The Scarlet Letter Questions

Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.

Many of the townspeople seem to take active, vicious pleasure in gossiping about and scoffing at Hester Prynne, but eventually, a lot of the townsfolk come to like Hester. What role does gossip play in developing Hester’s character? Why are the characters in this novel so judgmental?
If Hester Prynne could have changed one thing about Puritan society, what do you think it would have been?
Is it possible to detect Puritan ethics, religious ideals, and cultural/social structures in modern-day America? If so, where do you see these ideals?
Do you think the Puritans needed the strict rules and laws they set down upon first settling in America? Why?
In 1854 Hawthorne wrote, "it has often been a matter of regret for me, that I was shut out from the most peculiar field of American fiction, by an inability to see any romance, or poetry, or grandeur, or beauty in the Indian character" (source). The Native Americans who appear at the periphery of The Scarlet Letter are possibly of the Massachusetts or Pawtucket people. What does Hawthorne’s attitude about Native Americans reveal to us about the relationships between America’s first peoples and the Puritan colonists?