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What Does The Forest Symbolize In The Scarlet Letter

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In the book The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne there are a variety things that play an important role in the understanding of the story. One of the things that was very symbolic in the book was nature. The forest and the wilderness were linking natural elements together with human nature. Hawthorne was able to describe people physically and emotionally through this sense of nature. This is clear when he describes the lone rose-bush which symbolizes Hester and her sorrow, “If thou hadst a sorrow of thine own, the brook might tell of thee”. This is why the image of the tree was included in the picture collage. The next image is the people talking behind the newspaper. This is symbolic to The Scarlet Letter because in the story Hester Prynne …show more content…

This leads into the next picture. Hester, holding Pearl, standing on a small stage. Everyone in this Puritan town was very religious which is one of the main reasons Hesters acts were so frowned upon. They try and humiliate her as much as they can, the one thing they don’t know is that the minister, Dimmesdale, they all trust so much is the one who had this affair with Hester. His quilt starts to build up inside of him and he soon will break. The next image represents this break in Dimmesdale's guilt. The A written across the sky is showing how when the meteor that crosses the the sky tracing out an “A” while Dimmesdale, Hester, and Pearl. To Dimmesdale this is a sign that he needs to wear an “A” just as Hester did. This is where the scarlet “A” makes its significance. This “A” that Hester wears starts as a symbol of shame but as the story progresses it becomes much more. It starts to become less shameful as it starts as meaning adulterer but later comes to mean something more graceful and sacred. This leads to the picture of Hester holding Pearl. After some looking into I found a deep meaning to

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