Nicholas Smith English 3 A 12 October 2015 Mr. Farrington Scarlet Letter Symbol Analysis Throughout the novel Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbols to represent major themes in the book. The most obvious is the scarlet letter that Hester is forced to wear. The other symbols are the scaffold and the forest. These symbols represent many things, and Hawthorne uses them to make his novel much deeper, and much more sophisticated. His writing style is very different from what writing is today, and the amount and way he uses symbols make his novel much harder to understand, but much more fulfilling to read. To begin with, the most important symbol in the entire book is the infamous scarlet letter. In the second chapter, Hester walks out of the prison, wearing the ‘A’ , colored with scarlet and gold. During the first few years? "Hester Prynne had always this dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token; the spot never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive …show more content…
Hawthorne writes in chapter four, “Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us?” By saying this, Hester is confirming the though of the Puritans in the story, who see the forest as dark, evil and a home of the devil. Hawthorne tries to make the Puritans look bad. The common idea Hawthorne tries to get across implies that Puritan law is equal to God’s Law, and that the Puritans beliefs are wrong. Hawthorne's use of symbolism in the Scarlet Letter intensely deepens the meaning of every word in the novel and greatly increases the meaning of each and every word that he writes. The symbols: the letter, the forrest, and the scaffold, are very strong symbols and hold meaning that ties everything in the story together. They bring deeper meaning to the novel and create an atmosphere that allows the reader to enjoy the book and feel like they have read much more, while only reading the words on the