In early Boston around 1650, life was simple and bland being peculiar for people to judge or be excessive. Irony, however, was portrayed in the accounts from this time period. Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter displays many people, places, and objects, used as symbols: Pearls hidden purity, the scaffold's double edge, and the prison's rose.
             Pearl's attitude was very witty for a young puritan girl, she was better off called stone, even thought she could be polished into a diamond. For instance, when Pearl was afraid to be held by Dimmesdale she "escaped from an open window, and stood on the upper step looking like a wild tropical bird"(102). Her stubbornness shows that she is not willing to cooperate with anyone because of her alienated lifestyle. She had little choice to live the life she had she was practically thrown into it. She soon becomes a precious jewel when she finally lets down her front when she "bid [Dimmesdale] a kiss"(219). She now is a polished trinket from her unity with her father which she denied she had. She is as her mother wanted her to be pure no matter what wretch she came from. Pearl's outer feelings towards people were hostile only because of her being true to what she had.
             An object can be used for one of two thing either practicality or emotional reference in this case the scaffold was used to hold the viewing of shame, while it showed how wrong the community was. The first of many uses of the scaffold was to display the shame of Hester and let people judge her as the women did "They should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead"(49). Now how is that, puritan women stating their determination on what is to be done it goes against all of their beliefs. How could the puritans a society show this when it is wrong to do so. The scaffold was held in front of the church as a place were "the sympat
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