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Significance of the scarlet letter
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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.
One symbol is Hester’s scarlet “A” that she wears on her bosom. She received this letter, specifically and “A”, because she had committed adultery in the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts. Hester had moved to Salem before her husband, who was supposed to arrive a few days later after leaving Amsterdam, but he never showed up for two years. However, Hester had become pregnant during these years without her husband, so it was obvious she was an adulte...
First, Hester is a main symbol in the book and she is a symbol of sin, confession, shame, and repentance. The first two symbols Hester represents are shame and sin. She has committed adultery and was forced to stand on the scaffold for public humiliation. She has to wear the scarlet letter ‘A’. The scarlet letter ‘A’ stands for adultery and is a symbol of shame. Hester is forced to wear this so she will always be reminded of the sin she has committed and so everyone knows that she has committed adultery. Although Hester has to wear the scarlet letter, she is a very strong, independent woman even without a male influence in her life. Hester is also a symbol of strength because she has to hold all of the shame and punishment in the sin that her and Reverend Dimmesdale committed. On Election Day Reverend Dimmesdale gives his sermon and people say it is the most powerful speech he has ever given. They think that
With sin there is personal growth, and as a symbol of her sin, Hester’s scarlet “A” evokes development of her human character. The Puritan town of Boston became suspicious when Hester Prynne became pregnant despite her husband being gone. Being a heavily religious village, the townspeople punished Hester for her sin of adultery with the burden of wearing a scarlet “A” on all that she wears. Initially the...
200 Words of Teacher’s Praise and Comments Nathaniel Hawthorne uses several literary devices to give his novel The Scarlet Letter depth. One of these devices is symbolism. Hawthorne utilizes symbolism to convey certain points or themes to the reader by using ordinary objects. Three of the elements he uses as symbols are the settings of the Puritan town and the forest and weather.
In the beginning of the novel, the "A" symbolized shame and punishment. One villager voiced his opinion on the "A" when he stated, "At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead"(p.59). The villagers saw the "A" as public punishment. They saw Hester as lucky because her punishment was not harsh enough. Another villager saw Hester in a new light when she said, "She hath good skill in her needle...but did ever a woman...contrive such a way of showing it!...What is it but to laugh in the faces of our godly magistrates and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen meant for punishment?" The "A" made clear what the villager's Puritan principles were and showed the Puritans judicial system in action. When Hester embroidered the "A" beautifully, she mocked their judgment. Thus, the villagers saw Hester has prideful. The "A" also exposed the Puritan's hidden shame. Hester recognized this when Hawthorne said, "She felt an eye- a human eye - upon the ignominious brand, that seemed to give a momentary relief, as if half of her agony were shared."(p.89). A few villagers saw the letter and Hester as a constant reminder of their own sin. Hester was the torturous representation of the lust that they kept hidden inside. The Scarlet letter was seen as a symbol of shame yet caused the villagers to see Hester as fortunate, boastful, and as a symbol of their own faults.
Hawthorne manages to create many metaphors within his novel The Scarlet Letter. The rose bush outside the prison door, the black man, and the scaffold are three metaphors. Perhaps the most important metaphor would be the scaffold, which plays a great role throughout the entire story. The three scaffold scenes which Hawthorne incorporated into The Scarlet Letter contain a great deal of significance and importance the plot. Each scene brings a different aspect of the main characters, the crowd or more minor characters, and what truth or punishment is being brought forth.
The letter "A," worn on Hester's bodice, is a symbol of her adultery against Roger Chillingworth. This letter is meant to be worn in shame, and to make Hester feel unwanted. "Here, she said to herself, had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment . . ." Hester is ashamed of her sin, but she chooses not to show it. She committed this sin in the heat of passion, and fully admits it because, though she is ashamed, she also received her greatest treasure, Pearl, out of it. She is a very strong woman to be able to hold up so well, against what she must face. Many would have fled Boston, and sought a place where no one knew of her great sin. Hester chose to stay though, which showed a lot of strength and integrity. Any woman with enough nerve to hold up against a town which despised her very existence, and to stay in a place where her daughter is referred to as a "devil child” is a very tough woman.
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 Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book, The Scarlet Letter, chapter 5 "Hester at Her Needle," Hawthorne uses torturous, diction and allusion to emphasize the torture that society creates. In this passage, Hawthorne really sympathizes Hester and shows that she’s independent and she can take care of her daughter, Pearl by herself, without the community and society taking her away from Hester.
such as “fiery lustre” and “dark shadow”, are both a negative result of Hester's sin. Diction that
Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, has an extremely elaborate, and well-depicted vocabulary. Many of his sentences and paragraphs tend to be very verbose, but at the same time very helpful in giving the reader an accurate representation of the exactly how Chillingworth reacts when he first sees Hester. Within the passage on page sixty-seven Hawthorne is giving an intricate description of Chillingworth’s reaction when he first sees Hester after she is released from prison. With his usage of both syntax and imagery throughout this passage, he most effectively illustrates his vision of Chillingworth. Hawthorne gives us quite a bit of description within this passage, which allows us to see an intellectual side of Chillingworth. Generally people are intellectual or religious, the big bang vs. Genesis. Chillingworth is portrayed as intellectual, which conflicts with the Puritan views of religion.
The Scarlet letter is the most significant symbol of the entire story. The work of Hawthorne in The Scarlet Letter is emotionally so complex that the symbolism in the story can be hard to figure out (Whipple). The setting of The Scarlett letter is in puritan time which Mr. Hawthorne has made the book more realistic by putting puritan rules and ways thorough out the story(Lanzen Harris). The scarlet letter is a scarlet and gold badge that is carefully embroidered by Hester Prynne to be worn upon her breast to show that she is adultery (Hawthorne 155). The letter is a symbol of the passionate love scandal Hester has had with Mr. Dimmesdale who is the young pastor of the church.
In the book The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses many symbols to develop the theme or progress story, or to leave room for the reader to wonder and hypothesize on the true meaning of his words. The symbolic element being used to represent theme in The Scarlet Letter is color, both light, and dark. The Scarlet Letter is full of symbolism, in chapter 17, Hester goes to meet Arthur Dimmesdale in the forest, the darkness isolates Hester from everyone else. Hester and Arthur met when no one was around and they were free to act and speak to each other as they pleased without the prying eyes of the public. The light showing through the forest, coincidentally, arrives when Hester comes to the resolve of leaving to England with Arthur and Pearl to have a new and fresh start, where they could be together without dealing with the harsh prejudice of the townspeople. The darkness symbolizes the weight of the sin Hester has been contrived to bear by the austere society, while the light shining
The “A” or scarlet letter is the ultimate symbol of the entire novel. Initially, the letter symbolized shame then shifted later in time. The differences that Hester and Dimmesdale have with the “A” are the ways that they display it towards the moralistic society. Hester did not fight with society when indicted of the crime that she
In the beginning of the story, Hester is being punished for adultery, and is forced to wear the letter A on her bosom. It is shown so that people will know her as an adulteress. The letter A also gives Hester some supernatural abilities. When some women look at the letter A on Hester’s chest, they make a face and look at her with disgust. Other women look at Hester and they seem to share something; “But sometimes...she felt a human eye--upon the ignominious brand, that seemed to give a momentary relief, as if half her agony were shared” (79). Hester knows that she is not the only one who committed adultery, and having the letter with her all the time seems to give her an intuitive power about it. As time goes on, people seem to forget that Hester had committed a sin and see her as a lovely and respectable person.
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 rather than a real living Hester, and her presence seems to disappear in front of their eyes.