No Subject

[Jana]

The original intent of scarlet letter was to be a public “name tag” branding Hester Prynne as an adulteress, a symbol which would constantly remind her of her sin and shame. By the conclusion of The Scarlet Letter, it has become something much bigger to Hester, it is a part of her personal identity. The meaning of the embroidered A, through Hester’s actions, comes to be taken to mean “Able” in the eyes of her village, and marks her as an important personage in the eyes of the Indians. The flux in the letter’s meaning points out society’s short memory and quickness to love, eventually proving its worthlessness as a punishment. <br>Hester only takes the Scarlet Letter off once, after she and Dimmesdale make plans to escape to Europe. She unpins the A and lets down her hair, symbolizing her feeling of release from the constraints society had placed on her. Finally, in the shocking ending, Dimmesdale, after preaching his Election Day sermon, sees Hester and Pearl standing in front of the town scaffold. He impetuously mounts the scaffold with his lover and his daughter, confesses his sin to the crowd, and exposes a scarlet letter seared onto the flesh of his chest. Long years afterward, Hester returns to Boston alone, still wearing the scarlet letter. After her death, she is buried next to Dimmesdale. The tombstone that they share bears the same scarlet “A”. Hester transforms the scarlet letter into a symbol of knowledge won and hardship overcome, rather than a mark of sin or imposed censure.