Symbolism in Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter

“[The rose bush] may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow (44).” More often than not in great literature, the presence of symbolism will function in a multitude of aspects. In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the presence of symbols function to distinguish between the narrator’s perspective and the widely shared views of those involved in the Puritan era. When combined, the presence of major symbols throughout the story also serves to comment upon the progression of the given story as it affects both the lives of characters, and the reader’s interpretation of the work as a whole. One of these influential symbols presents itself in the form of meteor. “But, before Mr. Dimmesdale had finished speaking, a light gleamed far and wide over the muffled sky. It was doubtless caused by one of those meteors… the minister, looking upward to the zenith, beheld there the appearance of an immense letter,- the letter A- marked out in lines of dull red light (143 and 145).” In the context of the story, this meteor is symbolic in the state of Arthur Dimmesdale’s guilt. The meteor appears while Arthur stands with Hester and Pearl on the scaffold where, years prior, Hester found herself condemned for an act of adultery and forced to bear a gigantic scarlet “A” for the duration of her life. In this same sense, the appearance of the letter in the sky foreshadows Arthur’s later confession to having been the one with whom Hester committed her act of sin. While the meteor, as a symbol, serves to foreshadow a later event, it also serves to emphasize the difference between the narrator’s perspective and that of the Puritans. “A great red letter in the sky, - the letter A, - which we interpret to stand for Angel. For, as our good Governor Winthrop was made an angel this past night, it was doubtless held fit that there should be