ipl-logo

What Does The Color Symbolize In The Scarlet Letter

940 Words4 Pages

Colors in life can represent many things feelings, happiness, good, and evil. Hyatt Howe Waggoner’s review of “The Scarlet Letter” in his scholarly journal says that Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the colors of pure, mixed, and drained in “The Scarlet Letter” to contribute as an additional character in “The Scarlet Letter”. Hyatt Howe Waggoner’s review of the colors being used as a character is very correct, the colors of pure symbolize the good during the puritan era, as well as mixed being the good conflicting with bad and drained as the evil during the puritan era. Together using the colors in “The Scarlet Letter” Nathaniel Hawthorne creates an additional character that contributes to the plot of the story greatly. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses pure …show more content…

Dimmesdale was seen as a godly man at first in the story seen in the light by many and was the purest of the community even. Although when things took a turn for Dimmesdale and he was seen as a heavenly man who had fallen. “The Blackman” which is very alike to how Lucifer had fallen from god. They both betrayed their fellow people who all trusted them and loved them as the pillar of heaven and the puritan community. But soon there light was changed into darkness. Pearl who is seen by her mother at times to have a darkness in her is also seen as radiant and beautiful. She is filled with light and darkness but will never be seen as one or the other completely. The mixed colors during “The Scarlet Letter” are very powerful and have great effect in showing the rising and falling of Hester, Pearl, and Dimmesdale. Hester who cannot seem to even touch the light at certain parts of the story is also seen as the most beautiful and pure person in the community because she follows her heart the most pure and bright thing you can do after all is follow your heart. Mixed colors are used to show the confliction of good and evil throughout the story, which causes for very strong moments in the story at some

Open Document