An Analysis of Symbolic Images in The Scarlet

Letter

Haihong Gao

ShanXi Normal University, China

Abstract—The Scarlet Letter was written by Nathanial Hawthorne in 1850, with the background of seventeenth

Century of the early American colonies, taking the tragic love between pastor Arthur Dimmesdale and a

woman named Hester's as content, which revealed the dim of American law, and hypocrisy of religion. So this

introduces the symbolism, including its definition and effect. In the third part, in order to reveal the hypocrisy

of the religious at that time, to reveal the rebellious spirit of women, I will interpret the symbolic images from

three aspects: the nature, color, time. Through the analysis of the symbolic images, readers can find the deep

meaning of the context, which can strengthen people’s understanding of the characters, scenes and the plot of

the novel. This can promote the comprehensive understanding of this greatest novel.

Index Terms—symbolization, imagine, application analysis, freedom, religion

I. INTRODUCTION

Nathanial Hawthorne is not only the pioneer of romantic novel in the late 19th century, whose works have a deep

possible to reserve his works by this method. Without carefully study of the symbolic images in the works, it is difficult

for us to understand the roles of those scenes. We would appreciate the work with our own view, so the author's

intention of the work can’t convey or understand by ourselves. Sometimes we think it is useless to use those scenes. We

can have a new perspective to appreciate the work by understanding those symbolic images. The Scarlet Letter is a

romantic novel of the United States in 19th Century. The obscure theme, extraordinary form and ingenious artist made it

become the object of literature research all the time. The Scarlet Letter not only involved a serious and sensitive topic of

extramarital affairs, but also touched on the controversial and radical feminist thought. Most importantly, It revealed the

hypocrisy of the human moral and religions. So it is a challenge to the judgment of Christian value. It is wisdom to use

the symbolic images to avoid the literal meaning of the religious doctrines. This work exposed the social darkness at

that time.

atmosphere, so that people can have the courage to break the traditional constraints, and pursue of freedom and equality.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

A. The Introduction of the Writer and Novel

1. Introduction of Hawthorne

Nathanial Hawthorne was born in the town of Salem Massachusetts. His grandparents were one of the three judges of

the famous Salem deceit in 1695. His father was a captain and died when he sailed in the sea. Hawthorne was four years

old and was brought up by his mother. In 1821 Hawthorne was supported by the relatives and then sent him to the

Bowdoin Institute of Maine. In 1824, graduated from college, Hawthorne returned to his hometown and began to write.

was the novel Fanshawe. But it was so bad that this novel neither published in 1828, nor paid any attention. Hawthorne

put this novel into the fire. From 1836 to 1846, Hawthorne was twice worked at the customs office, and in 1848 due to

political disagreement with the authorities, so he lost his customs position. After that, he was absorbed in the activities

of writing creative works, so he wrote his most important novel The Scarlet Letter. From that time he created a lot of

works. In order to avoiding the persecution of the Puritans, Hawthorne took the romantic form as his creative style. He

believed that only in this way, the author can conceive and create in his own way. Without having to be constricted in

authentic of the detail, it can find intermediate zone which can combination the reality and imagination between the real

worldland and fairyland. The greatness of Hawthorne' s was that he could reveal the darkness, irony and reveal the truth

in a gentle and substantial sharp style of writing. Hawthorne' s works are rich in imagination and rigorous structure. His

works style not only used the style of psychological analysis and description, but also used of symbolism. His conceive

imaginative image, which added the romantic color of the work and deepened the meaning. In addition to that his work

named Roger Chillingworth. It was a British New World boom at that time. Roger Chillingworth decided to settle in the

United States Boston. Without knowing what reason, whether he intended to test Hester's faithful or he had important

things to deal with, he let Hester came alone, but the old scholar did not come to the United States until two years later.

During this period, Hester had met the person who she really loved, whose name is pastor Arthur Dimmesdale. They

fell in love and gave birth to their daughter Pearl. According to the law of Puritan, she was accused of adultery and

forced to wear a red word A in front her chest. But the pastor did not confess his sin to the public until the end of life.

