the grim Puritanism society, the truth is often treated as a fallacy, human nature has been distorted, and a symbol of love's fire, the source of life, and the color, red is treated as a symbol of shame in the society.
2.1.2 Crime, shame and punishment
“In accordance with strict Puritan moral laws, the woman Hester Prynne is sentenced to an unusual punishment for her sin of adultery. She is hence forth to wear the letter “A” embroidered on her dress over her bosom as a permanent badge of shame. (Fred 88) This is the puritan way of treating her as a criminal, for the crime of adultery. The puritan treatment continues, because as Hester walks through the streets, she will be looked down upon as if she is some sort of demon from hell that commits a terrible crime. This letter is meant to be worn in shame, and to make Hester feel unwanted. “Here, she said to herself, had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment…” (Hawthorne 74)
2.2 Development of the letter “A”
In this novel, the scarlet letter “A” changes its meaning at many different times. As the development of the plots, the letter “A” is continuously endowed with new meanings, showing a dynamic “A”. Hawthorne did not clearly and directly tells the readers what the letter means, because it alters with the plots, settings and characters (Zhu 89). This change is significant. It shows growth in the characters, and the community in which they live. The letter “A” begins as adultery, a symbol of sin. It then becomes a symbol of alone and alienation, and finally it becomes a symbol of able, angel and admirable.
2.2.1 Adultery
The letter “A”, worn on Hester's bosom, is a symbol of her adultery against Roger Chillingworth. Hester is ashamed of her sin, but she chooses not to show it. She commits this sin in the heart of passion, and fully admits it, though she is
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ashamed. She is a very strong woman to be able to hold up so well against what she must face. Many will have fled Boston, and seek a place where no one knows of her great sin. Hester chooses to stay though, which shows a lot of strength and integrity. Any woman with enough nerve to hold up against a town, which despises her very existence, and to stay in a place where her daughter is referred to as a devil child, either has some sort of psychological problem, or is a very tough woman.
2.2.2 Alone and alienation
The scarlet letter “A” also stands for Hester?s lonely life in New England. After she is released, Hester lives in a cottage near the outskirts of the city. “It had been built by an earlier settler, and abandoned, because the soil about it was too sterile for cultivation, while its comparative remoteness put it out of the sphere of that social activity which already marked the habits of the emigrants” (Hawthorne 75). Hester?s social life is virtually eliminated as a result of her shameful history. Hester comes to have a part to perform in the world with her native energy of character and rare capacity. However, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came to contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, and as much alone as if she inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs and senses than the rest of human kind. “She stood apart from moral interests… seemed to be the sole portion that she retained in the universal heart.”(Hawthorne 78) Hester has no friends in the world, and little Pearl is the only companion of her lonely life, so the scarlet letter “A” also is a symbol of the words “alone” and “alienate”.
2.2.3 Able, admirable and angel
Later, the scarlet letter “A” changes its meaning into being able, angel and admirable. The townspeople who condemned her now believe the scarlet letter to stand for her ability to her beautiful needlework and for her unselfish assistance
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to the poor and sick. “The letter was the symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness is found in her so much power to do and power to sympathize—that many people refuses to interpret the scarlet letter ?A? by its original signification.” (Hawthorne 148) At this point, a lot of the townspeople realize what a noble character Hester possesses. “Do you see that woman with the embroidered badge? It is our Hester —the town?s own Hester—who is so kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so comforting to the afflicted!” (Hawthorne 149) The townspeople soon begin to believe that the badge served to ward off evil, and Hester grows to be quite admirable amongst the people of the town. Hester overcomes the shame of her sin through the purity and goodness of her soul. Unselfishly offering her time and love to those who need her most proves that she is not worthy of the fate which has been dealt to her.
The three changes in the scarlet letter are significant; they show the progressive possession of her sin, her lonely life, and her ability. Hester is a strong admirable woman who goes through more emotional torture that most people go through in their lifetime.
3. The Systematization of the Symbolism
3.1 The symbolic meaning of the four major characters’ names 3.1.1 Hester Prynne
Hester Prynne is one of the major characters in The Scarlet Letter. The writer gives her much symbolic meaning by giving her this name. Hester sounds this gives us like Hester, Zeus? sister in Greek mythology, who is a very beautiful goddess. a sense that Hester is a passionate beautiful woman. In this novel, she is the symbol of the truth, the goodness and the beauty. Nathaniel Hawthorne describes her in Chapter Two like this: “The young woman was tall, a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale, she had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness
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belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes…” (Hawthorne 50) Also, Hester is the homophone of the word haste. At first, she gets married to Roger Chillingworth, an ugly man who gives his best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge. Not having got the news about her husband who should have arrived by ship from England, she falls love with Arthur hastily and gives birth to Pearl, for which she is condemned to wear on the breast of her gown the scarlet letter “A”, which stands for adultery. But Hester?s adultery haste is nothing but a very natural thing to do.
Also, Hawthorne uses the homophone of prurient, as her family name, which indicates the root of her sins. Hester Prynne is the symbol of love, and her desire stands for the evil aspects in human nature.
3.1.2 Arthur Dimmesdale
Arthur Dimmesdale is a well-regarded young minister, whose initials are AD, which also stands for adultery. The author obviously tells us Author Dimmesdale is the partner in sin of Hester Prynne by giving him this name. The word Dimmesdale also has many symbolic meanings. Dim means dark and weak, and dale means valley, so the dimdale here is actually a symbol of the “dim-interior” of the clergyman. He loves Hester deeply, and he is the father of Pearl, but he can only show his passion for her in the forest or in darkness. His response to the sin is to lie. He stands before Hester and the rest of the town and proceeds to give a moving speech about how it would be in her and the father?s best interest for her to reveal the father's name. Though he never actually says that he is not the other partner, he implies it by talking of the father in third person. Such as, “If thou feelest it to be for thy soul?s peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer” (Hawthorne 63). He concedes his guilt for seven years, at the same time; he is tortured by his sin for so many years. He punishes himself by believing that he can never be redeemed. He feels that he will never been seen the same in the eyes of God, and that no
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