Essay Topics for The Scarlet Letter

For Mr. Sullivan's classes, students should choose one of the topics discussed here or clear a topic of their own creation with Mr. Sullivan.

1) Read the editor's How is The Scarlet Letter Interpreted section on pp. 300-303 in our book and focus on one of those three topics. Once you choose a topic, you will have to formulate your own specific thesis that creates an argument.

2) Write an essay that explains, illuminates and contemplates three Romantic element(s) in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. See our web page for the various elements. Click here for more information on Romantic elements.

3) Before New Criticism, a school of thought the governed literary teaching/thinking methods roughly during the time period of 1955-1975, critics of The Scarlet Letter widely agreed that novel glorified Hester as the main character. Then, the New Critics arrived and agreed that Dimmesdale was the novel's "true protagonist" and that "Hawthorne portrayed Hester as woefully inadequate." What do you think? Start the formation of your thesis with your selection of the main character.

4) Many critics celebrate The Scarlet Letter's unity, sense of wholeness and overall balance by examine the three scaffold scenes. F.O. Mathiessen believed The Scarlet Letter to be Hawthorne's "most coherent plot...its symmetrical design is built around the three scenes on the scaffold." Formulate a thesis that celebrates the aesthetic balance of this text. You could also create a thesis that celebrates the dramatic structure of the novel.

5 ) (Challenging Topic!) In his essay, "Silence, Family Discourse, and Fiction in The Scarlet Letter," Michael Ragussis focuses on the "paralyzing silence" that involves the four family members: Pearl, Hester, Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale. "With the acts of engendering and speech under lock and key, silence becomes a kind of action potent to obscure, violate, and orphan. The tale's center, then, lies less in the crime of sexual transgression than in the crime of silence: to recognize publicly one's kindred is, after all, the moral concomitant to engendering, the means by which the family is defined not merely biologically but morally." Write an essay that delineates Ragussis’ claim about the ban of silence in the novel. How does his observation help us to better understand the importance of the novel’s moral?

6) We have discussed and traced the effects of unconscious thoughts and deeds impacting the real (conscious) lives of many characters this academic year. Recall Prospero's passage: "We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep" (IV.i.146-163). With this literary pattern in mind, examine two characters from The Scarlet Letter and supply another character from another text this year (you may choose another character from a Hawthorne short story). What is the benefit of illuminating such a pattern? What do we learn from this literary analysis?

Here are some topics from Ms. Pentz's class:

English III
Mrs. Pentz
Scarlet Letter paper
2002-2003

Please write a FIVE paragraph essay answering one of the following questions. You must follow all of the paper requirement guidelines handed out at the beginning of class. You must use textual evidence (quotations from SL) to support all of your ideas. Detailed outlines, including a thesis statement and all evidence you will use, will be due for a separate grade on Tuesday, October 29th. The essays are due in class on Monday November 4th. Late papers will have a –5/day deduction.

a. Hawthorne purposely uses ambiguity to blur the lines between good and evil and reality and dreams in his work. How does this ambiguity provide suspense in The Scarlet Letter? What does this ambiguity say about Hawthorne's feeling about good and evil?

b. The woods become a character in The Scarlet Letter. Discuss the way that Hawthorne depicts the woods, and tie that depiction to the overall setting of the novel. What purpose does this "character" serve?

c. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne explores the idea of inner suffering vs.outward penance. Show how he resolves this issue for the reader. How does he use this topic to address hypocrisy in general? How does it tie into his motto to "be true"?