The scarlet letter is probably the most complex of all the symbols due to its ever changing nature, as well as the fact that it has different meanings to several different individuals. For instance, to Hester's daughter Pearl the scarlet letter is pretty and helps her identify her mother. To Roger Chillingworth it is a symbol of how he has been wronged by Reverend Delay 1 Dimmesdale, and serves as a driving Besides the characters, the most obvious symbol is the scarlet letter itself, which has various meanings depending on its context. It is a sign of adultery, penance, and penitence. It brings about Hester’s suffering and loneliness and also provides her blogger.comted Reading Time: 8 mins Besides the characters, the most obvious symbol is the scarlet letter itself, which has various meanings depending on its context. It is a sign of adultery, penance, and penitence. It brings about Hester's suffering and loneliness and also provides her rejuvenation
Critical Essays Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter - THE SCARLET LETTER
Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the most prolific symbolists in American literature, scarlet letter symbolism essay, and a study of his symbols is necessary to understanding his novels. Generally speaking, a symbol is something used to stand for something else.
In literature, a symbol is most often a scarlet letter symbolism essay object scarlet letter symbolism essay to represent an idea more abstract and broader in scope and meaning — often a moral, religious, or philosophical concept or value. An allegory in literature is a story where characters, objects, and events have a hidden meaning and are used to present some universal lesson.
Hawthorne has a perfect atmosphere for the symbols in The Scarlet Letter because the Puritans saw the world through allegory. For them, simple patterns, like the meteor streaking through the sky, became religious or moral interpretations for human events.
Objects, such as the scaffold, were ritualistic symbols for such concepts as sin and penitence, scarlet letter symbolism essay. Whereas the Puritans translated such rituals into moral and repressive exercises, Hawthorne turns their interpretations around in The Scarlet Letter, scarlet letter symbolism essay. The Puritan community sees Hester as a fallen woman, Dimmesdale as a saint, and would have seen the disguised Chillingworth as a victim — a husband betrayed.
Instead, Hawthorne ultimately presents Hester as a woman who represents a sensitive human being with a heart and emotions; Dimmesdale as a minister who is not very saint-like in private but, instead, morally weak and unable to confess his hidden sin; and Chillingworth as a husband who is the worst possible offender of humanity and single-mindedly pursuing an evil goal.
Thus, using his characters as symbols, Hawthorne discloses the grim underside of Puritanism that lurks beneath the public piety.
Examples of static symbols are the Reverend Mr. Wilson, who represents the Church, or Governor Bellingham, who represents the State. His characters, scarlet letter symbolism essay, the scarlet A, scarlet letter symbolism essay, light and darkness, color imagery, and the settings of forest and village serve symbolic purposes. Hester is the public sinner who demonstrates the effect of punishment on sensitivity and human nature, scarlet letter symbolism essay. She is seen as a fallen woman, a culprit who deserves the ignominy of her immoral choice.
The paradox is that the Puritans stigmatize her with the mark of sin and, in so doing, reduce her to a dull, lifeless woman whose characteristic color is gray and whose vitality and femininity are suppressed. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread.
Often human beings who suffer great loss and life-changing experiences become survivors with an increased understanding and sympathy for the human losses of others.
Hester is such a symbol. Dimmesdale, on the other hand, is the secret sinner whose public and private faces are opposites. Inside the good minister, however, is a storm raging scarlet letter symbolism essay holiness and self-torture. He is unable to reveal his sin. At worst, Dimmesdale is a symbol of hypocrisy and self-centered intellectualism; he knows what is right but has not the courage to make himself do the public act. When Hester tells him that the ship for Europe leaves scarlet letter symbolism essay four days, he is delighted with the timing.
He realizes the scaffold is the place to confess and also his shelter from his tormenter, Chillingworth. Yet, scarlet letter symbolism essay, the very thing that makes Dimmesdale a symbol of the secret sinner is also what redeems him. Sin and its acknowledgment humanize Dimmesdale. As a symbol, he represents the secret sinner who fights the good fight in his soul and eventually wins. Pearl is the strongest of these allegorical images because she is nearly all symbol, little reality.
she is my happiness! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a million-fold the power of retribution for my sin? Pearl is also the imagination of the artist, an idea so powerful that the Puritans could not even conceive of it, scarlet letter symbolism essay, let alone understand it, scarlet letter symbolism essay, except in terms scarlet letter symbolism essay transgression. She is natural law unleashed, the freedom of the unrestrained wilderness, the result of repressed passion.
When Hester meets Dimmesdale in the forest, Pearl is reluctant to come across the brook to see them because they represent the Puritan society in which she has no happy role. Here in the forest, she is free and in harmony with nature. He often uses a mirror to symbolize the imagination of the artist; Pearl is a product of that imagination. When Dimmesdale confesses his sin in the light of the sun, Pearl is free to become a human being, scarlet letter symbolism essay.
All along, Hester felt there was this redeemable nature in her daughter, and here she sees her faith rewarded. Pearl can now feel human grief and sorrow, as Hester can, and she becomes a sin redeemed. Chillingworth is consistently a symbol of cold reason and intellect unencumbered by human compassion.
While Dimmesdale has intellect but lacks will, Chillingworth has both. He is fiendish, evil, and intent on revenge. In his first appearance in the novel, scarlet letter symbolism essay, he is compared to a snake, an obvious allusion to the Garden of Eden. Eventually, his evil is so pervasive that Chillingworth awakens the distrust of the Puritan community and the recognition of Pearl.
