Scarlet Letter Symbolism

When Hester fixed the onerous scarlet letter back onto her bosom, “the warmth and richness of her womanhood departed, like fading sunshine,” leaving behind only a “gray shadow” in its place (145). As a result, the beauty Hester once held with such alacrity was snatched away by the venomous stigma society had placed on her. Moreover, society, by humiliating Hester with the scarlet letter, destroyed her very sense of self, thus causing her to grow into a character filled with woe; the infectious remorse placed by society consumed Hester - eating away at her beauty and humanity. Over time, Hester’s face began to incorporate the “frozen calmness of a dead woman’s features,” and Hester seemed “actually dead” (155). Hester, similar to a dead body, was unable to return to the living; she lost everything that once made her a beautiful lady. The woman whom society once viewed with esteem no longer existed, and in her place was a ghoulish, empty shell of a human who could never return to its original form. Hester is comparable to the rose bush with its “delicate gems,” and “fragile beauty,” caged behind the prison door “studded with iron spikes” (33). Hester’s allure is restrained by the pernicious barbs of society’s harsh punishments, so that she herself is an object not of admiration, but of scorn. Shackled by the chains of an immoral

The Scarlet Letter is made by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This book took place in a puritan town during the 1600s. The scarlet letter is about a woman named Hester Prynne who committed adultery with a minister. She was punished for her sin and had to wear a scarlet letter on her bosom for the rest of her life. As for the minister who is named Arthur Dimmesdale hid in the shadows for years and never took the blame for the sin he also committed. Hester never told anyone that Dimmesdale was the baby’s father so, Dimmesdale always looked like the good guy in any situation. As a result for the sin both Hester and Dimmesdale committed they had a daughter named Pearl. Pearl was an odd child they would say, they also say she was born out of darkness. Pearl

The rose bush is directly stated by Hawthorne that it might represent a sweet moral blossom. It can also be shown as “To

Brigham Young once said, “ True independence and freedom can only exist in doing what is right.” In “The Scarlet Letter,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne his protagonist, Hester Prynne, achieves independence when she rebelled against society and committed adultery, the act of having sex with an individual who is not their spouse. During this time Puritans believed all of life’s answers are in the bible. However, Hester committed a sin which resulted in society shaming her by placing a scarlet letter “A” upon her chest. In the novel “ The Scarlet Letter,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the letter “A” is a symbol for adultery, ability, angel, and Pearl’s living persona of the scarlet letter.

#1. The sin of Hester was her commitment of adultery. This is the reason of the scarlet letter on her clothing. She takes all the punishment that is given to her for her crime and does not falter with what is right from wrong. Although all of the townspeople know of her crime, she refuses to tell with whom she committed the crime with and who she has hurt in the process. She does not talk about Chillingworth, her actual husband, or Dimmesdale, her true love. This affects not only her, but also her daughter, Pearl. Pearl does not understand the concept of the scarlet letter and she is very straightforward with her mother. Hester's sin affect how she lives her life for much of her life. She had to live being scrutinized by society. She didn’t

“I was already missing before the night I left, just me and my shadows and all of my regrets. Who am I? Who am I when I don’t know myself?” Pearl is used as symbolism throughout the entire story. Pearl is the physical representation of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale’s sin.

Pearl envelopes an enigmatic representation about herself, additionally she adds a completely new definition of development for the town and even her mother, Hester Prynn. Pearl is mysterious, not a great amount has been discovered or learned about her from the village. Pearl is beginning to be introduced to the world due to her reveal to Reverend Dimmesdale, John Wilson, and (Mr. Bellingham?). After encountering Pearl, Reverend Dimmesdale and his accompanying men begin to see that Pearl may be just fine in Hester’s hands. They surrender their enmity towards Hester’s sins and begin to give her the benefit of the doubt. Pearl brings upon a revelation that she is Hester’s counterpiece, the Ying to her Yang. Even though Hester is able to make the worst of things seem of absolute beauty and significance, Pearl is a child without

In the story, the main protagonist Hester, commits a sin with reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. She becomes pregnant with their child, and society knows about it, but not about Dimmesdale being involved. Hester married a man years ago that is assumed to be gone, but there are no confirmations, allowing some leeway in punishment. As for consequences, Hester is required to wear the Scarlet Letter on her bosom to show for the sin. The community slanders Hester with words and insults because of it. She wears the Scarlet Letter for shame, and is required to wear it. This Scarlet Letter becomes quite symbolic throughout the story.

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,

The harsh townspeople force her up on the scaffold to be humiliated in front of the whole town. Not only is she sent up on the scaffold with her sin revealed by the “A” for everyone to see, Hester becomes an example of what a woman should not come to be. The author is talking about Hesters experience on the scaffold and her pregnancy, “Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman's frailty and sinful passion”(32). Hester looses her individuality and is labeled by the townspeople and known for the Scarlet Letter. Further, the townspeople singled her out as an alien or outcast of the town forcing her to live an abnormal live. She was ridiculed and known for her one sin, unable to have acceptance back into society. Although the townspeople feel as if Hester has brought sin upon there lives, she clearly have not harmed any of the townspeople physically, and they have no grounds to punish Hester. The cause of the townspeople's harsh disciplinary acts on Hester originates from a strict, unrealistic standards of puritan society and the zero tolerance of any ungodly behavior observed in the town. Due to the absence of proper justice, Hester's sentencing is left up to the harsh townspeople in which they show no mercy or

Imagine yourself on display in front of your whole town, being punished for cheating on your husband or wife. Today adultery is looked down on, but in reality nobody makes a huge deal out of it. Sin can affect a person in many ways, but whether it’s good or bad only time can tell. In the old days, religion and law were looked at as one, and Hester Prynne just so happened to sin, which in turn caused her to break the law. In the novel, Hester displays that how a person deals with sin has a lasting impact on the people around her, and most importantly those that are the closest to her.

The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a gothic satire of the puritan beliefs and value. Nathaniel Hawthorn of a puritan based background wrote various harsh satires such as Young Goodman Brown, and The Scarlet Letter, all based on his ancestral history. Furthermore, in his satires, they all shared a common point in structure and his use of symbolism to develop meaning for his works. With the use of symbolism, Hawthorne is efficiently able to introduce the conflict with the symbolism of the letter A and which ultimately allowed further development of the characters using the scarlet letter and the hand over his heart as a basis.

It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.” (51) Hester was severed from the town due to her sin and the scarlet letter which reminded them of her mistake. But that was not the end of her consequences. “God, as a direct consequence of the sin which man thus punished, had given her a lovely child, whose place was on that same dishonoured bosom, to connect her parent for ever with the race and descent of mortals”(83) This child, Pearl, was a living embodiment of Hester’s scarlet letter.

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.

Symbols unlock the secrets of a story. Hawthorne, in The Scarlet Letter, uses many symbols to represent different things. Some symbols represent the same thing. The letter “A” has many meanings, each character has their own meanings, and even the different parts of nature are symbols. Also, apart from providing structure for the novel, each scaffold scene conveys something different. One could say, arguably, that nearly everything in The Scarlet Letter is a symbol for something else.