The Symbolism of Red and Black in "The Scarlet Letter"
Hawthorne uses red and black imagery to reveal a secret, a character's emotion, or the truth about a character. The red and black symbolism advances the story. He sometimes uses red and black in nature, with flowers or the sky. Some objects are red and black and symbolize something about the owner of that object. Red usually indicates sin, passion, and love. Black often indicates bad things, evil, and hate. Hawthorne uses red and black imagery to reveal characters. The symbolism deepens and foreshadows the action of the story. Hawthorne uses red and black imagery in nature when he says that the prison is the "black flower of civilized society". He calls it the "black" flower to confirm that it is a bad place. It is a bad place for Hester because she had been imprisoned there, condemned for her adultery. The prison is a black flower because it contains evil. It is represented as a flower because it grew from the society. "Before this ugly edifice, and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-weed, apple-peru, and such unsightly vegetation, which evidently found something congenial in the soil that had so ea
"But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him" (40). The red is a mark of shame and humility. Later Dimmesdale sees a red "A" in the sky. This shows that even though Hester is punished and hated, she still has love for her child and the child's father. The red and black imagery tells the reader much about the character that is referred to. "It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow" (40). This point of view was shared by many people. The red glare from out of his eyes symbolize his wickedness. The red and black imagery that Hawthorne uses is found throughout the entire story of The Scarlet Letter. It is an evil representation of him. The significance of the red letter changed. Dimmesdale thinks it is a sign to the world that he is Pearl's father. Dimmesdale leaves his black glove on the scaffold after standing there for his "confession" in the dark. They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength" (141). Black objects often foreshadow harmful events to the main characters.
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