Examples Of Weeds In The Scarlet Letter

The third motif Hawthorne uses in The Scarlet Letter is the motif of flowers and weeds. One example of a flower appears at the prison, where it grows as the lone flower in a clump of weeds. “It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow” (74; ch. 1). Another occurrence of a flower appears while Pearl and Hester go for a walk in the forest. Pearl immerses herself in the nature as Hester and Dimmesdale talk. “Pearl gathered the violets, and anemones, and columbines, and some twigs of the freshest green, which the old trees held down before her eyes. With these she decorated her hair, and her young waist, and became

A third example of flowers appearing occurs while Hester and Pearl go to Governor Bellingham's house. Hester goes for the primary purpose of delivering a pair of embroidered gloves, but also to discuss with the important men of the town why she should be able to keep and raise Pearl. Pearl gets distracted while walking through the house and upon “seeing the rose-bushes, began to cry for a red rose, and would not be pacified” (166; ch. 7). The motif of weeds also contribute to the development of themes. One example of weeds appearing is in the graveyard, where Chillingworth has collected some of them. He had found them growing on an unmarked tombstone, and concluded that “they grew out of his heart, and typify, it may be, some hideous secret that was buried with him, and which he had done better to confess during his lifetime” (204; ch. 9). Another example of weeds is at the beginning, when the narrator describes the prison. “Before this ugly edifice, and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-weed, apple-peru, and such unsightly vegetation, which evidently found something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilized society, a