An Analysis of Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter

DOI

10.2991/icelaic-17.2017.84How to use a DOI?

Keywords

The Scarlet Letter; symbolism; sin

Abstract

Nathaniel Hawthorne's unique gift was for the creation of strongly symbolic stories which touch the deepest roots of man's moral nature. The finest example is the recreation of The Scarlet Letter. It is a typical one of his ideal and artistic style and is regarded as the first American symbolic fiction, dealing with alienation, sin, punishment, and guilt. The scarlet letter "A", which covers through the whole novel, was given a variety of symbolic meanings. He expressed his feelings, emotions, will, and concept through the scarlet letter "A", natural scenery, and four major characters. This paper researches the symbolism in the novel from the following aspects: the changing symbolic meaning of the scarlet letter "A", the forest, scaffold, the names of the major characters described in the novel.

Copyright

© 2017, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Dan Zheng
PY  - 2017/12
DA  - 2017/12
TI  - An Analysis of Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter
BT  - Proceedings of 4th International Conference on Education, Language, Art and Intercultural Communication (ICELAIC 2017)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 378
EP  - 381
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/icelaic-17.2017.84
DO  - 10.2991/icelaic-17.2017.84
ID  - Zheng2017/12
ER  -