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Symbolism of the Scarlet Letter
Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter
Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Symbolism of the Scarlet Letter
Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter
Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
She continues to hold onto her regrets; however, her personality flourishes. Hawthorne portrays Hester as a strong individual, who even alters the stigma surrounding her. The women of the town eventually see her positive attitude, and they begin to interpret the scarlet letter differently: “Such helpfulness was found in her, - so much power to do, and power to sympathize, - that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength” (151). Their interpretation of the letter shifts, and although Hester becomes an outcast of the community, she embraces her sin and learns to live with it.
A Role Model that Transcends Time Hester Prynne changed dramatically throughout the course of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter. Initially she was viewed as the antagonist and was a destructive character to those around her. After being confined in her cottage with Pearl, she began to develop a sense of who she needed to become in order to efficiently raise Pearl. Hester’s ability to do what was necessary for her improvement made her into a respectable role model for women to shadow. Hester chose to isolate she and Pearl to create a wave of self-improvement. Because of Hester’s mysterious, seductive, and rebellious actions, she demonstrated the characteristics of a byronic hero.
We are all sinners, no matter how hard we try to hide our faults, they always seem to come back, one way or another. Written in the 19th century, Nathaniel Hawthorne shows us Hester Prynne and how one sin can change her life completely. Hester Prynne changes a great deal throughout The Scarlet Letter. Through the view of the Puritans, Hester is an intense sinner; she has gone against the Puritan way of life committing the highest act of sin, adultery. For committing such a sinful act, Hester must wear the scarlet letter while also having to bear stares from those that gossip about her.
The letter gave Hester a new power to sympathize with and be charitable to others. Townspeople even began to interpret the letter very differently from its original meaning. They began to believe that the symbol no longer meant adultery, however, its new significance was to mean “Able” (111). Her selfless acts of kindness attracted the attention of the community as she did needlework for the poor in her spare time. The community did not know the true reason of why Hester did this, but the act caused her true character and natural instinct to be generous to be reflected.
Throughout Hawthorne’s novel, a direct connection can be made through narration and the events that supposedly a “pure” man has to encounter. Hawthorne encourages you to take a deeper look in the nature of sin and the corruption surrounding religion. To add ingratiate his plot and to distance himself from the narrator, Hawthorne uses a story-in-story approach to further insure his credibility, increasing the author’s ethos. Regarding his position on the nature of sin and corruption of religion, Hawthorne is not for the Puritan Church of Salem because of the corruption within the system. During chapter three, with the prior knowledge of Hester Prynne’s sin, Hawthorne exposes Minister Dimmesdale as the father and lover of Hester.
Yet, despite the heavy burden she has to bear, she acts more civil than most of the characters do in the entirety of “The Scarlet Letter”. Instead of her guilt and shame tearing her down, she chose to rise above it as seen in this quote; “she [Hester] repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, stepped into the open air, as if by her own free will.” (50 Hawthorne) No doubt at this time, Hester’s heart is filled with pain and worry. After all, these were people she has known for some time and perhaps has even befriended.
She is brave and does not deny that she sinned. She realizes that she needs to let go of the misery that the scarlet letter has brought upon her. Rather than letting it define her, Hester uses the letter. She helps out in the community. It does not define who she is.
Blessings of Growth Leon Enriquez’s “Blessings” is a fantastic poem with a very different wordplay pattern to it. The word that is used to end each line is also the word sued to start each line, “Dawns to a play, Play that fits morn.” for example. The poem is quite confusing, and looks like a lot of repeated words that sound sophisticated, but there is a strong meaning in such a hard criteria of beginning each line with the word of the last line.
The Scarlet Changeling One of the base human principles that have followed us through time and insured our survival is the ability to adapt and change to best suit our current needs. In “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The main things that bring about Hester Prynne’s acceptance of the Letter are her reflection, self realization, and adaptation to survive and thrive in her ignorant troubled world. As she reflects on what the Letter has done in her life she realizes that she should not be suppressed by the Letter that it should be the factor in what makes her unique and as she empowers herself she changed in ways that redefine her current and future self from her past self. And not only does Hester’s Letter affect every aspect her it, but it forces her to reflect on how it has affected her.
The interpretation of the letter eventually shifts to Able, after the community recognizes her endeavors. Hester acknowledges and addresses her sin which sparks a change in meaning of the scarlet letter that contributes to the themes of honesty and forgiveness. Hester most notably displays honesty when she embraces her sin and makes an attempt at salvation. In the first scaffold scene, the narrator illustrates Hester and her letter while she stands ignominiously, specifically indicating that the scarlet letter removes her from “ordinary relations with humanity” (Hawthorne 81). The citizens of Massachusetts Bay abash Hester for her wrongdoings, leading to an estrangement between the two; however, the stigma that Hester carries will not
(Hawthorne, pg. 48). This demonstrates that Hester perseveres through her hardship by working hard because she risks her own punishment and more consequences for someone else 's reputation. As she provides for Pearl, she works hard enough that the community gradually accepts her sin. Although she still wears the scarlet letter, they begin to see her differently. She is viewed as a symbol of pride for the community.
In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester shows signs of being a virtuous woman despite occurrences of sin throughout the novel. Proverbs states that a woman has to meet certain qualifications to be virtuous. Hester works with her hands, gives to the poor and dresses Pearl in scarlet. Although she has sinned and had Pearl out of wedlock, Hester has changed and become a better woman who shows virtue.
The townspeople “[began] to look upon the scarlet letter as a token, not of that one sin, for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since.” This quote exemplifies how sin is not a death sentence for Hester. Through hard work and charity it allowed the rigid Puritan society to see her as something different, and as someone who would not let society define who she was. Hester, thus, was not only able to change herself, but also the image in which society viewed her by working hard to benefit the public. Likewise, the scarlet letter which was supposed to represent sin was instead “fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom.”
Hester embraces Pearl as her daughter despite being a product of sin. Also against the will of the meaning of the scarlet letter, Hester starts helping the very Puritans that condemned her. Hawthorne describes that “Such helpfulness was found in her… that many people refuse to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able;” (69). Hester chooses to help those in need as her alienation gave her empathy for outcasts after seeing from their point of view, and spending time on her own led her into becoming a freethinker.
Receiving the scarlet letter changed every aspect of Hester’s life. Especially at the start of the story, the letter symbolized the solitude and great suffering Hester faced just because of a letter placed on her bosom. The “A” also depicted how no one viewed Hester the same way as before her peccant actions. “…she saw that, owing to the peculiar effect of this convex mirror, the scarlet letter was represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance” (Hawthorne 109). The pejorative community Hester lived in never saw Hester as the beautiful, young woman she was, but now, as a horrible fiend.