What Does Liberty Symbolize In The Scarlet Letter

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In the book, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne plays with the idea of personal liberty. Personal liberty is when someone makes their own decision but still acts with accordance to the law and rules of society. An example of when this occured is when Dimmesdale took to the scaffold and released his secret. One could tell personal liberty is present because when Dimmesdale took the scaffold, it took the public by surprise. In fact “the crown was in tumult” (128). The crowd in this moment did not know how to act, they were in a loud, mass confusion. A character in The Scarlet Letter that acquires a great deal of personal liberty is Pearl. Throughout the entire book Pearl expresses what she wants, when she wishes to. In chapter twenty-one