Symbolism Expressed Through Hawthorne In Nathaniel Hawthorne's story "The Scarlet Letter," he expresses many different symbols that are very significant to the story. The most obvious one would probably be the scarlet letter itself. It represented all that Hester was to suffer for. Another one that I found very important to the story was Pearl. She is a living version of her mothers scarlet letter. These two symbols both serve as consequences to Hester. The …
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…was able to overcome her agony by confessing right away. I think that the scaffold shows the importance of confessing your sins the right way. These three symbols help bring together the meaning in the story. Pearl and the scarlet letter link the importance of sin and its consequence. The scaffold scene shows how serious sin is. Symbols are what define a story. Work Cited Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Scarlet Letter." Mineola: New York, Dover Publications, 1994