)

6. Puritanism: Natural Law or a Beam in Your Eye?

(a) Beam in your eye caused by (i) Divine Elect; (ii) the Divine

Elect interpret the scripture and tell the Puritans how to live;

(iii) remember Ann Hutchinson? Kicked out of Boston by John

Winthrop for those Bible studies and her belief that a person

got to heaven because of God’s grace and that nothing a

person could do was enough to get into heaven.

(b) Natural Law: we should be able to behave according to our

God-endowed Nature.