Chapters 17 – 19: Reading Quiz
For each of the following questions write down thorough answers, using specific examples from the novel.
1. Has Dimmesdale repented? Is his rationale for his misery or Hester’s interpretation of his state more accurate? ( page 131)
2. Identify the context and then reflect on the following quotation. "O exquisite relief! She had not known the weight, until she felt the freedom! By another impulse, she took off the formal cap that confined her hair . . . all at once, as with asudden smile of heaven, forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest . . . " (139).
3. Why won’t Pearl cross the stream and go to her mother?
4. What has come over Dimmesdale? How is he acting and why is he acting this way?
5. Analyze Hawthorne’s use of light imagery in chapters 16 – 18.