The Scarlett Letter: Symbolism

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, is the story of three New England settlers at odds with the Puritan society in which they live. Roger Chillingworth, an aging scholar, arrives in New England after two years' separation from his wife, Hester Prynne, and finds her on trial for adultery. She is condemned to wear the letter “A” and sow it onto her clothes. For the next seven years the participants in this odd matter privately suffer the consequences of betrayal, cowardice, and humiliation. Chillingworth resolves to find the man who stole his wife’s heart, Arthur Dimmesdale, and plots and schemes for Dimmesdale’s demise until the very shocking ending that changes everything. The stories progression and explosive usage of differencing circumstances through out his story is what makes this novel a classic. The author explicitly emphasized conflicts, develops and forms his characters, and links people and events through his colorful usage of literary devices.
One of the most perplexing usages of literary devices was the author’s form of realism. For example, “In the first scene of the book where Hester Prynne was standing on the scaffold, the author explained what the scaffold was used for, who the women was standing on it, gave every detail about what was going on around, and why she was standing there.”(directessays.com). All this information together is realistic information. Its importance lied in that it allowed the reader to put everything into context and realism made the story believable. The author’s first intention of using realism was to harness the reader’s attention and to make Hester Prynne feel relatable. His usage of realism in this scene, the way he told about how the sun hit her hair, how the baby pierced an unrecognizable shrill, the devastating walk from the prison doors to the scaffold itself were all ways to manipulate the emotions of the readers and to make the reader feel the feeling of Hester Prynne’s pure ignominy and guilt. His... [continues]

Read full essay