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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the subtitle of "The Custom-House"?

2. Whose widow is Mistress Hibbins?

3. When Wilson asks Pearl who made her, what does she answer?

4. According to Hawthorne, the reaction could not have been more violent if...?

5. Which field had Bellingham trained for/been educated in?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Hawthorne promise to "alter or expunge"?

2. How is Chillingworth able to see what Dimmesdale is hiding on his body?

3. What kind of skill does Hester use to support herself?

4. Why does Hawthorne decide to republish the offending introduction?

5. What is Hawthorne's emotional state in the preface?

6. Why is Hester standing before the townsfolk in the beginning of the novel?

7. What does the governor think about Hester as a mother?

8. In Chapter 2, why might it be Mistress Hibbins who would be in the jail?

9. Does Hawthorne, in the end, decide to change anything?

10. Describe the clothing worn by the "throng of bearded men" at the beginning of Chapter 1.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The final chapter offers three explanations for the bloody "A" etched on Dimmesdale's chest. Explain what each of the three possibilities are, according to the narrator, and answer the following questions: Why does Hawthorne chose to leave the reason ambiguous? What does this ambiguity offer to the reader or to the narrative? If you were Hawthorne, would you have made the same choice, and why? And finally, which of the three explanations do you mind most likely, and why? Be sure to answer in terms of this narrative.

Essay Topic 2

The story starts with a mystery - the scrap of scarlet cloth Hawthorne finds in the Custom House - and builds narrative tension around an even greater mystery having to do with Pearl's parentage and Chillingworth's discovery. Describe the way "mystery" works in this novel: how and why does Hawthorne reveal or withhold key information from the reader?

Essay Topic 3

This novel relies on symbolism to tell its story of psychological torment. Pick several of the major symbols or symbolic systems at work in the novel, describe them in terms of Hawthorne's fictional technique and offer an interpretation of their symbolic meaning on multiple levels.

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