The Use of Symbols in the Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet letter makes extensive use of symbols. There is a difference between the Puritans'' use of symbols (the meteor, for example) and the way that the narrator makes use of symbols. The present paper tries to find out how the symbols foreshadow events or simply comment on them after the fact How do they help the characters understand their lives, and how do they help the reader understand the novel in a better way. In Puritanical New England, Hester Prynne was branded a treacherous and subjected to scorn and embarrassment by others in her town. While Hester was, to Hawthorne, a symbol of a repressed woman, the paper will try to examine the use of symbolism in The Scarlet letter.