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. Dark and light symbolism is employed to develop this theme, acknowledgement of sin, to claim that confessing sin is preferable to overlooking sin. Hawthorne quickly establishes darkness as the consequence of committing a sin, and light as never perpetuating a sin. Hester’s sin and Pearl’s innocence are compared and contrasted to develop this symbolism. 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, …show more content…
Imagery of Dimmesdale with “his face… concealed in the heavy folds of… the window curtain,” (107) shows him hiding his sin. Consequently, the darkness of his concealment becomes linked with secretiveness. As a result of withholding his sin, Dimmesdale is tormented; both his physical and mental health severely declines. 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). 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). Despite this, she becomes accepted by the town through “her many good deeds” (151). Even the strict and deeply pious Puritans stop seeing the A as Hester’s sin, and view it as mean[ing] “Able” (150). Through these events, 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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