Scarlet Letter Light Symbolism Essay

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Literary works often use symbolism involving elements of light and dark, due to their contrasting nature. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne employs this symbolism to progress one of the novel’s central themes. Hawthorne develops this theme, acknowledgement of sin, using dark and light symbolism to claim that confessing sin is preferable to overlooking sin. Hawthorne quickly establishes dark as having committed sin, and light as being without sin. Hawthorne does this by comparing and contrasting Hester’s sin with Pearl’s innocence throughout the earlier portion of the novel. Hester’s “moral life,” before committing sin, is “white” and “clear,” but later develops “deep stains” and “black shadow[s]” (84). Pearl, on the other hand, still retains the “radiance of a young child’s disposition” (84). Hester’s spirit has been darkened, because she committed sin. Pearl, however, is a child, and still has purity. This suggests that a …show more content…
Dimmesdale is depicted with “his face… concealed… [by] the…curtain,” (107) showing how he hides his sin. Consequently, the darkness of the shadow becomes linked with secretiveness. As a result of withholding his sin, Dimmesdale is tormented; both his physical and mental health severely decline. Dimmesdale comes to believe that it is “better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain… than to cover it all up in his heart” (126). Although Hester still pays a price by acknowledging her sin, in both the “fading sunshine” and “gray shadow” from the darkness of her sin, and becoming alienated and “alone in the world, cast off by it” (104), she becomes accepted by the town through “her many good deeds” (151). Even the town stops seeing the A as her sin, and views it as mean[ing] “Able” (150). She has a lighter weight on her shoulders than characters like Dimmesdale or Chillingworth, whose sin consumes them and ultimately leads to their
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