Signs in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Essay

The scaffold appears early in the when Hester Prynne is forced to climb up to the scaffold where her punishment will be carried out. The mother and child are gawked at and humiliated, as they are forced to stand there on display for the town. Hawthorne writes:

Hester Prynne uses her intelligence to fight the Puritan’s standards of what is correct. From the beginning of the novel, Hester Prynne’s ability to fight everything she is given is demonstrated. Hester takes her punishment and creates the “A” with “fine red cloth surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread” and what she has stitched was “greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colonies,” (51). This deplays Hester Prynne’s ability to take the given punishment and turn it against the people that forced it upon her. She uses something that she is obligated to possess but makes it so beautiful and brightly colored that it may have angered the strict puritans for being too scandalous.

As the novel progresses the meaning of the symbolism of the letter “A” starts ti blossom into a new meaning. Toward the climax of the novel Hester Prynne’s appearance is altered to where she is no longer viewed as a sinner. The meaning on the symbol changes from of the devil to a some what vague symbol, as if it has lost its initial connotation. Society now views her a symbol that differs whom she really is, she is viewed as a strong woman through all the torment that is put in a unfortunate situation. At this point Hester has already learned how to dealt with the burden of the scarlet letter. Withstanding the pressures of society boiling down waiting patiently for Hester Prynne to crack, she does not, she grows into a stronger woman. A woman that has gone through hell and back and continues to thrive in her society even under the circumstances she lives in. The scarlet letter “A” meaning has changed, “ 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” (Hawthorne 147). Slowly Hester’s hard feelings toward the letter, and to the situation itself, begins to diminish. However, it is

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.

Hester’s Prynne symbol starts off as something atrocious that has a shameful meaning to it. The community around her see the symbol and identify her as a criminal. Even through the symbol is embroidered so beautifully on to her chest, some of her community see “in their imagination, and seemed to derive its

       Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter seems to be created around Hawthorne's obsession with the forbidding quality of the scarlet "A", the symbol from which the novel takes its title. Rrom the rose-bush which Hawthorne selects a flower from as an offering to the reader(1) to the "elfish" child Pearl, every aspect of the story is drenched in this letter's scarlet hue. Perhaps this repetition reflects Hawthorne's own repressed desires, as some critics suggest(2). However, what seems more compelling is the function which the symbol serves for Hester Prynne and the community which has condemned her. For Hester the symbol is clearly a literary one; she fashions the scarlet "A" to

To begin, the scarlet letter had lost its meaning over the course of time. “Then, also, the blameless purity of her life during all these years in which she had been set apart to infamy was reckoned largely in her favor.” (Chapter XIII) The author’s purpose is to call attention to the Puritan’s weak shaming system. For example, if the person being subjected to the humiliation does not draw attention to them self, the villagers will lose interest in the crime; this allows the villagers a healing time. In Hester’s case the people were able to see her in a new light. “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, with a woman’s

Why was Hester the only one punished? Would her punishment be different in some other country? Is this punishment still taking place today? A sin is a sin regardless of what sin it may be and they all should be handled in different punishments. But never should you over look someone else’s sin and just punish one for what took place.

This “A” is the literal symbol of adultery, one of the seven deadly sins. Throughout the novel the scarlet letter reiterates itself in many different forms such as the gold-embroidered “A” on Hester Prynne that intrigued Pearl Prynne. Later, the letter is then magnified in the armored breast plate at Governor Bellingham’s mansion, which is so extravagant that it seems to cover Hester. Next, on the night of Arthur Dimmesdale’s vigil, he looks to the sky and sees a red “A”. And finally, the letter is revealed on Dimmsdale’s chest in front of the entire village.

Hester Prynne is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” that stands for adultery on her chest as a form of punishment for cheating on her husband and becoming pregnant. Hester has a negative physical and mental effect because of wearing the letter. “The effect of the symbol...was powerful and peculiar”(Hawthorne 115) Hawthorne describes that “It was a sad transformation...that her rich and luxuriant hair had either been cut off, or was so completely hidden by a cap, that not a shining lock of it ever once gushed into the sunshine” and that “...there seemed to be no longer anything in Hester's face for Love to dwell upon; nothing in

The garment is said to be, “fantastically embroidered and illuminat(ing)” (48) as well as spell-binding. Providing a picture of an immaculate letter ‘A’ its purpose becomes less clear or believable. The audience is not alone in needing a reminder of the connection between the sin and the lovely piece as the townspeople agree that no matter how pretty the symbol was, still Prynne would feel it “in her heart” (49), the encouragement following a proposal to replace it with a bland scrap of flannel. The significance of the scarlet letter is again eclipsed by its grand style in chapter fourteen, Hester and the Physician. While exploring the seashore, Hester’s daughter, Pearl takes it upon herself to craft her own letter ‘A’ to wear on her chest, since she was so impressed with her mother’s.

The scaffold made Dimmesdale cry out in the night. He was overcome with the guilt of holding back his secret sin that it started to kill him. He felt guilty also because he had not repented of this sin to God and held it

Throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, “The Scarlet Letter,” the main symbol “A” changes profoundly. As a recurring symbol, the “A” first represents the reality of sin, and more specifically, Hester’s sinful act of committing adultery, however it eventually transforms into other contrasting ideas, such as power, braveness, and even “able”. It can also be related to Hester’s daughter, Pearl. Hawthorne first introduces the letter in the second chapter, where it is described as, “so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom,” (52).

The first scaffold scene begins the novel. In chapters two through three, the protagonist Hester Prynne stands on the scaffold, bearing a scarlet “A” and a child at her breast as signs of her adultery. She is interrogated and lectured by the Puritan ministers of the town, including Arthur Dimmesdale, who is later discovered to have been Hester’s partner in crime and the father of Hester’s baby Pearl. The first scaffold scene hosts also the initial appearance of Hester’s speculated-dead husband, Roger Chillingworth, amidst the crowd of townspeople watching his wife’s public humiliation. “Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman [Hester], so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity…” (Hawthorne, ch.2, ¶17). The depiction of Hester as the Virgin Mary connotes a sympathetic tone of the author towards her character. The sin Hester committed is to be with her for the rest of her life, and when she removes the

Symbolism of The Scarlet Letter A symbol is a literary device which is employed to portray another object or individual. In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, it is most often a tangible object he uses to represent an undefined idea, complex in scope and significance. More times than not, it represents reverent, profound, or virtuous concepts of merit. From the substitution of one idea or object for another, to creations as massive, complex, and perplexing as the veil in the Minister's Black veil, are the domain symbols may encompass. Hawthorne's notable and unique use of the inanimate letter A, the scenery of the rose bush, and the settings of forest to make the characters -Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and Pearl- into