Tanner 1

Katie Tanner

Advanced English 10

Mr. Garrett

16 July 2018

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ​The Scarlet Letter,​ the scarlet ‘A’ Hester Prynne wears on her

chest and the Reverend Dimmesdale wears on his heart symbolizes sin and adultery and

sacredness.

Sin and adultery, those two words go hand in hand for Hester and Dimmesdale as they

both feel the guilt of their affair.

● “Ah, but, let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her

heart”(Hawthorne 60).

● “One token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another”(Hawthorne 61).

● “A bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all,

be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part”(Hawthorne 161).

● “A pure hand needs no glove to cover it”(Hawthorne 188).

● “It is to the credit of human nature, that, except when its selfishness is brought into play,

it loves more readily than it hates”(Hawthorne 190).

● “Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost

passion of her heart! Else it may be their miserable fortune when some mightier touch

than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities”(Hawthorne 211).

● “But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose”(Hawthorne 240).
 Tanner 2

● “No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and other to the

multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true”(Hawthorne

259).

Although the scarlet letter can be seen as a terrible symbol, it can also represent

something much more sacred to those who see it and feel it.

● “In fine red cloth surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of

gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility

and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy”(Hawthorne 61).

● “The torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and work out another

purity than that which she had lost; more saint-like, because the result of

martyrdom”(Hawthorne 94).

● “She was patient, a martyr, indeed”(Hawthorne 99).

● “Is there not a quality of awful sacredness in the relation between this mother and this

child?”(Hawthorne 134).

● “That many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original

signification”(Hawthorne 192).

● “The scarlet letter had the effect of the cross on a nun’s bosom. It imparted to the wearer

a kind of sacredness which enabled her to walk securely amid all peril”(Hawthorne 193).

● “The scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world’s scorn and bitterness,

and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with

reverence too”(Hawthorne 315).