Scarlet Letter Symbolism

In The Scarlet Letter Hester Prynne is more than a literary figure in a classic novel, she is known by some people to be one of the earliest American Hero’s. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Hester commits adultery and has a child that she must care for all alone. She is forced to wear a powerful, attention grabbing “Scarlet A” on her chest while she must try to make a living to support her and her child, Pearl. Even though she must face all the harsh judgment and stares she does not allow her sin to stop her from living a successful life. She looks past the Letter as a symbol of sin and turns it into a sign of approval. Hester

Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the fictional story of Hester Prynne and her public humiliation as she is forced to wear the letter A on her chest due to her having a child with someone else other than her husband. The scarlet letter “A” stands for many things in the book but the initial meaning is that of adultery. The baby is Pearl and the name itself is given to her because she is worth so much to Prynne as in “her mother’s only treasure!” The beginning of the story sets the stage to what Prynne and Pearl will go through this tale, setting up the state of puritan utopia and why Prynne holds Pearl so close to her. The scarlet

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is often renowned as his best work. The novel tells about the rigid ideas of 19th century Puritan New England through the story of Hester Prynne, Minister Dimmesdale, and Pearl. Hawthorne points out that the Puritans are often more ready to judge, punish, and damn someone than to forgive them. He is very critical of this idea, and goes against it by ending the novel with Hester Prynne becoming a respected individual that other women often look to for advice, and by changing the perception many people have of the Scarlet Letter from, “Adultery” to “Able”. Throughout the novel Hawthorne refutes the harsh ideals of the Puritans through the

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is set in the 17th century puritan Boston, Massachusetts, it tells the story of Hester Prynne who has a daughter named Pearl out of an affair and struggles to live her life a new and with dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores the themes of sin, guilt, and revenge. The Puritan town of Boston had gathered around to witness Hester's punishment for her crime of adultery. She was required to wear a scarlet “A” on her dress to shame her. She walks down the scaffold with dignity and takes this punishment and makes the best of it. She owns wearing the scarlet “A” by personalizing it with embroidery and making it beautiful. The women on the street are angered of how graceful and beautifully she

“Ah, but, let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart” (Hawthorne 49). The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the story of Hester Prynne, a woman living in Boston in the mid 1600s. While Hester's husband is assumed dead at sea, Hester has relations with the town's minister, Dimmesdale. She later has a child named Pearl. The Puritans of the town criticize Hester for committing adultery and make her wear a scarlet letter "A" on her chest as a punishment for her sin.

Opposing Puritan Society Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a novel depicting a theocratic Puritan society and a woman buried in secrets and sin. The Puritan society described in The Scarlet Letter believes that religion is law. Hester Prynne, the novel’s protagonist, is accused of adultery and is forced to wear the letter A over her breast as a warning for all Puritans to abstain from sin. Hester Prynne’s adultery resulted in the birth of Pearl, who is often described as beautiful but demon-like.

The scarlet letter, originally meant to be a symbol of shame, became a powerful symbol of identity for Hester. Instead of denying her sin or being ashamed of what she did, she simply accepts that the scarlet letter is a part of her. She could have easily settled in another town and lived without the scarlet letter, but she felt that doing that would justify the reason for giving her the scarlet letter. By staying and dealing with the scarlet letter, she shows that she is a strong enough person to deal with adversity and judgement. “Here, she said to herself, had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and work out another purity than that which she had lost; more saint-like, because the result of martyrdom”

Hester Prynne, the heroine and main character of The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, went through many hardships because of one decision. She is a very strong woman in a mental sense. For many years, she had to carry the burden of her sin, which was adultery, by herself. Although being alone, with the exception of her beloved daughter Pearl, amidst public shame and humiliation for a multitude of years, she somehow repeatedly looked for a light at the end of the tunnel. Even though Hester did not end up with the happy ending she had longed for, she learned many lessons on her journey throughout this novel, along with showing the Puritans what a real person looked like. Nathaniel Hawthorne possesses a very exquisite skill when it comes to the use of symbolism. The Scarlet Letter uses symbolism on many different accounts to make characters’ significance obvious, to expose hypocrisy in the Puritan society and the world of Puritan ministers, and to bring importance to everyday objects.

