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KMID : 0615219860110010203
Journal of Kwangju Health
1986 Volume.11 No. 1 p.203 ~ p.229
The Symbolism and the Description of Sin in The Scarlet Letter
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Abstract
I studied the symbolism and the description of sin in The Scarlet Letter of Hawthorne¢¥s through this paper. In the first chapter as preface, I dealt with the general symbolism of the work. There were many cases which Hawthorne dealt with human relations directly or symbolically, and in this charcteristic symbolic tale or allegorical tale became the main current. We can see this case in The Scarlet Letter of Hawthorne¢¥s story, and in his short stories. The Minister¢¥s Black Veil, The Ambitions Guest, The Hollow of The Thore Hills.
The opening- sentence suggests the darkness "sad-colored", "gray", the rigidity "oak," "iron", and the aspiration "steeple-crowned" of the people amongst whom religion and law were almost identical. Later sentences add "weatherstrains," "a yet darker aspect, " and "gloomy" to the suggestions already began through color imagery.
The closing words of the chapter make the metaphorical use of color explicit:
Hawthorne hopes that a wild rose beside the prison door may serve "to symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human fraility and sorrow. "
In the second chapter I dealt with the "A" and each character¢¥s symbolic description. The "A" which Hester wears on her bosom does not, of course, signify adultery in her eyes: its ornate embroidery is an implicit rejection of the community¢¥s view of her act; it is, is fact, a symbolic foreshadowing of her "consecration" assertion seven years later. "A" symbols adultery and original sin. But later it was explained as "Angel," "Able," or "Mercy." Hester is a well-known sinner, Dimmesdale a hidden sinner, and Chillingworth an unpardonable sinner. The Scarlet Letter describes human mentality and suffering which sinner must endure through hero¢¥s complication.
Pearl is more than a picture of an intelligent and willful child drawn in part from Hawthorne¢¥s observations of his daughter Una: she is a symbol of what the human being would be if his situation were simplified by his existing on the natural plane only, as a creature. Pearl is potentially an immortal soul, but actually, at least before the "Conclusion, " she seems more nearly a bird, a flower, or a ray of sunlight.
In this way Hawthorne uses frequently name symbolism in his works.
And we can take imagery of color and light. The relation between the light and color images and their symbolic values are, then, neither static and schematized nor wholly free and arbitrary, but contextual within a general framework supplied by traditional patterns of color symbolism.
In the third chapter I considered the psychological affect of sin in The Scarlet Letter. The central theme of most of Hawthorne¢¥s stories is not sin. as a theological problem, but rather the psycholgical effect of the convention of sin on the liver of the early colonists.
Hawthorne expressed "a tale of human fraility and sorrow" instead of word "sin. "It is because of the writer¢¥s intention which he is going to describe human fraility and sorrow happened from it. In conclusion, this story is a most powerful but painful story.
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