ynne had always this dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token; the spot never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with daily torture" (Hawthorne 89). However, Hawthorne indicates that Hester is now able to see inside others when they sympathize with her. Thus, the letter serves as a gateway into other people's secret crimes, and acts as a focal point for the shame of the entire community. The letter can then also be interpreted as a symbol of shame shared by everyone, rather than by Hester alone. For Dimmesdale and Hester both, the scarlet letter stands for agony. This is revealed through Hester when she becomes a social outcast of the Puritan society and lives in isolation on the outskirts of the town, and is displayed through Dimmesdale by his deteriorating health. Another important use of ambiguity concerns the scarlet letter. The appearance of the letter in the sky may have been a figment of Dimmesdale's tormented mind, or it could really have been a metaphoric phenomenon. The important thing is that it has different meaning to different peop
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