Biblical Allusions In The Scarlet Letter

passion.”(Hawthorne 79) The irony in this statement is that the “guilty passion” is not commonly

Hester and Pearl venture into the forest in order for Hester to talk with Dimmesdale in order “to make known to [him]...the true character of the man who had crept into his intimacy” (125), hence, she wanted to warn Dimmesdale of Chillingworth. Pearl goes with Hester because she was was the “companion of all her mother’s expeditions”(125), regardless of how inconvenient it may be to Hester.

One book I have read in high school that has strong biblical references is The Scarlet Letter. In this book, Hester’s daughter is described as having an angelic appearance. However, her attitude and personality are quite impish in nature. She gets up to things and isn’t as innocent as she looks.

The Puritan era in New England was inundated with an atmosphere of righteousness and judgment. This culture spurned those who strayed from its religious codes. In his novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses multiple symbols to bring a deeper meaning to the society, his characters, and to adultery. One of the motifs used comes as the character Pearl, the daughter of the two adulterers. Pearl has multiple descriptions; physically, she is “a lovely and immortal flower,” yet also “an airy sprite . . . as if she were hovering in the air and might vanish” (80, 83). She has a “wild, desperate, defiant mood” and is often referred to as a “flower,” a “bird,” and an “elf” (82, 80, 98, 87). Hawthorne uses Pearl’s multi-layered personality

We find out how much Roger and Hester have in common. They are both holding a deep secret, they are unhappy and they both have a very desirable skill and both live on the outskirts of this Puritan society.

In the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne makes many references to the devil and evil’s influence on major characters and on the people in the town. The major characters change the way they act towards one another, and are physically and mentally affected negatively. The evil influence not only affects how the people in the town act towards each other but if affects how different people view the scarlet letter that Hester wears. Hawthorne also tries to convince the reader that Pearl’s existence is evil, but good things can come from evil as well as bad. By describing these instances Hawthorne drives the point that the devil and evil overtime are prominent themes and shape the plot.

Title “The Governor’s Hall” and “The Elf-Child and the Minister” BEFORE READING I think that in these two chapters we would meet with the leaders in the Puritan Society and that we could get more knowledge about how Hester thinks about her daughter. AFTER READING

The similarities between The Scarlett Letter and John 8:1-11 are extremely evident. The broad similarity is the story of a woman “’caught in the act of adultery’” (John 8:4). In The Scarlett Letter, Hester is condemned for adultery much like the woman in the Bible. The people in power place Hester on a pedestal as a display before the common people just as the Pharisees make the woman “stand before a group” when they bring her to Jesus.

At the end of the scarlet letter, we are not told exactly what happened. Were the main characters forgiven? Did they meet again in heaven? We know the people did not forgive them, but what about God? They all suffered pain, and took the punishments that came with the sins they committed.

Nathaniel Hawthorne,  a anti-transcendentalists, born during the early 1800’s, born in Salem, made a book called The Scarlet Letter. The Scarlet Letter was a book about Puritans in New England, during the 1600’s in a small Puritan town. In his novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism of The Scarlet Letter, Pearl and Burrs to contribute to the overall theme of sin.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a writer in the 1800s, an anti-transcendentalist, and the great-nephew of John Hathorne, a judge in the Salem Witch Trials. Hawthorne is obsessed with Puritanism and, due to being obsessed, bases all his writings on Puritan towns. All of his stories take place in New England in the 1600s, before the Salem Witch Trials; The Scarlet Letter is one of these stories. In his novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the symbolism of the Wild Rosebush, Hester’s Cabin, and the sunlight and the forest to contribute to the overall theme of imperfection.

There is a large debate in the religious aspects of The Scarlet Letter, explaining how Hester and Dimmesdale did not follow the Christian moral code. Nevertheless, most secular viewpoints exemplify the perfection and outstandingness of The Scarlet Letter. Due to their lack of religious bias, “secular periodicals tended to slant their discussions toward aesthetic issues” (Smith).

Nathaniel Hawthorne uses many forms of symbolism in his book The Scarlet Letter. Symbolism is, according to Merriam-Webster, “the art or practice of using symbols, especially by investing things with a symbolic meaning or by expressing the invisible or intangible by means of visual or sensuous representations.” This means that the author was using objects to represent an action or idea. The symbols used in his book is either all physical or visible objects. Many of the symbols in the book are about characters.Nathaniel’s ideas came from his bonds with the Puritans. According to CliffsNotes, “the Puritans had great difficulty in loving the sinner and hating the sin”. With the Puritans strong hatred for sin,

Symbolism has many different meanings, and the Scarlet ‘A’ in “The Scarlet Letter” has many different meanings as well. Hester Prynne is the main character who is forced to wear the scarlet letter as remembrance for the crime and the sin that she has committed. This letter completely ruined her reputation in her community. How could a small piece of fabric do so much harm? This letter was a representation of something much greater than the letter ‘A’. This letter was originally made to stand for adulteress, as physical reminder of her sins. The vibrant scarlet red is meant to shame Hester, to make her feel sorry for her mistakes. Most importantly it was a symbol for change and an emblem of identity. In short, the scarlet letter meant much more than a letter of shame, it was simply a piece of fabric with meaning that could easily change.

Throughout the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses several biblical allusions to emphasize the Puritan society this novel was set in and give the reader a comparison of Hester to biblical figures, both holy and unholy. The Puritan society was one of strict adherence to the Bible and its teachings; consequently, Hester’s sin is not easily forgiven. Through his use of biblical allusions Hawthorne provides the reader with a historical figure that portrays characteristics or aspects similar to that of Hester. Hester’s curious child, Pearl, is both a blessing and a curse. She completely changed the course of Hester’s life, at a great price.