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The Symbolic Nature of the Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter introduces themes within the story that recur in several settings and serve as metaphors for the underlying conflicts. The trouble in interpreting The Scarlet Letter is the fact that the story is packed full of symbolism that can be either overlooked, or misinterpreted. From the actual letter ‘A', down to the use of colors, Hawthorne wrote his story with the intention of making the reader work harder and read deeper into the characters and actual meaning of the story.
As the book opens, the first scene the readers are introduced to is the bleak image of a throng of people surrounding a prison door. To create the mood of gloom and sadness Hawthorne uses words such as "sad colored" and "gray, steeple crowned hats," to describe the clothing of the towns people. The prison stands for sin and an authority that does not condone the deviance from the Puritanical severity of law, and next to the......

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Approximate Word Count: 2468
Approximate Pages: 10 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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