Extensive Symbolism Of The Scarlet Letter Essay

It is apparent from the beginning of the novel that Hawthorne intends to present Hester Prynne as an individual. Her physical beauty sets her apart from the rest of the townsmen. She has rich dark glossy hair, voluptuous figure, beautiful eyes, and a rich complexion. But her most engaging distinction is her moral independence and originality. Hester is modest in all actions that she does. Hester herself wears only poor clothing while she embroiders marvelous works for the rest of Boston. She does the job willingly and rarely ever looks back to the horrid past behind. She is a woman of immense pride who endures the humiliation of the scaffold bravely. She is also a woman of deep conviction who sustains her pride and dignity by wearing the scarlet A constantly until the day she dies. Hester knew that what was done in the past was wrong and that wearing the scarlet A was the right action to take, therefore it is worn with a sense of pride. Along with that pride is her passion which is illustrates not only through her relations with Dimmesdale but her emotional attachment to Pearl, in her defiance of Governor Bellingham, and even in her conversations with her husband, Roger Chillingworth. Her punishment causes her shame and suffering, but it does not look as though to bring her to any clear state of repentance. By making her an outcast of society, it nullifies her obligation to it. She is a liberated, free-spirited woman in a moral society with her way to make in the world thereby making Hester a symbol of strength and prosperity in times of doubt.

Arthur Dimmesdale is the minister who commits adultery with Hester. Though he commits the same sin as Hester, his is the worst for not acknowledging it. This “concealed sin” is the center of his tormented conscience. It is ironic that Dimmesdale, who is supposed to be absolutely pure and urges his congregation to confess and openly repent their sins, is incapable of acknowledging his own sin and repenting. He knows the hypocrisy of his actions, but cannot bring himself to confess and repent his sins publicly. The guilt consumes him and his heart weakens when he sees Hester suffering alone, knowing he committed the same sin. He tries to alleviate the guilt by whipping himself. He also allows Chillingworth to make him experience guilt, thinking that he deserves it. At the end of the novel, Dimmesdale overcomes his weakness. He takes Hester and Pearl by the hand to the scaffold and publicly confesses to his sin. After seven long years, Dimmesdale triumphs over his weakness. Dimmesdale is the character that is always in the grey area of life, and he is the symbol of Cowardice and Remorse and the encompassing sin of hypocrisy.

Roger Chillingworth is a creature right out of melodrama. As Hester’s husband, he is thought to have died at sea, but in reality was held captive by Indians for a year. He returns to find his wife on the scaffold holding a baby that is not his. He is mortified and embarrassed, thus putting forth the false last name of Chillingworth rather than Prynne to the men and women of the town. By the end of the novel, he is guilty of not one sin but two. The first sin being his marriage to Hester. He did not love her and she did not love him. He marries her for the selfish reason of having a beautiful young wife. Chillingworth is aware that marrying Hester, who did not love him, was an act of selfishness. Marrying Hester “into a false and unnatural relation with my decay” is the statement that acknowledges this first sin. His constant tormenting of Dimmesdale is a worse sin than his first. Even his physical features change from a calm intelligent countenance to “something ugly and evil in his face.” His semblance is a hackneyed convention for villainy. A misshapen shoulder, smoldering eyes and his dark, sooty face, make up the grotesque splatter of his physiognomy. His semblance aside, Chillingworth’s singleness of purpose is inhuman. For seven years, he has only one thought: to find and torment the man who betrayed him by eating, sleeping, dreaming, and breathing revenge. He constantly torments the poor minister’s soul while claiming to be his confidant and friend. He blames Dimmesdale for turning him into a “fiend”, but it is actually he who is the cause of his own fall. Despite the demonic imagery surrounding him, he remains the same man. He is a wronged husband, a figure the 17th century held up to ridicule and abuse. His lust for revenge is therefore not unnatural, and his method of revenge not hackneyed at all. No sword or poison could prove more lethal than the psychological approach that Chillingworth took upon Dimmesdale. In last chapter, it is told that Chillingworth withers up and fades away for “there was no more Devil’s work on earth for him to do.” His mind is untempered by mercy, humanity, or compassion until he dies. He is all head and no heart. His probing intellect, as one knows from his dealings with Dimmesdale, recognizes no “stop” or “caution” sign yielding full advice for him to symbolize revenge, evil, and the closest manifestation of a mortal Devil.

