Themes And Symbolism In The Scarlet Letter, By Nathaniel Hawthorne

As with any piece, symbolism plays an important role in representing the main ideas of a novel. The plot in "The Scarlet Letter" revolves around three significant events that describe the development of the story. As both starting point and ending point of the novel, the scaffold scenes hold symbolic meaning.

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.

By standing upon the scaffold, with all eyes watching her, Hester will never be able to live as she once did. She will live in her shame, which is embraced while on the scaffold, for life. Additionally, through the guillotine metaphor, Hawthorne juxtaposes something that shames and something that

In the second scaffold scene, it seems as if Hester has changed from sinner into a citizen who now has a job in society, and that she no longer yearns for Dimmesdale and Dimmesdale no longer covets her. However, this is not true. Hawthorne writes, “The moment that he did so, there came what seemed a tumultuous rush of new life, other life than his own, pouring like a torrent into his heart, and hurrying through all his veins…The three formed an electric chain.'; (page 105) The reader learns from this quote that Dimmesdale and Hester still have a great love for each other. It is also from this quote that the “A'; on Hester has not worked as well as it was intended. Hester still has a great love for the man with whom she had an affair and this may never change. Furthermore, her banishment has given her time to focus on her love for Dimmesdale. Here the scaffold represents Hester’s unwillingness to not love Dimmesdale.

The first scaffold scene was a very important event that was the first to start the action of the story. Hester was just accused of adultery and was brought to the scaffold for her punishment. In the story it states,” she ascended flight of wooden steps, and was thus displayed to the surrounding multitude…”(Hawthorne 37). In this scaffold scene, Hester is being publicly shamed due to her sin. This punishment brought Hester to learn from her sin and to teach Pearl from her mistakes. In the story it also states,” At some arrival in the marketplace, and some time before she saw him,the stranger had bent his eyes on Hester Prynne” (Hawthorne 40). This is where Chillingworth is first introduced into the story, and where Chillingworth began plotting his revenge on Dimmesdale who was the man that committed the sin with Hester. Chillingworth’s strive for vengeance leads us to later event as him taking care of Dimmesdale to

Multiple instances in the novel where a scaffold is used in the main setting of the chapter. In chapter two, Hester walks to the scaffold, “ Hester Prynne set forth towards

The scaffold is meant to depict the sin and shame that the sinner feels, when they must stand on top of it. Later on in the novel, Hester and Pearl find themselves walking through a forest. Hester notices that the forest is wild and untamed, much like the “moral wilderness” that she wanders through over the course of her life.

In the novel, the scaffold is in the middle of the marketplace and is surrounded by a horde of people in the crowd (presented by the paper on the outskirts of the Styrofoam), including Roger Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale. Due to Hester’s sin of committing adultery, she stands on the scaffold holding Pearl, a physical symbol of her sin. We created the scaffold with popsicle sticks to make it slightly elevated. Near the scaffold stands a pillory, as illustrated in our replica. “It was, in short, the platform of the pillory; and above it rose the framework of that instrument of discipline…The very ideal of ignominy was embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron,” (Hawthorne 63). Our group felt that the pillory adds to the eerie mood created in the chapter along with the Puritan idea of public

Dimmesdale screams in pain and is fearful that the people of the town will wake up and come see him upon the platform. The narrator tells us that the townspeople took the cries instead for that of a witch (144). This second scaffold scene is slightly different than the first. Most importantly, Dimmesdale chooses to expose his sin at night when no one can see. Also, the fact that he tells Pearl he will not hold her and her mother’s hand on the scaffold in daylight when everyone can see signifies that the minister still does not have the courage to take responsibility for his sins. He has only acknowledged his sin to God and that they will all stand together on judgment day (148-149). On the platform his role is reversed. He is no longer the sullen and heartsick minister, but a wry man who laughs at everything that occurs on ground level. He is no longer the Christian minister, but the pagan whose screams were assumed to have come from a witch and finally, no one would believe that this church symbol, high with esteem and virtue, would be in the same place as Hester Prynne, the lowest woman in town (147).

The scaffold shows how the punishment imposed on us by others may not be as destructive as the guilt we impose on ourselves. When Hester was standing on the scaffold she is not thinking about being punished. She is having flashbacks to earlier times and feeling guilty for what she had done. The scaffold is a platform used for redemption and a symbol of the harsh Puritan code.

in jail for being pregnant outside of wedlock, she had to face her community, wearing a big scarlet letter across her bosom. The scarlet letter was the community 's punishment for her sin and was their way of trying to get her to repent. The community forced her to wear the scarlet letter at all times and she was constantly shunned and abused for it. She wrestled with the decision to leave, and one time even considered killing Pearl and committing suicide. Also, she sees her husband for the first time in a long time on top of the scaffold. At the first scaffold scene, it says, "Be that as it might, the scaffold of the pillory was a point of view that revealed to Hester Prynne the entire track along which she had been treading, since her happy infancy. Standing on that miserable eminence, she saw again her native village" (Hawthorne 88). This not only shows Hester as miserable, but it is the start of

From the beginning, we see that Hester Prynne is a young and beautiful woman who has brought a child into the world with an unknown father. She is punished by Puritan society by wearing the scarlet letter A on the bosom of her dress and standing on the scaffold for three hours. The scaffold is a painful task to bear; the townspeople gathered around to gossip and stare at Hester and her

In contrast to the first scaffold scene, the second one happened during the night, completely unseen by the other villagers. Again, we see Dimmesdale and Hester (and Pearl), but this time, the lovers appeared to be both on the platform of shame. In this passage, Dimmesdale finally decided to act upon his guilt since he “had been driven hither (to the scaffold) by the impulse that Remorse which dogged him everywhere” (132-133). This scene symbolizes a moment of great insight for the minister because he started to understand a way to repent himself. As Dimmesdale touched his little girl’s hand, he experienced “[an]other life than his own, pouring like a torrent into his heart and hurrying through all his veins, as if the mother and the child were communicating their vital warmth to his half-torpid system” (137). The miserable sinner, who lived in utter darkness and despair for such a long time, at last began to grasp his responsibility towards Hester and Pearl and his role in the redemption of all three characters. However, Dimmesdale’s insight was not complete because he was still bounded with fear. When Pearl asked him to expose his sin to the public and admit her as his legitimate child, his courage

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.

In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author presents three symbols that all reinforce the main idea of the novel. The main idea that reoccurred throughout the novel is that people don’t have to let their mistakes or circumstances determine who they are or what they become; it’s all in how one interprets life. Many symbols may seem as just an ordinary character or coincidental object to some readers, but the symbols have a deeper, underlying meaning. Although there are many symbols in this book, there are three that really help support the main idea: Hester Prynne’s scarlet letter, the meteor, and Hester’s daughter Pearl.