Light And Darkness In Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter submerses the reader in the Puritan’s culture. The story involves the Puritans portrayal of the sins of a young woman. Although a difficult read, the book stirs the reader to obtain a high moral compass. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne uses the symbols of light and dark to depict good and evil among the characters, Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth.

In his book, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells of a story where a young woman has had an adulterous relationship with a respected priest in a Puritan community. Typical of Hawthorne's writings is the use of imagery and symbolism. In Chapter 12, The Minister's Vigil, there are several uses of imagery when Dimmesdale, the priest, is battling with confessing his sin, which has plagued him for seven years. Three evident techniques used to personify symbolism in this chapter are the use of darkness versus light, the use of inner guilt versus confession, and lastly the use of colors (black versus white).

Throughout his literary endeavors, Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes symbolism to present a certain theme that pertains to human nature and life. In his works, The Scarlet Letter and "The Minister's Black Veil", Hawthorne uses symbolism to present a common theme pertaining to religion; that though manifested sin will ostracize a person from society, un-confessed sin will destroy the soul.

Throughout history, colors have been used to symbolize different meanings based on associations with culture, history, politics, and religion. In The Scarlet Letter, the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism through colors such as red, black and white in the form of sunlight, to represent emotions and ideologies of Hester and the people around her.

Dimmesdale screams in pain and is fearful that the people of the town will wake up and come see him upon the platform. The narrator tells us that the townspeople took the cries instead for that of a witch (144). This second scaffold scene is slightly different than the first. Most importantly, Dimmesdale chooses to expose his sin at night when no one can see. Also, the fact that he tells Pearl he will not hold her and her mother’s hand on the scaffold in daylight when everyone can see signifies that the minister still does not have the courage to take responsibility for his sins. He has only acknowledged his sin to God and that they will all stand together on judgment day (148-149). On the platform his role is reversed. He is no longer the sullen and heartsick minister, but a wry man who laughs at everything that occurs on ground level. He is no longer the Christian minister, but the pagan whose screams were assumed to have come from a witch and finally, no one would believe that this church symbol, high with esteem and virtue, would be in the same place as Hester Prynne, the lowest woman in town (147).

Throughout the book many symbols were shown, the main symbol being the Scarlet Letter forced upon Hester Prynne for committing adultery. When the scarlet letter was forced onto Hester Prynne the community thought she deserved more than just having to wear a cloth on her. Though she tried to hide the gold embroidered A, the community began gossiping loudly and even said that she deserved to be stoned. Hester Prynne kept her adultery a secret and in the end the sin back fired and hurt her more than she expected it to.

“We've all got both light and dark inside of us, what matters is the part we choose to act on, that's who we really are.” –Sirius Black. Black’s quote can be applied to most of the situations presented to the characters in Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlett Letter. Many secrets remain held within that truly reveal who the characters are. Nevertheless, there are scenarios in the story that show more than one side to the character. In the book, and just like in many other scenarios, there are two sides to each character, a light side and a darker side. Light and dark imagery, alluding to the larger conflict between good and evil, is present throughout

Hawthorne does not only use human or people for symbolism. He also uses inanimate objects to project his themes and morals. There are many different things used iron, a rosebush, scaffolds, and of course the scarlet letter. In The Scarlet Letter the author might directly state what the objects represents or it might be left to the reader to decide for themselves what the object means.

