Sin And Guilt In The Scarlet Letter

In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author makes it clear the main idea is sin and guilt. In the puritan world sin is typically punished with death or embarrassment. Embarrassment is the punishment Hester Prynne was punished with. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbols throughout the book to support the main idea. Three symbols in The Scarlet Letter that supports this main idea is: The letter “A,” Hester’s daughter Pearl, and colors. The most obvious symbol is the scarlet letter A. In this novel, Hester Prynne was once married to a man who sent her to America and later he promised to follow after he finished with business. Hester Prynne does not hear from her husband for several years and eventually commits adultery. The Puritan
council decided to embarrass her and make her wear a scarlet “A” embroidered on to her bosom for the rest of her earthly life. The puritans see this letter as a punishment for her crime of adultery. Hester sees it as humiliation and banishment. Sometimes even little pearl gets caught up with the “A” and seems to intentionally torture her mother with it. It’s written “One day, as her mother stooped over the cradle, the infant’s eyes had been caught by the glimmering of the gold embroidery about the letter.” That’s showing Pearl has even made the “A” become part of her mother. Even towards the end of the story, in the forest when Hester takes off the “A” Pearl gets uncomfortable and causes a scene because she doesn’t believe it’s her actual mother. The “A” became part of their relationship. When she was at Governor Bellingham’s mansion, she looked into the breastplate of a suit of armor and the only thing that was magnified was the “A.” Hester was horrified to see this was her identity, the scarlet letter “A”, her sin, identified her. Even though the scarlet letter is supposed to make her feel guilty and show sin it starts meaning more than that. So every time she looked in the mirror or saw her daughter staring at it she had a constant reminder of the sin she committed. She will always get this pain and guilt knowing she’s sinned. Pearl does not let her take this “A” off. It’s as if she is saying let this sin live with you forever. Hester’s daughter Pearl is a major symbol for guilt.
Hester Prynne has to spend each day and each minute with Pearl. When she looks at Pearl she has to have a constant reminder she committed adultery. In chapter six it says, “Pearl was born outcast of the infantile world. An imp of evil, emblem and product of sin…” That’s evidence stating Pearl was even born because of sin, she was the consequence of sin. Pearl is even believed to be a demon child. When her mother tries to teach her about her God, Pearl says “I don’t have a heavenly father!” Pearl scares away all the children when they’re giving her and her mother evil looks. She doesn’t behave proper for a little girl either. She is so disrespectful to her mother. Like in chapter nineteen when Pearl wouldn’t listen to her mother to cross the brook, instead she has a big temper tantrum. Pearl would always ask her mother questions that seemed to mature for her. Like why she had the scarlet letter? All these demon-like attitudes she would do creates in our mind she is a sin. It must make Hester guilty of her committing adultery and having Pearl. When Pearl is first born she symbolizes the sin of Hester then when she gets older she symbolizes a ruined life Hester will live. Hawthorne makes the reader believe that Pearl was only made to be a reminder of sin, and torment Hester for the rest of her life. Since the scarlet letter is Hester’s sin, and the consequence of the scarlet letter was Pearl, Pearl is
therefore a living sin. The scarlet letter is ornately made and shows Hester’s talent. But later in the novel the scarlet letter stands for “able” instead of “adulterer” because Hester shows the community she’s a strong, independent lady and cares for more than just herself. Color is another symbol in The Scarlet Letter.
Normally when people think of dark, black, and night they think of guilt and evil. When people think of light, day, and sunshine it represents good, happiness, and truth. When Dimmesdale and Hester meet in the forest, they are in a shadow which shows their guilt. But when Hester lets her hair down the sun finally shines on her. The sun symbolizes being untroubled and truthful. Another example of the sunshine in the woods, it’s said that Pearl runs and grabs the sunshine. But when Hester tries, the sunshine goes away. Pearl says the sunshine does not love her. Since the sunshine means happiness, Hester will never be able to grasp happiness. Pearl is telling her that happiness does not love Hester. The community also seems extremely dark. For example the jail was a dark place and the scaffold was in the light. Hawthorne described the jail as a “black flower of civilized society.” When Hester was on the scaffold, she stepped out from the dark jail and steps into the bright sun which shows confession. At night, when it was dark Dimmesdale would only go on the scaffold, which showed secret. Another example of color is the black man. The black man symbolizes Satan. The puritans considered the letter A to be a mark made by Satan. In the book it said the black man lures people into the forest to be with him and sign their names in his book. Pearl told this to Hester in the book. Another important color in the book is
red. Red represents sin and blood obviously, since the letter on her bosom was red. Her scarlet letter, like her sin, is something she must always deal with and is something she can never escape. Pearl is dressed in red clothing. Pearl is also called the names "Ruby," "Coral," or "red Rose," and "a little bird of scarlet plumage," another example of sin. The sin is also in the sky as a red letter “A” meteor. The first time we read about this color is when the rosebush in the beginning is being described. The red rosebush was growing outside the prison Hester was in. The red rose bush is presenting her passion developing in a place where she doesn’t belong. Which is a metaphor of her not fitting into the Puritan society. For example she lived far away from everyone and whenever she would walk into town people would just stare at her. It’s as if they treated her different because of a mistake she’s made when everyone has made mistakes. Pearl's eyes are called a "small black mirror,” which mean they are empty and filled with sin as they reflect Hester's scarlet letter. The three symbols that Nathaniel Hawthorne use in The Scarlet Letter to explain the book’s themes of sin and guilt are the letter A, Pearl, and colors. Hawthorne wants to describe the Puritan world and the sin and guilt they put on people. The letter A shows their awful ways of punishment. Pearl shows truly the human symbol for the sin of adultery. And colors show the differences between good and bad in the eyes of Puritans and how it can have effect on people.’