ALLEGORY ASPECTS AND

PURITAN BACKGROUND
In “The Scarlet Letter”
Introduction(EU)
• Nathaniel Hawthorne had deep bonds with his Puritan
ancestors and created a story that both highlighted their
weaknesses and their strengths. His knowledge of their
beliefs and his admiration for their strengths were
balanced by his concerns for their rigid and oppressive
rules.The Scarlet Letter shows his attitude toward these
Puritans of Boston in his portrayal of characters, his
plot, and the themes of his story
City upon a Hill(EU)
• The Puritans left the Old World because they wanted to "purify"
the Church of England. Their chief complaints were that the
services should be simpler and that religion should contain an
intense spiritual relationship between the individual and God. In
England, the clergy and the government mediated in the
relationship between the individual and God. Because the
Puritans chose to defy these assumptions, they were persecuted
in England. A group of them fled to Holland and subsequently to
the New World, where they hoped to build a society, described by
John Winthrop, as "a city upon a hill" — a place where the "eyes
of all people are upon us." In such a place and as long as they
followed His words and did their work to glorify His ways, God
would bless them, and they would prosper. Hawthorne, of course,
presents the irony of this concept when he describes the prison
as a building already worn when the colony is only fifteen years
old.
Man and Salvation(EU)
• These early Puritans followed the writings of a French
Protestant reformer named John Calvin (1509-1564),
whose teachings saw the world as a grim conflict
between God and Satan. Calvinists were a very
introspective lot who constantly searched their souls for
evidence that they were God's Elect. The Elect were
people chosen by God for salvation. According to
Puritans, a merciful God had sent His son, Jesus Christ,
to earth to die for the sins of man, but only a few would
be saved. The rest, known as the "unregenerate," would
be damned eternally.
Church and State(EU)
• Those who were male and members of the church could
vote. In addition, ministers guided the elected officials of
the colony; consequently, there was a close tie between
Church and State. In The Scarlet Letter, those two
branches of the government are represented by Mr.
Roger Wilson (Church) and Governor Bellingham (State).
The rules governing the Puritans came from the Bible, a
source of spiritual and ethical standards.
Punishment(EU)
• The wrath of the colony toward malefactors is brutally
obvious in the first scaffold scene in Chapter 2. The "good
women" of the colony discuss the community good that
could be realized if they were in charge of public
punishment. "At the very least, they should have put the
brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead." Another
woman in the crowd who is the "most pitiless of these
self-constituted judges" points to the scriptural basis of
their law in the colony: "This woman has brought shame
upon us all, and ought to die. Is there not law for it? Truly,
there is, both in the Scripture and the statute book. Then
let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank
themselves if their own wives and daughters go astrayl!"
EU
In choosing Puritan New England as his backdrop,
Hawthorne has provided a rich texture for his drama of
human suffering. His ending, written in the nineteenth
century, seems a hopeful sign that future generations will
move toward a less gloomy, less repressive society where
human compassion and tolerance will balance the
community laws.
“A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.” The quotation
which attracts every booklover and one becomes excited to
know the core of the story. It is basically a well-structured
and organized novel. All the events and incidents are
described beautifully that a reader simply loves it.
(EU)
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is related to the
story of Hester Prynne, a young lady who is living without
her husband and is having an affair with the local pastor
Arthur Dimmesdale.
The affair results in Hester giving birth to Dimmesdale’s
child. When Hester Prynne comes for the trial with her child
confronted by the public, as a punishment of adultery, she
wears a sign ‘A’ that stands for adulteress. At the same time
her husband visits Boston, where they recognize each other,
but no one in the town knows about her husband. Everyone
in the public, including her husband wanted to know about
her lover and father of the child, but she refuses to disclose
the name and opts for suffering. Her decision of not
revealing her lover’s name changed her life completely
Religion is considered as an important part of a Puritan
community. In a puritan community, religion dictates each
and every step, from daily routine to moral philosophy, of an
individual and the society. Naturally, religious leaders are
highly praised and people look upon them for guidance
The Scarlet Letter played a crucial role in the Puritan
community. Adultery was a major punishable sin, and public
trials and punishments were used as a tool to prevent others
from committing adultery or other crimes.
