In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, there were many uses of color to provide imagery. For the majority of the time, red was used to symbolize passion and black was used to symbolize evil. The rose bush was used many times throughout the novel symbolizing the moral blossom. When it was first introduced to the story in chapter one it said, "But on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rosebush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in the token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him." (Page 42) Evil was also symbolized in this chapter with the Prison door and the black flower of civilization. "The pious master Dimmesdale hot with passion in his heart" shows Dimmesdale's passion/love for Hester Prynne. Chapter ten also shows evil with the doctor's herbs, flabby leaves and the black weeds plucked from the graveyard. In chapter twelve, the geneva cloack which hid Dimmesdale's shame symbolized evil and the "meteor burning red like the letter in the sky" symbolized passion.
             "It may be that it was the tailsman of a stern and severe, but yet a guardian spirit, who now forsook her, as recognizing that, in spite of his strict watch over her heart, some new evil had crept into it, or some old one had never
             been expelled." (Page 162) This quote shows how evil is described in chapter fifteen because it states that there is an evil behind the meaning of the scarrlet letter. That quote follows the first time Hester had ever lied about the letter she wore on her bosom. She told Pearl "I wear it for the sake of its gold thread."
             "No, Hester, no!" replied the clergyman. "There is no substance in it! It is cold and dead, and can do nothing for me! Of penance, I had ha...