Scarlet Letter - Criticism

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Symbolism With the Letter “A” Many would agree that even though there are a multiple symbols in, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the letter “A” would be the most vital one of them all. Several interpretations can be made from this letter, but there are a few that most people think are the right ones. While looking for different explanations about the letter, I came across an Encyclopedia that gave me more than enough information about the significance of the letter “A” Pearl James and Richard Sewall compares the characteristics and the importance of the letter “A”. According to Pearl James, the ‘A’ has positive meanings and negative ones. Just as the meaning of Hester’s “A” expands not just “Adultery” but also “Able,” and perhaps “Angel” (321). This novel has an uncertainness that “opens possibilities of meanings” for its readers (321). He thinks that readers continue to “speculate on what the “A” additionally suggests: Arthur (Dimmesdale), Ambiguity . . . and so on (321). The opacity of Hester’s letter has been used as a textbook to illustrate the difference between two kinds of imagery in writing: allegory and symbolism (321). Allegory, where the name of a character directly indicates its meaning, “. . . can be seen in Hawthorne’s early story “Young Goodman Brown,” about a young, good man” (321). But symbolism requires more interpretation; “the “A,” for instance, suggests many possibilities which are in themselves contradictory, which would lead us back to one of the many interpretations of the “A,” adultery versus angel” (321). Richard Sewall also considers the scarlet letter “A” to be of main symbols to this novel. Just like James Pearl, Richard Sewall also says one of the ways the “A” is seen by others is it meaning Adultery, but Sewall also says that it “preserves a margin of freedom…” (322). It took her out of the ordinary relations with
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