Symbols in The Scarlet Letter By. Nathaniel Hawthorne

1. Symbols inThe Scarlet LetterBy. Nathaniel Hawthorne Presentation By: Nyla Holt Audrianna Greenidge Raquel Ibarra Sage Wheeler

2. Quote:“In a word, old Roger Chillingsworth was a striking evidence of man’s faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil’s office.”(116) "Roger Chillingworth - the man of skill, the kind and friendly physician- strove to go deep into his patient's bosom, delving among his principles, prying into his recollections, and probing everything with a cautious touch, like a treasure-seeker in a dark cavern. Few secrets can escape an investigator, who has opportunity and license to undertake such a quest, and skill to follow it up. A man burdened with a secret should especially avoid the intimacy of his physician." (114) Chillingsworth represents the evil and hypocrisy in their society. He was trying to seek revenge on Hester for cheating on him, it shows the “un-Christianity” in their society. They were attempting to be model Christians yet they gossiped about each other and created unusual punishments. They never stopped to see the actual good in Hester just judged her on her actions in the past. Chillingsworth

3. Quote:“I am mother’s child,” answered the scarlet vision, “and my name is Pearl!”(75) "Pearl either saw and responded to her mother's feelings, or herself felt the remoteness and intangibility that had fallen around the minister....'Mother,' said she, 'was that the same minister that kissed me by the brook?‘” (219) Pearl represents Hester’s adulterous behavior since she is the product of it. Yet she also represents the good in Hester because she is all Hester had to love. Pearl

4. Quote: “Mother,” said Pearl, “The sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom.”(126) “All at once, as with a sudden smile of heaven, forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest, gladdening each green leaf, transmuting the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleaming adown the gray trunks of the solemn trees.” (139) The sunlight represents the darkness of her actions. The sun only appears when Hester removes the “A”, temporarily removing her sin and it shows how that’s the only way the town would accept her, if she hadn’t committed adultery. Sunlight

5. Quote: “Pearl seeing the rose-bushes, began to cry for a red rose, and would not be pacified.” (73) “But on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.” (33-34) The only color that is mentioned in the story is red. It’s seen on her scarlet letter, her dress, and rosebush outside of the prison. It represents the light in their society since everything else is described as dark and gray. Red Rose

6. Quote: “The same platform or scaffold, black and weather-stained with the storm or sunshine of seven long years, and foot-worn, too, with the tread of many culprits who had since ascended it, remained standing beneath the balcony of the meeting-house.” (101) “Meanwhile, Hester Prynne was standing beside the scaffold of the pillory, with the scarlet letter still burning on her breast!”(171) This is where Hester was first punished for her adultery and she was publicly humiliated to the crowd with her “A” exposed. Dimmensdale, Hester, and Pearl linked together here while holding hands Dimmensdale gave his ceremonial speech and revealed the truth of the “A” embroiled on his chest. Scaffold

7. Quote: “We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.”(164) “But the stream would not be comforted, and still kept telling its intelligible secret of some very mournful mystery that had happened—or making a prophetic lamentation about something that was yet to happen– within the verge of the dismal forest.” (129) The brook and the forest represents the town’s secrets. Because the brook is babbling, it holds all their secrets. The town people go to the forest to talk in secrecy, but the brook is the one who knows everything about them. Forest/Babbling Brook

8. Quote: "...I happened to place it on my breast....It seemed to me then, that I experienced a sensation not altogether physical, yet almost so, as of a burning heat; and as if the letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron. I shuddered, and involuntarily let it fall upon the floor." (31) "Many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength." (148) The “A” is the representation of her adulterous acts. The “A” made her feel like a bad person because it stung her to have it on her chest, especially when her husband, Chillingsworth, saw it on her chest. After awhile, Hester became a better person and helped the people in her village, so then the people looked at the “A” as able and not so much as she committed adultery. “A”