All societies and people have secrets. Everyone has another side to them that they do not show in the eyes of the public. Hawthorne uses the symbol of darkness to show throughout his literary works that all people sin. Archetypally, darkness represents chaos, mystery, death, evil, fear. Darkness in the novel, The Scarlet Letter, shows the author's point of view on the Puritan society. Hawthorne’s use of archetypal symbolism of darkness to describe Puritans suggests Hawthorne’s view on Puritan society was anything but pure and that all societies should be less critical of their members.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of both stories The Scarlet Letter and “The Ministers Black Veil” utilizes symbols to show the lasting impact it leaves on the individual and in the community around them. In The Scarlet Letter and “The Ministers Black Veil” both main characters Hester Prynne and Reverend Mr. Hopper both have symbols in which both are of great significance. Hester’s symbol is an embroidered A on her chest meaning Adultery but later changes meaning by the community’s perspective as the time goes on. While in “The Ministers Black veil” Reverend Mr. Hooper’s symbol is a black veil that covers his face in which he never takes off not even on his death bed. Both symbols start off as something terrible, scary, and dreadful by the community’s view, but later reaching further into both stories the symbols leave a lasting impression not only on the individual itself but also the community. The Scarlet Letter is composed of many different symbols but the two that stand out are Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale hand over his heart and Hester’s Prynne A on her bosom.

When she is humiliated on the scaffold for her sins, her shame is worsened when her husband, Roger Chillingworth, coincidentally emerges. Through the use of situational irony, Chillingworth’s return makes Hester conscious of the “hot, midday sun burning down upon her face and lighting up its shame” and describes her encounter “dreadful” (61). When she and her baby become ill in the prison, there is another instance of situational irony; the physician called upon to help them turns out to be Chillingworth. Upon seeing him, Hester “immediately [becomes] as still as death” (68). Hester has to face the result of committing adultery when she encounters Chillingworth years later.

But Hester turns her back on these escape routes.  She stays in the settlement, shackled, as if by an iron chain of guilt, to the scene of her crime and punishment.  As Hester stands on the scaffold, thinking of her husband, he appears before her startled eyes at the edge of the crowd.  And his first gesture is indicative of the man.  Whatever shock or dismay he may feel at seeing his wife on the scaffold he immediately supresses his emotions and makes his face the image of calm.  The glance he bends on Hester is keen and penetrative.  Here is someone used to observing life rather than participating in it.  His is a "furrowed visage" (43).  Chillingworth looks like a man who has cultivated his mind at the "expense of another faculties - a perilous enterprise, in Hawthorne's view" (Loring 187).  Where his overbearing intellect will take him, Hawthorne wants us to think that he could be the catalyst for great conflicts later in the novel.  Chillingworth's finger raised to his lips, commanding Hester's silence, begins a pattern of secrecy that is the mainspring of the novel's plot; a secrecy that Hester must maintain in order to protect both her and her husband from the harshness of the Puritans.  Hawthorne's emphasis on the ability of Chillingworth to analyze the human mind and reasoning foreshadows his treatment of Dimmesdale later in the novel.

Her lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, remains unidentified and is wracked with guilt, while her husband, Roger Chillingworth, seeks and plots his revenge. Hester Prynne stands up to the male-controlled, hypocritical society and does not lose who she is. She maintains her individuality while in the grasp of a repressive society. This is part of what makes her heroic. Hester, shunned by the Puritan community, comes to transcend it, and by the novel's end, is a source of comfort for the afflicted in that community, as one who had suffered "A mighty trouble.

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,

Hester Prynne’s ability to sustain her stability and strength of spirit is the express result of her public guilt and penance. She was Arthur Dimmesdale’s partner in adultery, but she is used by Hawthorne as a complete foil to his situation. Unlike Dimmesdale, Hester is both strong and honest. Walking out of prison at the beginning of the novel, she decides that she must “sustain and carry” her burden forward “by the ordinary resources of her nature, or sink with it. She could no longer borrow from the future to help her through the present grief” (54). Hester openly acknowledges her sin to the public, and always wears her scarlet letter A. In the forest scene, she explains to Dimmesdale that she has been truthful in all things except in revealing his part in her pregnancy. “A lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side” (133). Even Dimmesdale himself realizes that Hester’s situation is much healthier than his own when he states, “It must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain, as this poor woman Hester is, than to cover it all up in his heart” (92-93). This life of public shame and repentance, although bitter, lonely, and difficult, helps Hester retain her true identity while Dimmesdale seems to be losing his.