From that time on, Hester lived alone tenaciously far away from the city and made a living by sewing. When Hester's

husband was aware of the scandal he acted as a doctor, but he pretended that he and his wife was strange, attempting to

find out who is the man that committed crimes with his wife. In the process of his treatment for Arthur Dimmesdale,he

found out that Arthur Dimmesdale was the right person. Therefore, he managed to kill him. Pastor has been tortured by

his inner world as well as the guilty of his own hypocrisy. After suffering from the mental torture for seven years, in a

1. Definition of Symbolism

Symbolism is one of the basic artistic techniques. The symbolization refers to external meaning by using a specific

thing or some profound thoughts of his artists, or some things that has specific meaning (chen bei. 2016). There is no

necessary relationship between the symbolic meaning and symbolic meaning of this tenor, but the artist stresses the

characteristic of the tenor things, which makes arts' appreciator generated association from here to there. So the art

appreciator can realize the meaning which the artist wants to express. In addition, according to the traditional habits and

a certain society, the author choices things that people are familiar with as a tenor. Doing that, it can express a specific

meaning. Such as the red symbol of jubilation, white symbol of mourning, the magpie symbol of good fortune, the dove

symbol of peace. Using the symbolization as artistic technique, which can make the abstract concept specific, vivid, and

make the profound and complex things simple, single and can also extend the description of the connotation, create a

image is to give light to others, so that we can associate the lofty spirit of sacrifice. The candle is a symbol of self

sacrifice. At this point, we can further define the symbolization, and the symbolization is a form of expression according

to the culture to convey another meaning. Symbolic culture express meaning through metaphor, allegory,

personification, symbols, freehand brushwork, contrast and other specific symbolic. Symbolic culture in the existence

and its way of expression is universal, where there are people, different races, time and region have symbolic culture.

Because of the different cultural background of race and geographical environment, the symbolic meaning of the same

cultural symbol is different, sometimes even the opposite. So the content of symbolization is specialization in some

context. From the perspective of the symbolization, it can help us to understand meaning from the outside to the inside,

and the original process to complete understanding of all the meaning of culture.

Appropriate use of symbolization, the article can make the concept of lofty, implicit and profound, so as to leave the

space for readers to chew after tasting, giving the article deep meaning. American poet and literary critic Arthur

Simmons (1899) said that the form of thought was a symbol of all common tangible and intangible performance. The

formation of symbolic image is closely related to the specific cultural literary tradition and social psychology. Therefore,

in order to analyze the symbolism in the works, we must study the internal and external relations of these images. The

significance of each image lies in its relationship with other images. There is no substantive meaning of the image, only

combination with situation, the real meaning can express, which can explain and define each other. The role of

symbolization, first of all, it is the abstract sense of the performance of a specific image can be perceived. Secondly, it

can make the article more subtle. Using of the immediate objects to express far-reaching meaning. The implication of

the symbol is profound, which can enrich people's association, thought-provoking, and make people get infinite mood

feeling. It can give a person a feeling of brief and vivid, which can expresses sincere feelings. It is a symbol of the

runs through Hawthorne' s novel The Scarlet Letter and forms a series of image combinations. These seemingly

ordinary images often appear in the plot and the psychological development of the critical moment, with a very

profound meaning. This section attempts to fill the black in this area, in-depth excavation and analysis of mirror image

meaning in The Scarlet Letter .The objects of mirror and something is resemblance to mirror ,which not only hold the

important function of narrative, but also have meaningful roles in characterization of figures and psychological

character, self certification (Wang Deyi, 2016). At the same time, they also hold the ethical significance of self

reflection, and become the metaphor of the frame of mind. The pastor and Hester spoke beside the brook, which is far

from Pearl, this brook become the boundaries of guilty and innocent like a needle stab into his chest. When he met with

Hester in the forest, his soul in the past saw their appearance in the mirror.

