Reading Response Prompts
 

These prompts are meant to get you thinking about what you have read, and to help focus your thoughts for your reading responses. You can respond to any one of them, or, if you have another idea you would rather explore, you are free to write about that instead. Do not, however, attempt to answer multiple prompts for any assignment. If you choose to pursue an idea of your own or are not writing a response that day, you should still spend at least a few minutes thinking about each of the prompts in preparation for class. For more information, review the listserv assignment.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapters I through VIII

How would you describe the narrator of The Scarlet Letter? Is the narrative voice’s tone and style similar to or different from what you read in “The Custom-House,” and if so, how? What are the distinguishing features of Hawthorne’s style here?

Hester Prynne may be the most famous female protagonist in American fiction. But like all most characters, she is complex. Are we supposed to like her, admire her, pity her, scorn her? Which describes your reaction? What do you see as her most admirable characteristics, and which are the most problematic? Why? How would you compare her to Hawthorne’s other female characters you have encountered so far?

Hawthorne consistently describes Pearl in inhuman terms. She is, on one hand, more a preternatural or supernatural creature outside the bounds of society; simultaneously, she is the living embodiment of Hester’s sin and punishment. Why is she the way she is? How can we reconcile these two aspects of her character?
 
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