Symbols Found in Nathaniel Hawthrone´s The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the greatest American authors of the nineteenth century. He published his first novel Fanshawe, in 1828. However, he is widely known for his novels The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables. His novel, The Scarlet Letter, can be analyzed from historical, psychological and feminist critical perspectives by examining his life from the past, as well as his reflections while writing The Scarlet Letter. In order to understand the book properly, it’s necessary to use these three perspectives.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter expresses various themes of dark romanticism using symbolism. One of the more obvious symbols is that of the scaffold, which is present throughout the story. Upon in-depth exploration, I discovered this use of symbolism relates both literally and metaphorically to the dark romantic themes present in Hawthorne’s tale. First, let me discuss the scaffold and its constant presence in the story. The townspeople, Hester, and Dimmesdale use the scaffold on numerous occasions; most often, its use is to shame, harass, and isolate Hester Prynne so that she will confess the name of her child’s father. However, at times, the scaffold is used as a sanctuary and a confessional for others.

In the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, we notice that action only happens in a few places, among which are the forest, the market place, the governor’s residence, and Dimmesdale’s house. Although all these locations are significant to the story, the most important symbol among them is certainly the scaffold in the market place, where the story begins and ends. The scaffold’s meaning changes throughout the story and has different values for different characters. It represents humiliation, then insight, and finally redemption for Hester and Dimmesdale, but for Chillingworth, it symbolizes birth of sin, growth of sin, and ultimately consummation by sin.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, symbolsim is constantly present in the actual scarlet letter “A” as it is viewed as a symbol of sin and the gradally changes its meanign, guilt is also a mejore symbol, and Pearl’s role in this novel is symbolic as well. The Scarlet Letter includes many profound and crucial symbols. these devices of symbolism are best portayed in the novel, most noticably through the letter “A” best exemplifies the changes in the symbolic meaning throughout the novel.

The three scaffold scenes bring great significance to the plot of the Scarlet Letter. The novel is based on repenting the sins of adultery. The scaffold represents a place of shame and pity but also of final triumphs. Each scene illustrates the importance of the scaffold behind them with many potent similarities and differences.

The power of imagination makes us infinite, and when it is dulled, one can feel trapped. Only after freeing ourselves, can we understand the beauty of a creative mind. Nathaniel Hawthorne explains how he also had to get back in tune with his imagination after not using it for years while working at the Custom House. Hawthorne draws a very well sketch of the boring life at the Custom House, and how after his head was “cut off” he got the mindset to be able to write the Scarlet Letter. In this long introduction to the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses rhetorical devices to describe character traits, show relationships between characters, hint at future events, and enrich the plot for the reader's enjoyment. With his effective use of imagery, symbolism and biblical allusions, Hawthorne adds depth to the novel while creating a connection to the meaning beyond the story that it tells.

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne begins The Scarlet Letter by introducing a theme of sin through the use of two symbols. The prison is described as “the black flower of civilized society” (Hawthorne 46), which is the first symbol, and having “a wild rose-bush” (Hawthorne 46) on one side that showed “the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.” (Hawthorne 46). In The Market-Place, the community gathers around to watch Hester Prynne be punished. The first image of the society in this novel is harsh, as they want “the brand of a hot iron on

The Scarlet letter takes place in a puritan society. Where the town revolves around punishment. They do not believe in pleasure and believe that humans are mostly evil. These people are Anti-transcedentalist. The main characters, Hester, Dimmesdale, Pearl and chillingworth support this theory that the citizens believe. Hester is a beautiful women and she has a kind her. She enjoye sewing and she gives all the only she makes from sewing to charity, while donating clothes to them also. Hower, Hester and Dimmesdale committed the sin of adultery and created Pearl. Chillingworth is Hester’s husband but not the father of her daughter. In his novel “The Scarlet letter” , Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the symbolism of Pearl, the burrs and sunlight to

Throughout his novel, The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne reveals character through the use of imagery and metaphor.

The Scarlet Letter is a romance novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in the mid-1800s. However, the story is based on (custom house, time period this was in, and who). The setting of the book influences Hester Prynne and helps develop her character, particularly the settings of the scaffold, the forest, and the Puritan society of the 1600s. (Thesis Statement) Throughout the romance, Hester visits the scaffold on three different occasions, with each having a different influence upon her.

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,

A scaffold is essentially a raised platform that is usually made of wood, used to formally and publically execute criminals, in the same way a guillotine would. The community in which The Scarlet Letter takes place, when the church is the law, is centered around the scaffold located in the center of town. Like a stage, it is meant to reveal things and for those revelations to be made into a public spectacle that all the townspeople are expected to watch. Though it is not used to kill anyone in the novel, its function serves to exposes sin to the people and punishes those who has committed them. The Puritans believe that all of them will be judged before the eyes of God when they die, but the scaffold serves to visualize that judgment and a form of justice as they take matters into their own hands, regardless of the fact that God will judge them individually whether they are pushed during their lifetime or not.

In the world today, themes and symbolisms have played a major role in the development and presentation of past and present novels. These themes and symbolisms within a novel shape the overall story and often work hand in hand to convey its purpose and meaning. One such novel would include The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne; in this story, along with all his others, he has incorporated his three predominant, driving themes: sin, hypocrisy, and corruption. In The Scarlet Letter,

In the Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses many symbols to purvey ideas to the reader. Some of these symbols change meaning throughout the book, showing how things change through the years, such as how the letter ‘A’ on Hester’s chest changes meaning as the story progresses. There are many complex symbols during the course of the book. Symbolism gives the reader a deeper understanding of what is going on in the story, and how things are related to eachother.