The Scarlet Letter reflects various shades of the Puritan
society like relationships, religion, community, discipline and
punishment, and is also a moral and psychological study of life.
The novel outlines the consequences of sin on the individual
as well as on the social level.
• Dimmesdale health is failing day by day due to heart
disease. Chillingworth, Hester Prynne’s husband,
becomes Dimmesdale’s medical adviser and they start
spending a lot of time together as he tries to diagnose the
illness. He comes to know that his patient has some
secret that pinches him every now and then. At last he
has confirmed that the secret lover of his wife is none
other than Dimmesdale.
• From his close reading of the Deuteronomy quote,
Edwards comes to one central conclusion: “There is
nothing that keeps wicked men, at any one moment,
out of hell, but the meer pleasure of God.” Edwards
then proceeds to meditate on this conclusion with a
list of ten observations
1. Mankind cannot interfere with God’s power to cast
them into hell whenever he pleases. While powerful men
on earth, like princes, might have trouble subduing a
rebellion, God has no such difficulty casting sinners into
hell. Even if sinners band together against God, they are
like “large quantities of dry stubble before devouring
flames.”
2. Since sinners deserve to go to hell, “divine justice” is no
reason for God to stay his hand. In fact, the
congregation should understand “justice” to mean God
sending them to their rightful place in hell.
3. Every “unconverted” sinner (those who have not come
to Christ) is condemned to hell. Such sinners actually
originally come from hell, which means that hell is, in
every way, their rightful place.
4. Sinners shouldn’t take their continued presence on
earth as evidence that God is less angry with them than
he is with people already in hell. In fact, God
is angrier with many people on earth—and, indeed, with
many people in this congregation—than he is with people
in hell.
5. The Devil—who stalks sinners like a hungry lion—is
ready to seize his prey and bring them to hell whenever
God wills it. In fact, sinners already belong to the Devil;
scripture says he has their souls in his possession.
6. The souls of sinners contain the very “seeds of hell fire.”
In other words, within sinful souls lie the conditions of
hell itself, and the only thing keeping these souls from
bursting into flame is God’s arbitrary will.
7. The congregation should not take false comfort from
finding “no visible means of death at hand.” Sinners walk
on a rotten floor over the pit of hell and the floor could
collapse unexpectedly at any moment. Indeed, God has
many ways of killing a person in the course of an ordinary
day.
8. Even if a sinner goes to great pains to protect his or her
life, this is no safeguard against the will of God. Wisdom,
too, is useless, since wise people die unexpectedly just as
often as fools.
9. Every person who hears of hell flatters themselves by
believing that they will escape its torments through their
cleverness or righteousness. However, most of those who
are now in hell (which is most people who die) also believed
this, so a sense of security should not be a comfort.
10. God has no obligation to keep anyone from hell.
Instead, it is Christ who promised salvation and eternal life
through the covenant of grace. Therefore, no matter how
earnestly a sinner prays or worships, if he or she does not
believe in Christ, then he or she will not be saved. So,
sinners who don’t believe in Christ exist at the whim of a
God who loathes them, and they have absolutely no
security or means for obtaining salvation.
• Jonathan Edwards begins to explain the Biblical
quotation from Deuteronomy that opened the sermon.
The quotation is a threat of vengeance from God to the
sinful Israelites who, despite God’s grace and kindness,
were still not faithful. Edwards notes that he will expand
on the following four implications of this quotation, all of
which relate to the punishment of the Israelites. Edwards
begins his sermon by contextualizing the Bible passages
he cited. This establishes for the congregation that
damnation is not an abstract threat, but rather a
historical reality: according to the Bible, the misbehaving
Israelites were subject to God’s vengeance
•  
1. The Israelites were always vulnerable to punishment
(or, as Edwards writes, “destruction”), just as any person
who walks in a slippery place is vulnerable to a fall.
Edwards quotes Psalm 73, which links God having “set
them in slippery places” to the Israelites being cast “down
into destruction.”

2. Not only were the Israelites vulnerable to punishment,

but they were vulnerable to unexpected and
sudden punishment at God’s whim. A person walking in
a slippery place cannot foresee the moment in which he or
she will fall—the fall is always sudden and without
warning. Edwards quotes Psalm 73 further, which
suggests that sinners are “brought into desolation as in a
moment.”
