Essay On The Color Red In The Scarlet Letter

Words: 1191
Pages: 5
Open Document
In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne compares and contrasts the color red and black throughout the book. Although he may not say the color directly, the reader can read between the lines and find the color through the characters and their emotions. The color red symbolizes love, passion, and sin, while the color black symbolizes hate, evil, and darkness. Hester and Pearl live their life through the color red and are often confronted as being the color black by the puritans. The characters and imagery Hawthorne bestowed throughout the book give details on why the colors compare and contrast to one another. As the reader's progress through the book they notice the imagery of the Black Man. The Black Man is said to be the devil who …show more content…
The black flower had been placed where it was because the puritans thought it was appropriate for the first building to build in their new utopia should be a prison. This tells a lot about the puritans because they thrive on those such as Hester, who are punished for a sin which was blown way out of proportion. They thought the perfect place for the prison and scaffold was where the black flower was because it represents the evil in a criminal. “Which evidently found something congenial in the soil that has so early borne the black flower of civilized society, a prison” (Hawthorne 35). The prison was placed near the black flower because the puritans wanted to symbolically place the prison near the black flower for it represents evil and hate, like all the criminals the prison holds. The prison was also placed near the black flower because they wanted to show the criminal was not accepted anywhere in society. “And to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of nature could pity ad be kind to them” (Hawthorne 35). The puritans did this deliberately because they wanted their new utopia to be free of criminals and love God, but those who did not fulfil up to the standard need to know they will not be accepted anywhere, which is why they had so many prisoners and executions. However the red flower had grown near the prison for those who are punished know their sin is
Show More

Related Documents: Essay On The Color Red In The Scarlet Letter

Essay about Doctor: The Scarlet Letter and Color Symbolism

Scarlet Letter Essay The director of the 1979 version of the scarlet letter used Hawthorne’s words in many ways throughout the film and while there were lots of different ways that this was achieved but the three main ways that I noticed were with color symbolism, and the different amounts of shade and light. The color symbolism used throughout the film were really important in getting Hawthorne’s point across as it helped to portray different characters emotions and actions without them going…

Words 463 - Pages 2