As time goes by and Dimmesdale becomes more frail under the constant torture of Chillingworth, the community worries that their minister is losing a battle with the devil himself.
Even Pearl recognizes that Chillingworth is a creature of the Black Man and warns her mother to stay away from him. Chillingworth loses his reason to live when Dimmesdale eludes him at the scaffold in the final scenes of the novel. Besides the characters, the most obvious symbol is the scarlet letter itself, which has various meanings depending on its context. It is a sign of adultery, penance, and penitence.
In the book, it first appears as an actual material object in The Custom House preface. Here Hester is hidden by the gigantic, magnified symbol just as her life and feelings are hidden behind the sign of her sin, scarlet letter symbolism essay. In all these examples, the meaning of the symbol depends on the context and sometimes the interpreter. For example, in the second scaffold scene, the community sees the scarlet A in the sky as a sign that the dying Governor Winthrop has become an angel; Dimmesdale, however, sees it as a sign of his own secret sin.
Hester is a Fallen Woman with a symbol of her guilt. Light and darkness, sunshine and shadows, noon and midnight, are all manifestations of scarlet letter symbolism essay same images. Likewise, colors — such as red, gray, and black — play a role in the symbolic nature of the background and scenery.
But, similar to the characters, the context determines what role the light or colors play. The feelings of the lovers, weighed down by guilt, are reflected in the darkness of nature. Every so often, sunshine flickers on the setting. But Pearl reminds her mother that the sun will not shine on the sinful Hester; it does shine, however, when Hester passionately lets down her hair.
The sun is the symbol of untroubled, guilt-free happiness, or perhaps the approval of God and nature. It also seems to be, at times, scarlet letter symbolism essay light of truth and grace. Darkness is always associated with Chillingworth. It is also part of the description of the jail in Chapter 1, the scene of sin and punishment. The Puritans in that scene wear gray hats, and the darkness of the jail is relieved by the sunshine of the outside.
When Hester comes into the sunshine from the darkness, she must squint at the light of day, and her iniquity is placed for all to see, scarlet letter symbolism essay. Nighttime, however, is the symbol of concealment, and Dimmesdale stands on the scaffold at midnight, concealing his confession from the community.
In the end, even the grave of Dimmesdale and Hester is in darkness. Colors play a similar role to light and darkness. At night and always with the physician, the letter is associated with darkness and evil; in the other associations, it is a part of nature, passion, scarlet letter symbolism essay, lawlessness, and imagination. Scarlet letter symbolism essay context determines the meaning. Black and gray are colors associated with the Puritans, gloom, death, sin, and the narrow path of righteousness through the forest of sin.
Three chapters that contain a multitude of color images are Chapters 5, 11, and The Puritan village with its marketplace and scaffold is a place of rigid rules, concern with sin and punishment, and self-examination. The collective community that watches, at beginning and end, is a symbol of the rigid Puritan point of view with unquestioning obedience to the law. The Church and State are ubiquitous forces to contend with in this colony, as Hester finds out to her dismay.
They see Dimmesdale as a figure of public approval, Chillingworth, at least initially, as a man of learning to be revered, and Hester as the outcast.
Predominant colors are black and gray, and the gloom of the community is omnipresent. However, nearby is the forest, home of the Black Man but also a place of freedom.
Here the sun shines on Pearl, and she absorbs and keeps it. The forest represents a natural world, governed by natural laws, as opposed to the artificial, Puritan community with scarlet letter symbolism essay man-made laws. In this world, Hester can take off her cap, let down her hair, and discuss plans with Dimmesdale to be together away from the rigid laws of the Puritans.
However, the forest is also a moral wilderness that Hester finds herself in once she is forced to wear the sign of her guilt. to what he knew was deadly sin. When Dimmesdale leaves the forest with his escape plan in mind, he is tempted to sin on numerous occasions during his journey back to the village. Every chapter in The Scarlet Letter has symbols displayed through characterization, scarlet letter symbolism essay, setting, colors, and light.
Perhaps the most dramatic chapters using these techniques are the chapters comprising the three scaffold scenes and the meeting in the forest between Hester and Dimmesdale. I'm Stephanie. Would you like to get such a paper? How about receiving a customized one? Skip to content Introduction Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the most prolific symbolists in American literature, and a study of his symbols is necessary to understanding scarlet letter symbolism essay novels, scarlet letter symbolism essay.
Characters Hester is the public sinner who demonstrates the effect of punishment on sensitivity and human nature. The Scarlet A Besides the characters, the most obvious symbol is the scarlet letter itself, which has various meanings depending on its context. Light and Color Light and darkness, sunshine and shadows, noon and midnight, are all manifestations of the same images.
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Symbolism in the Scarlet Letter Essay Words 4 Pages In the novel "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne symbolism is used to represent the Symbols & Symbolism in the Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorn is one of the most famous writers in the world. He uses vivid words, stunning details and amazing symbolism to express the point of the story along with deeper messages. Symbolism is most often a concrete object used to represent an idea more abstract and broader in scope and meaning Essay on Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter Symbolism And Symbolism In 'The Scarlet Letter'. Symbolism in Names “Nathaniel Hawthorne is known as the first American Scarlet Letter Symbolism. She is a very strong woman in a mental sense. For many years, she had to carry the burden of Scarlet Letter
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