Nathaniel_Hawthorne_And_The_Scarlet_Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne And The Scarlet Letter The theme of the story is sin because Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth all have some sort of sin. Good and evil battle within each character and battle between the characters. Each character has some good in them, but sin makes each one evil. The scarlet letter is an outward symbol of shame, but instead it becomes a powerful symbol of identity to Hester. The letter’s meaning changes in the story. Originally intended to mark Hester as an adulterer, the “A” eventually comes to stand for “Able.” At the end of the novel, Hester continues to wear the “A” even as she counsels other people with their problems. Leech was another name for a physician during that era. The word has two meanings in the story. Roger Chillingworth was the physician and “leech”. Chillingworth also was like the animal, leech, because he was sucking the life out of Arthur Dimmesdale. Chillingworth latched on to him, lived with him, and gave him strange medicines that made from herbs. The color red is used many times by Hawthorne. The reader sees it in the rose bush by the prison, in the scarlet scarlet, letter, hester, sin, scaffold, dimmesdale, pearl, publicly, public, story, scene, penance, each, chillingworth, made, leech, hawthorne, first, evil, characters, brook, years, wilson, wearing, town, together, time, take, symbol, stand, shame, separates, sees, second, red