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A list of "Scarlet Letter" essay topics to write your paper on

The Scarlet Letter is a great book that most English teachers use in their classes. If you’re reading this book for your class and have to write an essay, you need to have a good outline. It can be complicated to address such a well-reviewed book and have something new to say about it. As long as your essay is original and your own words, it doesn’t have to be a completely new idea. In fact, there are so many people in the world that almost nothing is absolutely original.

Any essay can be boiled down to a few key things. The topic, length, format, style, argument, and paragraph layout are all important in any type of essay. With an essay based on a book like this one is, you’ll be quoting a lot of the book as well as any other sources.

Writing about the Scarlet Letter

This essay will probably have specific instructions from your teacher. Make sure you check every formatting and writing guideline he or she wants you to follow before you start working. It’s much easier to have it all set out in the beginning and then you don’t have to worry about misplacing something or forgetting parts of the assignment. Students who are organized from the start often end up with better grades than those who aren’t. Take a look at your homework and see what’s required of you. Here are some great topic ideas to get you started:

1. Discuss the difference between how Hester sees her own identity vs. the identity that society wants to see
2. Talk about the relationship between the setting of important events and the scenes themselves
3. Why, in this novel, are the children more honest and perceptive than the adults?
4. What role do Native Americans play in the book?
5. Discuss the revenge of Chillingworth and what it says about justice vs. evil
6. How would this story work if Hester had been a man?
7. Talk about some of the extensive use of symbolism in this book
8. Is the Scarlet Letter a commentary about the period of history it’s set in or does it have more values from Europe than America?
9. How did the meaning of the letter A that Hester wore change through the story?
10. In what way is Pearl an embodiment of the adulterous A?