The Scarlet Letter 9

The Scarlet Letter

Entry Nine

 One of the most often used symbols in “The Scarlet Letter” is the light / the darkness.

The light coming from the sun is mostly appearing when Hester steps out of somewhere, with the big letter A on her chest.

In the second chapter, before Hester is brought out to the market place from the prison, Hawthorne mentions “the bright morning sun” shining down on the gossiping crowd. When she comes out, her baby “winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of the day” because all she had seen before was “the gray twilight of a dungeon.”

So Hester had been imprisoned before Pearl was born, looked away from the society and hidden from bad voices talking about her. Thus the darkness represents safety, in a good way (being safe from people gossiping) but later in the book also in a bad way (sins are easily hidden).

Now that she steps out into the sunlight, Hester is exposed to men and women pointing their fingers at her. She isn’t safe anymore, everyone can watch her.

So in this book, sunlight stands for having no shelter, one’s mind and soul being exposed to everyone, being “naked”.