The Scarlet Letter?

Question

I need to write a 7 page paper on the symbol of the scarlet letter. Not symbols throughout the book, just the scarlet letter itself. Any suggestions? Also do you know of any links I can use to get more information on this? Thanks:-)

Answer 1

The Scarlet Letter
The scarlet letter is meant to be a symbol of shame, but instead it becomes a powerful symbol of identity to Hester. The letter’s meaning shifts as time passes. Originally intended to mark Hester as an adulterer, the “A” eventually comes to stand for “Able.” Finally, it becomes indeterminate: the Native Americans who come to watch the Election Day pageant think it marks her as a person of importance and status. Like Pearl, the letter functions as a physical reminder of Hester’s affair with Dimmesdale. But, compared with a human child, the letter seems insignificant, and thus helps to point out the ultimate meaninglessness of the community’s system of judgment and punishment. The child has been sent from God, or at least from nature, but the letter is merely a human contrivance. Additionally, the instability of the letter’s apparent meaning calls into question society’s ability to use symbols for ideological reinforcement. More often than not, a symbol becomes a focal point for critical analysis and debate.

Hester is the public sinner who demonstrates the effect of punishment on sensitivity and human nature. She is seen as a fallen woman, a culprit who deserves the ignominy of her immoral choice. She struggles with her recognition of the letter’s symbolism just as people struggle with their moral choices. The paradox is that the Puritans stigmatize her with the mark of sin and, in so doing, reduce her to a dull, lifeless woman whose characteristic color is gray and whose vitality and femininity are suppressed.

Over the seven years of her punishment, Hester’s inner struggle changes from a victim of Puritan branding to a decisive woman in tune with human nature. When she meets Dimmesdale in the forest in Chapter 18, Hawthorne says, “The tendency of her fate and fortunes had been to set her free. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread.”

In time, even the Puritan community sees the letter as meaning “Able” or “Angel.” Her sensitivity with society’s victims turns her symbolic meaning from a person whose life was originally twisted and repressed to a strong and sensitive woman with respect for the humanity of others. In her final years, “the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world’s scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence, too.” Since her character is strongly tied to the scarlet letter, Hester represents the public sinner who changes and learns from her own sorrow to understand the humanity of others. Often human beings who suffer great loss and life-changing experiences become survivors with an increased understanding and sympathy for the human losses of others. Hester is such a symbol.
Pearl is the strongest of these allegorical images because she is nearly all symbol, little reality. Dimmesdale sees Pearl as the “freedom of a broken law”; Hester sees her as “the living hieroglyphic” of their sin; and the community sees her as the result of the devil’s work. She is the scarlet letter in the flesh, a reminder of Hester’s sin. As Hester tells the pious community leaders in Chapter 8, “ … she is my happiness!—she is my torture …. See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a million-fold the power of retribution for my sin?”
Besides the characters, the most obvious symbol is the scarlet letter itself, which has various meanings depending on its context. It is a sign of adultery, penance, and penitence. It brings about Hester’s suffering and loneliness and also provides her rejuvenation. In the book, it first appears as an actual material object in The Custom House preface. Then it becomes an elaborately gold-embroidered A over Hester’s heart and is magnified in the armor breast-plate at Governor Bellingham’s mansion. Here Hester is hidden by the gigantic, magnified symbol just as her life and feelings are hidden behind the sign of her sin.

Still later, the letter is an immense red A in the sky, a green A of eel-grass arranged by Pearl, the A on Hester’s dress decorated by Pearl with prickly burrs, an A on Dimmesdale’s chest seen by some spectators at the Election Day procession, and, finally, represented by the epitaph “On a field, sable, the letter A, gules” (gules being the heraldic term for “red”) on the tombstone Hester and Dimmesdale share.

In all these examples, the meaning of the symbol depends on the context and sometimes the interpreter. For example, in the second scaffold scene, the community sees the scarlet A in the sky as a sign that the dying Governor Winthrop has become an angel; Dimmesdale, however, sees it as a sign of his own secret sin. The community initially sees the letter on Hester’s bosom as a mark of just punishment and a symbol to deter others from sin. Hester is a Fallen Woman with a symbol of her guilt. Later, when she becomes a frequent visitor in homes of pain and sorrow, the A is seen to represent “Able” or “Angel.” It has rejuvenated Hester and changed her meaning in the eyes of the community.

Answer 2

Scarlet Letter Cartoon

Answer 3

The scarlett letter is an A for adulter. The woman was branded an adulter because she had an affair and became pregnant. Her husband, 20 years or more her senior, didn't live in the states. She thought he was dead because he was supposed to meet up with her but didn't for a long while. Only after she was pregnant did he show up. Then he harrassed her. The father of the child is a man of the cloth. They fell in love but it was forbidden.

The book is really very good. Easy to understand although it was written 150 years ago. Check out the sparknotes.

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/scarlet/

Answer 4

There was a cartoon in the New Yorker based on The Scarlet Letter. It featured a modern day woman with an A+ on her chest.

Answer 5

Just the letter itself??? That blows!! You could talk about the multiple occasions of adultery within the book, or the ways in which the letter impacts Hester's life in a negative and positive manner. You could look at sparknotes for more info. It's been like a full year since I studied that book in school, hope that helped a wittle bit:)

Answer 6

Well first I think you should read the book. Second formulate your own answer. Third, go to the local library. Fourth, do your own homework and stop relying on others.

Answer 7

It's really bad

Answer 8

It depends on many things

Answer 9

hey

Answer 10

try pinkmonkey.com and freebooknotes.com