The Scarlet Letter: a Sinner’s Expose

Throughout history, humans connect themselves to events that have occurred either through their actions or through fate. Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, displays how archaic people interpret such events for better or for worse in relation to sin. Hawthorne makes use of symbolism within his book, which focuses specifically the four key players of the story: Hester Prynne, Pearl, Roger Chillingworth, and Arthur Dimmesdale. Moreover, The Scarlet Letter—while not a true allegory—has allegorical elements, concerning the many characters in the story. Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne exploits the different facets of human fear towards sin and the different interpretations communities contrive to the trespassers of Faustian bargain. Such elucidations become the basis for the reader, who perceives how Puritans deal with sin.

In his essay about archetypes in image of Hester Prynne, Zhou Jing-hang compares Hester to Eve as she undergoes almost the same experiences of Eve—living in the paradise, then falling, suffering, and finally attaining salvation (Jing-hing). In the beginning of The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne, the “lady-like” heroine of the story, is sentenced with the charged of adultery, and the evidence is her newborn. Her husband, Chillingworth, is gone, and the father of the accursed child is unknown (Hawthorne 50). Since her husband has been lost and has not returned to Boston for seven years, Hester is given a lesser sentence, a scarlet letter in the shape of an “A” (meaning adultery). Alas, filled with the pain of sin, which erodes her very heart, Hester spends her time afterwards with her newborn girl for whom she names Pearl, as she is the only treasure Hester has now.

With this in mind, Hester lives with Pearl in a little cottage that is separate from the Puritan society. Becoming more and more contemplative, Hester questions about human morality and, in short, she becomes part of the reader, the observer of the mystery. Hester...