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 IX through XV

Arthur Dimmesdale may be the most difficult character in The Scarlet Letter for contemporary readers to understand. He is unquestionably the most divided, and may be the one in the most pain (though that is largely self-inflicted, in more ways than one). What can you say about his motivations, his beliefs and philosophy, or his dilemma?

Some critics — both in Hawthorne’s own time and today — have associated Chillingworth with Hawthorne himself, seeing him as Hawthorne’s stand-in or avatar in the novel. Others have interpreted him as another in the line of Hawthorne characters (Aylmer and Rappaccini, among others) who represent the consequences of a nature that combines too much head with too little heart. These two interpretations may or may not contradict. How do you view him?

Obviously, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are doctor and patient, but the novel depicts them engaged in psychologically more complex and intimate ways. How would you describe the relationship between the two men?

One of the crucial differences between Hester and Dimmesdale is their different relationships with the society in which they live. How is Hester’s changing position in the community significant?

 
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