How much time is covered in the scarlet letter?

Question

How much time is covered in the scarlet letter?

Answer 1

The main body of the story concerning Hester and Dimmesdale appears to cover somewhere around 5 years or so. The novel doesn't really make this clear although at the beginning of the story, Pearl is an infant, and at the end she is a young child. The "Epilogue" portion of the story, ie, where Hester returns to her old cottage, takes place about 15 years later, it would seem, since Pearl has married and has come of age to inherit Chillingworth's property.  

Answer 2

I've watched the movie, and it seems to me that it covers quite a few years, possibly as many as 20 or so.  I have not read The Scarlet Letter, but there are a number of on line study guides, and quite a few other resources on the Internet that can help you with this novel.  Most of them have good information.  Have a look at these sites, and you should get some help with your work.  If you do a search here in the Yahoo Answers search window you will find additional help because hundreds of questions have been asked here about The Scarlet Letter.

http://www.glencoe.com/sec/literature/li...

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/scarlet/

http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/t...

http://www.studyguide.org/scarlet_letter...