The Letter A In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

Even though Hester’s sin is the one the book is titled after and centered around, it is not nearly the worst sin committed. Hester learns from her sin, and grows strong, a direct result of her punishment. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. “ Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers--stern and wild ones--and they had made her strong... “ Hester also deceived Dimmesdale, also committing the sin of deception. She swore to Chillingworth that she would keep their marriage a secret. She even withheld this from Dimmesdale, whom she truly loved. Hester finally insisted on telling Dimmesdale and clearing her conscience. In this passage, you can see how he grows angry at Hester: “O Hester Prynne, thou little, little knowest all the horror of this thing! And the shame!--the indelicacy!--the horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick and guilty heart to the very eye that would gloat over it! Woman, woman, thou art accountable for this! I cannot forgive thee!”  Dimmesdale does forgive Hester. She has done

The Scarlet Letter displays a theme of sin throughout the novel through multiple major events. To start off, in chapter seven, “The Governor’s Hall”, Hester observes herself in a convex shaped mirror, and realizes that the scarlet letter was exaggerated in size. The second major event is the entrance of Roger Chillingworth. He was quickly accepted into the Puritan society as an excellent physician, but as time passed, a few puritans started to suspect Chillingworth of using the skill of black art from the Indians. Hester also starts to realize a change, which goes into another major event to display the theme of sin. As Hester and Chillingworth were talking, she started to recognize a change in him, similar to a demon that had possessed him. But Hester wasn’t the only one to notice, Chillingworth noticed himself. In chapter nine and ten, Chillingworth is given the opportunity to cure Mr. Dimmesdale and to discover all of Dimmesdale’s hidden secrets. The final major event to represent sin is in chapter fifteen, “Hester and Pearl”, when Hester rids herself of the scarlet letter and realizes the freedom from the weight of her sin and shame. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses appearance versus reality to illustrate sin.

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

The Scarlet Letter is a novel about a woman named Hester Prynne that had an affair with a minister named Arthur Dimmesdale and had a baby, which caused Hester’s husband, Roger Chillingworth, which was gone at the time on business, to get revenge on both Hester and Dimmesdale. Chillingworth makes their lives miserable and soon, Hester

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne exhibits how three very unique characters are evidently brought together by the sins that they have perpetrated and how they manage to perform acts of atonement in the puritanical Boston society. Hester Prynne sins by committing the shocking transgression of adultery. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, who as well engages in adultery with Hester, abandons her and their daugher because of his own cowardice and hypocrisy. Roger Chillingworth grows to become a maleficent being who tries to corrupt the very soul of Reverend Dimmesdale. Although Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale do sin greatly, it is Roger Chillingworth who sins to the most ferocious degree.

Dimmesdale realizes that he must confess his sin and face whatever consequences may lie ahead of him, whether or not his confession is seven years past due. Before reaching the “well-remembered and weather-darkened scaffold,” where Hester Prynne had encountered the “world’s ignominious stare,” Arthur Dimmesdale cautiously comes to a pause (246). Only two people in the crowd, Roger Chillingworth (Hester’s husband) and Hester Prynne, understand why Dimmesdale halts before ascending up the scaffold. He will finally reveal his identity to the town and release the guilt that has built inside of him for seven years. As Hester and Pearl are about to accompany Dimmesdale up to the scaffold, Chillingworth “trusts himself through the crowd” – or, from Hawthorne’s description, “so dark, disturbed, and evil was his look,” Chillingworth “rose up out of some nether region to snatch back his victim from what he sought to do” (247). Ignoring Chillingworth’s effort to stop Dimmesdale, the three mount the scaffold and face the eager crowd. In one of Dimmesdale’s final speeches, he claims that Hester’s scarlet letter “is but the shadow of what he bears on his own breast” (250). The moment after Dimmesdale reveals his ‘scarlet letter’, he stood “with a flush of triumph in his face as one who had won a victory” (251). As Dimmesdale had wished, his remorse and internal pain is forgotten once he reveals his true identity, allowing his soul to experience its elapsed freedom.

To begin, Hawthorne uses the scarlet letter “A” to reinforce the theme of Guilt. Hester Prynne, the protagonist of The Scarlet Letter, is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” upon her bosom because she has committed the sin of adultery. This leads Hester to feel guilty for the rest of her life. Hawthorne states, “... that scarlet letter, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself” (Hawthorne 51). The quote shows how feeling guilt has made her much more distant from the rest of the townspeople. Hester experiences this agonizing guilt whenever she glances in a mirror, or down at her chest. Pearl is the result of Hester’s

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

First of all, the scarlet letter stands for Hester's sin. By forcing Hester to wear the letter A on her bosom, the Puritan community not only punishes this weak young woman for her adultery but labels her identity as an adulteress and immoral human being as well. "Thus the young and the pure would be taught to look at her, with the letter flaming on her chest", also "as the figure, the body and the reality of sin." And the day Hester began to wear the scarlet A on her bosom is the opening of her darkness. From that moment, people, who look at her, must notice the letter A manifest itself in the red color covering not only her bosom, but her own character. The Puritans now only see the letter A, the representation of sin, scorn and hate

The Scarlet Letter’s Symbolism in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (The Symbolism of the Letter “A” in The Scarlet Letter) In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the letter “’A” symbolizes many things through out the story. In the beginning of the book, Hester is standing on the scaffold holding Pearl as a small baby and wearing the scarlet letter, which at this early point in the plot represented her sin of committing adultery.

The Scarlet Letter written by Nathanial Hawthorne centers on sin, identity and society. The meaning of the A in the Scarlet Letter is meant to mean “Adulterer”. The meaning is not definite, the A meaning rather ambiguous is taken to mean what the person wants it to mean, equivocally it can be said that the meaning(s) of the A mirrors the beliefs and thoughts of its onlookers. The meaning of A as a motif is a recurring concept and idea centering on society and identity. “She had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness... Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods... The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.” The A was meant to cripple Hester; to be a warning a reminder to others that sin would forever follow till death, as this was puritan belief. Hester though lonely

     Throughout the novel The Scarlet Letter there are many symbols. One of the biggest symbols of the novel is the scarlet letter A that Hester Prynne is sentenced to wear after she commits adultery. It is a symbol that is sewn onto her clothes for everyone to see. It is a punishment that is meant to humiliate her for the duration of the time that she stays in Puritanical Boston. During the novel, the scarlet letter changes and evolves from meaning adultery to meaning ability and even physically changes its form.

In The Scarlet letter the author Nathaniel Hawthorne illustrates the use of symbolism in the book, especially the scarlet letter “A.” Symbolism is defined as a figure of speech used for an object, or a word to represent something else in literature. The Scarlet letter “A” had a change of meaning throughout the novel. In the inception of the book it is known as a symbol of Adultery. As the book continues the scarlet letter is looked at differently on the main character Hester Prynne’s chest from Adultery to Able.

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.

The way the scarlet letter ‘A’ has multiple meanings, not only as the book progresses, but even at the same time, shows the dual reality of everything. Many of the meanings of The Scarlet Letter A are positive, such as angel and able, but the first meaning of the ‘A’ still haunts the better meanings to Hester. When she says “she turned her eyes downward at The Scarlet Letter” she shows us not