For the pastor, the brook has three functions or meanings: first, it is the reflection of the physical self to the spiritual

can’t become public confession. The image in the mirror sometimes represents himself but one a moment it is the only

audience of himself, and he is the witness of self punishment and torture, because he can only reflect on the mirror

secretly and privately. The use of the brook image, it showed contrast between the fierce inner conflict of Puritan

moralist and wonderful performance as a public figure, which clearly depicts the pastor’s dual personality. When tore

his double mask, the character shapely produced great aesthetic tension. The mirrors have a very important role on

ethics. For oneself it presents self reflection and self improve the moral realm. It was because of the pastor's constant

confession to the mirror that he finally made up his mind open. He faced and confessed his own sin and then paid the

price of life.

So from this aspect, brook plays an important role on self salvation. Without the brook, there wasn’t so much sense of

guilty and punishment in his heart.

to be a man without the sin. On the other hand, the weather and the rainy days are both religious hypocrisy. Religion

does not dare to express its crimes openly in daylight, rather than to reveal its true feelings through the vague concept of

rainy days and cloudy days.

Sunny is a symbol of good start. After raining the sky gets light, some dark clouds took away all the pain and pain,

and open a new journey. The Meng Haoran in the miscellaneous described the mountain that emptied after raining, the

weather late autumn. This reflected the blue sky after raining. Happiness can be shown among the lines of the work. In

the novel, one afternoon, Hester wants to escape from this piece of land, under the blue sky and white cloud, Hester and

Pearl was so happy. A boat carried them start a new life. Sunny symbolized the freedom.

The significance of the meteor lies in the fleeting of time and the meaningful of meteor is also due to the beautiful

things in the twinkling of an eye. We can't hold her beautify, nor can we extend the wonderful of her. If we hold on the

nature as a manifestation of the disloyalty of God. So he is always in a spiritual torment. He don't know what he should

choose .Whether he should confess his sin through his inner repent and live just for the sake of remaining , or he should

confess his sin in the public and take responsibility to his punishment in order to make the guilty mind to be free. For

example, an obscure night in early May, Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester and Pearl stood hand in hand on the scaffold.

Before he finishing his speech, there is a flashed light in the sky. The pastor looked up at the sky, he regarded the

ordinary meteor light as word A which drawn by a dark red line. Confronted with this meteor A, he realized that it is

necessary to confess his sin and this letter A represents the relief of his sin. At the end of the novel, pastor Arthur

Dimmesdale finished his sermon. In Hester's arm, handed with Pearl, faced with his fellow pastors and the public, he

went to the scaffold. He stood there, with all his might, in a solemn and terrible voice, admitting his crimes openly. He

tore the sacred hoop and left uncovered chest, at that time the letter A exposed. After Pearl kissed him, he died in his

beloved arm. Pearl's kiss washed away his total sins.

symbol of recklessness, a symbol of shame and a symbol of tragedy. Red also represents God's purification and eternal

punishment. In many literary works, to describe the woman who is easy to seduce would always use the red color. In

Apocalypse ,the great whore always dressed in scarlet, the pagan idols is usually depicted as red, so red is a color a

symbol of hell, which stands for the devil's color, a symbol of anger and hatred.

To some extent, as for Hester, red is a symbol of impulsive and reckless. Special impulse and recklessness is the root

of her tragic life. Marry with Chillingworth, Hester was extremely irrational. A young, beautiful, brave and enthusiastic

girl married with an old, ugly, cold, extreme man. It is unreasonable for those two persons live together, which means

the beginning of the tragedy life. When Hester lost her way with her husband, she was driven by impulse and desire, but

she had no reason to be in love with the pastor, because this love can’t be accepted by people and people.

repentance, and condemnation. He tortured pastor until he felt exhausted. As a doctor it is his duty to insight the health

and look over the early death sign of the pastor, but he did not do his duty. Rather than on the opposition way, he

accelerated the speed of torment, and increased his revenge plan .He should be acted as mediate to stop the story of

tragedy, but he acted as a maker of the tragedy. The red revenge plan is full of his mind, the red A step by step to lure

himself to fall. So with the red A, he achieved his revenge plan at the end of the story.

Red, a color is full of temptation and impulse, giving people mind to revenge. The color itself is not the matter, but