The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, narrates the experiences of Hester Prynne, a beautiful young woman in Puritan times, after committing the sin of adultery with the local Reverend, Mr. Arthur Dimmesdale. Because she became pregnant, she bears the public scorn of her sin, while the town does not uncover Mr. Dimmesdale’s participation in the act until the very end of the novel. Using the Puritan society as the setting, and the development of both Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, Hawthorne explores the concepts of individuality, identity, and isolation. Through Hester and Dimmesdale, he presents two scenarios: one in which the character is isolated and freed from society,

The Scarlet Letter is a tale of sin and redemption in a love triangle of puritans. In Puritan Boston a young woman by the name of Hester Prynne is put on trial for adultery and is forced to wear a letter A for her sins, Her accuser is not only her lover, but who Hester has a baby with (Pearl) . Nathaniel Hawthorne's purpose for writing the scarlet letter is to show the hypocrisy of the Puritan communities, the symbols that represent the hypocrisy are Hester, The Blackman, and the scarlet letter. Hester is the victim of hypocrisy, the black man was a symbol of all evil, the Scarlett letter marks the sinners and the hypocrites Hester Prynne was an adulterer, she got what she deserved regardless she was expounded by Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale whom she had the affair with. Dimmesdale knew what he was doing, he even tried to hint at the people of Boston of his sin, but they never thought of him as evil, as he says here.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a nineteenth-century author who lived in the 1800s, and his novels were focused on Puritan-era New England in the 1600s. His novel. The Scarlet Letter, tells the story of a woman named Hester Prynne and how she must pay for her sin of adultery by wearing a scarlet letter “A” on her bosom for the rest of her life. Throughout the story, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism to represent and convey his themes. In the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the symbolism of Pearl, the cottage, and Dimmesdale to contribute to the overall theme of imperfection.

Her history in England and the courage she has helps her face her difficulty in Boston. Because of her courage, she has dignity to take her punishment. With that, she gains inner strength which helps her for the rest of her life. Hester is not afraid of her sin, and chooses to continue wearing the scarlet “A” for a long time. She wants to show the world of her passion and love for

Throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s literary work in The Scarlet Letter, the townspeople within the 1840s Salem, Massachusetts demonstrated a society fueled of hypocrisy. The primary focus of the story was the consequence upon the main characters and throughout the community caused by adultery, hypocrisy, and revenge. Hester Prynne, the strong female lead, committed adultery while she was married to someone else and therefore wore a red “A” upon her bosom to be publicly shamed. Hester’s partner in adultery, Arthur Dimmesdale, deceiving the whole town by hiding his sin. Also, Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s ex-lover comes to town under a new identity as a doctor, but in the process evolves himself into a compulsive personality.

Hester's appearance is different from when she was being looked at as a sinner and now the letter moves from a representation of sin to something totally positive. The Puritan society now realizes Hester appears as an individual who is tenacious yet has on her a symbol which is different from her. During this course, Hester has adjusted to life with the letter on her bosom .She has grown spirited; she is capable of enduring the burdens of the Puritan society. As she grows strong-minded, her character becomes more different from being understood as a sinner. The scarlet letter's significance transformed, "Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility"(151).This shows how the symbol changes its meaning towards the townspeople. The "A" on Hester's bosom meant Adultery, but this time Hawthorne turns the meaning around in the story to mean able. Now that she has given many hours of time and service to the sick, poor and troubled she began to gain respect from some of the town's people who once disregarded her. Now Hawthorne says, "Such helpfulness was found in her -so much power to do and power to sympathize-that many people refused to interpret the scarlet "A" by its original signification. They said that it meant “Able"; so strong was Hester Prynne,

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.