• 3. Furthermore, the sudden fall is liable not to be due to
any external force. Nobody is pushing the person on
a slippery surface; he or she falls only due to his or her
own weight.
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
• The prison door is described as having never known "a
youthful era," i.e., innocence (1.2). It’s made of iron and
is a little worse for wear, if you catch our drift. Yet, the
wild rosebush that grows at the side of the portal is its
saving grace. The rosebush represents kindness and
forgiveness to the prisoners who must face either a
prison sentence or a death sentence.
Pearl, Hester’s Daughter
• Pearl, Hester’s daughter, is a symbol of all that Hester
gave up when she committed adultery and gave up her
place in Puritan society. Pearl is a "pearl of great price," a
reference to Jesus’ proverb in the Gospel of Matthew:
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant
man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found
one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had,
and bought it." 
The Scarlet Letter
The symbolism behind the scarlet letter A changes
throughout this novel. Though initially this
letter A symbolizes the sin of adultery, Hester Prynne alters
its meaning through her hard work and charity. Some people
begin to suggest that the A stands for "able," since Hester is
such a capable woman. Others begin to recognize that the
scarlet letter has begun to achieve holiness, righteousness. It
has "the effect of the cross on a nun’s bosom. It imparted to
the wearer a kind of sacredness, which enabled her to walk
securely amid all peril. Had she fallen among thieves, it
would have kept her safe" (13.5). Many years later, when
Hester returns and voluntarily takes up the scarlet letter
again, it has become, for her and others, a symbol of grace.
The Red Mark on Dimmesdale’s Chest
The red mark on Dimmesdale’s chest in the shape of the
letter A is the physical manifestation of the minister’s
guilt. We are never given an exact description of this mark
or its origins, but Dimmesdale tells Hester it is from God.
Although he refuses to confess and be punished, his sin
ultimately marks his body more permanently than
Hester’s scarlet letter made from thread does.
The Meteor
We learn that things like meteors-in-the-shape-of-an-A
and exploding stars are common occurrences in early
America, and that Puritan communities and community
leaders would interpret these celestial explosions to be
messages from God, typically warning them about bad
things ahead or commenting on issues affecting the
community. The meteor in The Scarlet Letter exposes both
a communal and an individual reaction.
The Black Man
The Black Man is a euphemism for Satan in this book.
Hester considers the scarlet letter A to be the Black Man’s
mark, and Pearl wonders aloud if the Black Man left his
brand on Dimmesdale’s heart. Our narrator loves to
compare Chillingworth to Satan as well. By invoking
Satan, our narrator raises the question of whether
humans are innately good or evil. A favorite pastime of the
Black Man is to hang out in the woods and lure the locals
to come hang out with him and sign their names in his
book (with their own blood). Mistress Hibbons knows the
Black Man well, apparently.
The Forest and the Wilderness
The forest and wilderness are seen as the home or
dwelling place of evil by the townspeople. It’s the
unknown. Such a wilderness is compared to the moral
wilderness in which Hester has been lost for years: "She
had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral
wilderness; as vast, as intricate and shadowy, as the
untamed forest" .The forest contrasts sharply with the
town, or "civilization," the former representing a place
where passion and emotion reign, and the latter, a place
where law and religion prevail. Interestingly, Hester lives
on the edge of town, on the border between wilderness and
civilization. She straddles both worlds.
The Custom House
A Custom House is a governmental building situated near
a port or a wharf. All sailors, sea captains, merchants, and
sea traders are required to report directly to the Custom
House upon laying anchor in Salem. These tradesmen
must pay taxes on their imported goods. Things aren’t so
hopping in this particular Custom House – business has
slowed down and the building itself is falling apart. The
narrator describes a statue of the American eagle that
hovers over the Custom House entrance:
The narrator goes on to tell us that his ancestors were
involved in both the Salem Witch Trials (check
out Shmoop History on the Witch Trials and The Crucible)
as well as in the persecution of Quakers. Needless to say,
the narrator feels mighty guilty and mighty weirded out by
the fact that he is related to so many hateful and cold
people. He also seems to hear their voices in his head,
mocking his dream of becoming a writer (“Why, the
degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!”)