The Scarlet Letter 10

The Scarlet Letter

Entry Ten

While I read the chapters, I noticed that every important character has its own color, besides Mr. Dimmesdale.

To Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, the color black is connected. He stands for “the real sin”, the mysterious person appearing and disappearing in the nowhere, using the invisibility to seek revenge.

Hester Prynne has the color red. Her person unifies passion, love, sin, but also joie de vivre, strength and will power: These are all characteristics of the color red.

When she is walking somewhere in the night, Hawthorne describes the “A” as “red-hot with infernal fire”, and it “could be seen glowing all alight”. So it leaves like a red “shadow” behind, marking every step she takes. This “shadow” could be interpreted as the hell fire shining right out of the “A”, but you could also say that it has something celestial. Both views are be justifiable: The hell fire is the burning sin that she committed. The person living in hell is the devil, in this book: Her husband. Maybe he is the one pulling the strings above everyone’s head, giving her an eternal mark for cheating on him.

But at another passage in the book, she is considered as saint-like because she carries all her guilt so toughly. Although she is banned from the rest of the society, she still goes on with living her life, she neither gives up nor she tries to flee from her punishment.

Pearls name itself is a color: A shiny, beautiful and gleaming one. Her whole nature seems precious and pretty.

(I am going to explain more about her in the next post)

In my opinion Arthur Dimmesdale doesn't have a color because he does not have a real identity so far. He has to hide it (his love to Hester Prynne, their daughter) behind his job as a clergyman for the Boston church.
So he is an undefined character so far, which would mean in "color-language": Either a cloudy color like gray or no color.