The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne has many symbols, but none of them really stand out as much as the one the book is named after, THE SCARLET LETTER. While The Scarlet Letter has many meanings, the most common known one is that it stands for adultery, the sin that occurred between Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne, how the meaning changes over the course of the book; it also appears as different things such as the meteor, the A pierced into Dimmesdale’s chest, when pearl created a green scarlet letter out of eel grass.
The symbol of the Scarlet letter, scarlet A, is something that people all over the world know, even without reading the book. They know that the A stands for adultery, what they don’t realize if they hadn’t read the …show more content…
One of them being a meteor that creates a giant red A in the sky on the night of governor Wintrop’s death, another being pearl herself and the green letter A she makes out of eel grass, and all of their meanings. The old sexton at the end of chapter 12, The Minister’s Vigil, says “that the great red letter in the sky must stand for Angel, because our Good Governor Winthrop was made an angel this past night, it was held doubtless held fit that there should be some notice thereof!” (Hawthorne, pg. 138) Being that Dimmesdale had just been talking to Hester and Pearl, and then was told of this occurrence. This says that it was not for the governor meaning angel, but as a sign to Arthur Dimmesdale. As stated earlier in the paper about Pearl being the personified version of the scarlet letter, she was always looked at as not human, a fairy, elf, demon offspring. “….Art thou a Christian child,-ha? Dost know thy catechism? Or art thou one of those naughty elfs or fairies, whom we thought to have left behind us, with other relics of Papistry, in merry old England?”(Hawthorne, pg. 93, chap.8) She was the personified who had only became human after her father’s death. “The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies; and as her tears fell upon her father’s cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor for ever do battle with the world, but …show more content…
The letter was more than a symbol to the people in the book, it created a way of life for Hester and Pearl; it was a reminder of Dimmesdale’s guilt, and Chillingworth’s
The symbol of the Scarlet letter, scarlet A, is something that people all over the world know, even without reading the book. They know that the A stands for adultery, what they don’t realize if they hadn’t read the …show more content…
One of them being a meteor that creates a giant red A in the sky on the night of governor Wintrop’s death, another being pearl herself and the green letter A she makes out of eel grass, and all of their meanings. The old sexton at the end of chapter 12, The Minister’s Vigil, says “that the great red letter in the sky must stand for Angel, because our Good Governor Winthrop was made an angel this past night, it was held doubtless held fit that there should be some notice thereof!” (Hawthorne, pg. 138) Being that Dimmesdale had just been talking to Hester and Pearl, and then was told of this occurrence. This says that it was not for the governor meaning angel, but as a sign to Arthur Dimmesdale. As stated earlier in the paper about Pearl being the personified version of the scarlet letter, she was always looked at as not human, a fairy, elf, demon offspring. “….Art thou a Christian child,-ha? Dost know thy catechism? Or art thou one of those naughty elfs or fairies, whom we thought to have left behind us, with other relics of Papistry, in merry old England?”(Hawthorne, pg. 93, chap.8) She was the personified who had only became human after her father’s death. “The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies; and as her tears fell upon her father’s cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor for ever do battle with the world, but …show more content…
The letter was more than a symbol to the people in the book, it created a way of life for Hester and Pearl; it was a reminder of Dimmesdale’s guilt, and Chillingworth’s