One of the most complex and misunderstood symbols in the book is Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne. Pearl, throughout the story, develops into a dynamic symbol- one that is always changing. Although Hester had so much trouble with Pearl, she still felt that Pearl was her treasure. Pearl was the only object of affection that Hester had in life, and if Pearl wasn t in Hester s life, Hester would almost surely commit suicide. Pearl was more than her mother s only treasure; she was her mother s only source of survival. Hawthorne describes Pearl as beautiful child with broad eyes and luxurious hair that will one day be black like her mother’s. Her mood swings are peculiar. One moment she is laughing for no apparent reason and the next she is fills with silence. This odd behavior is why she is sometimes referred to as the “elf-child” or “imp.” The townspeople refer to her as “demon offspring.” Hawthorne uses Pearl as a symbol of the sin committed between Hester and Dimmesdale. Hester is seen refusing to hold Pearl next to her breast with the scarlet “A.” She comments that one symbol of shame would be inadequate to hide another. By acknowledging the letter on her mother’s chest, she plays an active role in Hester’s punishment rather than a passive one. In the forest scene, the real child can carry the symbol, because Pearl’s narrative meaning and her symbolic meaning neatly coincide. The child points an accusing finger at Hester, and so does fate. The child says, “proceed and pick up your own letter.” And fate echoes, “the scarlet letter is your burden to carry and yours alone.” Pearl is seen trying to emulate her mother by placing seaweed in the shape of an “A” on her own chest, once again suggesting her active role in Hester’s punishment. Once and a while, Pearl would bring joy to Hester s life, and that helps her to keep on living. Pearl is the symbol of a rose to her mother, where at some times she could be blooming and love her mother, but at other times, she could be wilting and insult her. It was at these times when she was “wilting” that brought Hester the most grief. Pearl was the scarlet letter, because if she had never been born, Hester would have never been found guilty of adultery, and thus never would have had to wear that burden upon her chest. Without that burden, Hester would have led a much more appropriate life than the one she had throughout the novel. From being a rose, to representing the scarlet letter “A”, she was a burden, yet love for Hester. To Dimmesdale, Pearl is a symbol of a living conscience. Pearl is continuously seeking public recognition from Dimmesdale as her father. She represents the driving force behind his tormented soul releasing him from anguish. In the second scaffold scene, she asks Dimmesdale to stand on the scaffold with her and her mother, but when he refuses she eagerly pulls her hand away, saying he is “not bold” and “not true.” Dimmesdale is again seen to deny public recognition of his daughter. After Dimmesdale denies her request, Pearl wipes away the kiss that he presents earlier. In the final scaffold scene, Pearl’s completes her role as a symbol. Dimmesdale publicly acknowledges his daughter and Hester then dies. Pearl kisses her father signifying the end her father’s anguish. She is a symbol of many ideas and emotions. At the beginning her first action is blinking in the sun. This symbolizes her separation from society and isolation from the rest of the world that she is unused to sunlight. Her shunning of the light symbolizes that she is a child of sin. Pearl’s eyes at one point are described as mirrors. This is a symbol of her reflection of Hester’s guilt. Also Pearl’s beautiful luxuriant hair is symbolic of her passion and her ability to be a temptress like her mother was. Pearl functions in Hawthorne’s as a truth teller, a lone voice of honesty and sensibility tempered by a perverse sense. Again and again she asks Hester, who suffers in silence, unwilling to name her daughter’s illegitimate father, why the Reverend Dimmesdale “has his hand over his heart! Is it because, when the minister wrote his name in the book, the Black Man set his mark in that place? But why does he not wear it outside his bosom, as thou does, Mother?” Astonishingly precocious and prescient, Pearl sends a chill through the hearts of the hypocritical Puritans of seventeenth-century Boston. Even when she’s blissful, Pearl has a “naughty smile of mirth and intelligence.” This intelligence is what Chillingworth recognizes in her and is the reason why he left her his estate and small fortune which is contrite since she was the fruit of the root that he was trying to “wilt” away. It’s clear throughout the novel that Hawthorne himself is enamored with Pearl’s wild “mirth and intelligence.” He notes that the women of the era tended to be countrywomen fresh from England, and “the beef and ale of their native land, with a moral diet not a whit more refined, entered largely into their composition.” Pearl’s presence emerges to augur a new era. Pearl is the symbol of balanced innocence by an odd contrast of super-natural knowledge.

The point Hawthorne is making is that our past actions inevitably shape our lives and by the signs of those actions- be they medals or badges of infamy- which we wear. Symbols like the scarlet letter shape our perceptions and our temperaments. They determine the type of individuals we grow to be. Hawthorne describes the purpose of the novel when he says “Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!” The theme is beneficial because it can be put into terms in today’s world. The Scarlet Letter is one of the few books that will be timeless, because it deals with alienation, sin, punishment, and guilt, or the emotions that will continue to be felt by every generation hereafter.