The Scarlet Letter Symbols Essay, Research Paper

The Scarlet Letter

The book The Scarlet Letter is all about symbolism. People and

objects are symbolic of events and thoughts. Throughout the

course of the book, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses Hester, Pearl, and

Arthur Dimmesdale to signify Puritanic and Romantic philosophies.

Hester Prynne, through the eyes of the Puritans, is an extreme

sinner; she has gone against the Puritan ways, committing

adultery. For this irrevocably harsh sin, she must wear a symbol

of shame for the rest of her life. However, the Romantic

philosophies of Hawthorne put down the Puritanic beliefs. She is

a beautiful, young woman who has sinned, but is forgiven.

Hawthorne portrays Hester as “divine maternity” and she can do no

wrong. Not only Hester, but the physical scarlet letter, a

Puritanical sign of disownment, is shown through the author’s

tone and diction as a beautiful, gold and colorful piece.

Pearl, Hester’s child, is portrayed Puritanically, as a child of

sin who should be treated as such, ugly, evil, and shamed. The

reader more evidently notices that Hawthorne carefully, and

sometimes not subtly at all, places Pearl above the rest. She

wears colorful clothes, is extremely smart, pretty, and nice.

More often than not, she shows her intelligence and free thought,

a trait of the Romantics. One of Pearl’s favorite activities is

playing with flowers and trees. (The reader will recall that

anything affiliated with the forest was evil to Puritans. To

Hawthorne, however, the forest was beautiful and natural.) “And

she was gentler here [the forest] than in the grassy-margined

streets of the settlement, or in her mother’s cottage. The

flowers appeared to know it” (194) Pearl fit in with natural

things. Also, Pearl is always effervescent and joyous, which is

definitely a negative to the Puritans. Pearl is a virtual

shouting match between the Puritanical views and the Romantic

ways.

To most, but especially the Puritans, one of the most important

members of a community is the religious leader; Arthur Dimmesdale

is no exception. He was held above the rest, and this is proven

in one of the first scenes of the book. As Hester is above the

townspeople on a scaffold, Dimmesdale, Governor Wilson, and

others are still above her. But, as the reader soon discovers,

Arthur Dimmesdale is his own worst enemy. He hates himself and

must physically inflict pain upon himself. “He thus typified the

constant introspection wherewith he tortured, but could not

purify, himself” to never forget what he has done (141). To

Dimmesdale, it is bad that Hester is shown publicly as a sinner,

but people forget that. What is far worse than public

shame is Dimmesdale’s own cruel inner shame. Knowing what only

he and Hester know, the secret eats away at every fiber of

Dimmesdale’s being. As the Puritans hold up Dimmesdale, the

Romantics level him as a human.

The Scarlet Letter is a myriad of allegorical theories and

philosophies. Ranging from Puritanic to Romantic, Nathaniel

Hawthorne embodies his ideas to stress his Romantic philosophies

through Pearl, Hester, and Dimmesdale throughout all of this.