2 Sample Essays on The Scarlet Letter

Diana Venegas

Period 1

            In the novel The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author utilizes various symbols to enhance characters emotions and situations. The writer uses the brook to symbolize purity and love, and a fallen true to represent a cut short relationship.

            When Hester goes for a walk with Pearl she comes across a little brook.  The brook was flowing “scenes shadowed as heavily as gloom” (183). This is how Hester acts and feels. She has so much pain from the past she lets them run her life through. When a tree branch hovering over the stream” [flings] down great branches from time to time” (pg182). It stops the water flow. This tree is the streams obstacle and maneuver around it to keep on going. In Hester’s life, the tree is Chillingworth who stops her from preceding her life. She needs to be smart and flexible to get around him and his evil plans.

            Still in the forest beams of light shire from behind tall trees, the light would only hit little Pearl and not Hester. When the light was on Pearl Hester tried to “stretch out [her] hand, and gasp some of it” but when she did “the sunshine vanished” (pg180). The sun was meant for Pearl’s childish innocence and not Hester’s sinful being. Although the sun symbolized purity it also represented love. When threw off her scarlet “A” and allowed she to love Reverend Dimmesdale freely then she felt the “embodied brightness” (pg199). Only when Hester stopped being miserable she could feel the happiness and love she had inside her.

            While Hester talks to Dimmesdale they sit on a fallen tree. The tree represented their relationship with each other. All they could do is live with their feelings hidden until this moment just as the “one solemn old tree groaned dolefully to another” (pg192). When they actually get a chance to talk they talk of their miseries and sorrows. Although it may seem their relationship fails, life is anew. On the tree was a “mossy trunk” (pg191), a start of new life and prosperity. This is where Hester and Dimmesdale sat “side by side and clasped in hands” (pg191). So good came out of their long, hard experience.

            In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the author uses symbolism to express the characters better. The sun brook and tree all had a deeper meaning than what they appeared to be.

Raquel Urquiza

Period 1

            In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the author uses symbolism to create grater significance to various chapters of the book. Love and purity are shown through sunlight. The life Hester lives is shown to be much like a small brook. Sadly the relation ship that existed between Hester and Reverend Dimmesdale are symbolized by the broken and fallen tree are the most important.

            Hester and the little Pearl were in the forest because Hester wanted to meet with the reverend Dimmesdale. Patches of sunlight shows through the trees. Pearl would always be able to play in the sun, but it forever seemed to run from Hester. The sun symbolizes purity. This is why Pearl can catch this light, but when Hester reaches out for it “the sunshine [vanishes]” (p180). After Hester’s meeting with Dimmesdale, the decision was made that they would run away together. From thence, she threw her scarlet letter from her chest and when she did this the sun came out and shined on her for the first time. She and her lover had reunited and would be together once more for “Love must always create sunshine” (p199). Naturally, Hester was thrilled and her brook or life began to flow somewhat easier.

            Hawthorne uses a brook to symbolize Hester’s life. Her life is much like the small stream in the forest. The forest is dark, thus representing all one had gone through, including her affair, the letter she wore, and Chillingworth’s hunger for revenge. Trees shed their leaves and drop branches into the water. The water must flow around it to keep going, just like Hester must move to get around the obstacles and struggles in her life. If the stream stops, that means that her life has also. Pearl recognizes the brook is sad and asks her mother, “What does this sad little brook say” (p183)? Hester answers that, “If [Pearl had] a sorrow of [her] own, the brook might tell [her] of it, even as it [was telling Hester of hers]” (p183).

As Hester and Dimmesdale spoke, they sat on a fallen tree. Symbolically, this fallen tree trunk is like their relationship. Like the tree, the life of their relationship has been cut short, has fallen, and is no longer alive. The toughs louvered over them and it was, “as if [they were] telling a sad story of the pair that sat beneath” (192). They were both depressed and melancholy and it was almost as though the forest knew this because in their meeting again, “one tree groaned dolefully to another” (192). The dark and gloomy forest seemed to have grieved with them.

Nathaniel Hawthorne uses a variety of symbols to give more and better meaning to several chapters. Pearl’s purity and Hester’s and Dimmesdale’s love are shown through sunshine. The small brook in the forest and everything in it are symbols of Hester’s life. The distance and disappearances of Hester’s relationship with Dimmesdale are displayed by that of a falling tree trunk. These three symbols are only few of the many in The Scarlet Letter.