Third, Dimmesdales own sin is eating away at his conscience and causing the mark to appear. Second, Chillingworths drugs were causing the A to form. First, Dimmesdale is secretly torturing himself as punishment for his sin. The crowd at the Reverends election day speech see the A and interpret it to mean one of three things. An A appears to have been painfully engraved there. The letter is also seen on Reverend Arthur Dimmesdales chest. The people of Boston slowly begin to look at her with more pity and respect.

(148) This is because Hester gives all of her spare money, which is very little, to charity and because she is often seen visiting the sick and the needy. They said that it meant Able so strong is Hester Prynne, with a womans strength. Such helpfulness is found in her,вЂ“that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. However, the people of the town see the A in the sky and assume it symbolizes the death of Governor Winthrop and that the A is for the angel which they presume he has become.ДЄt the beginning of the novel the letter A symbolizes Hesters punishment, but throughout the course of the novel the people of the town begin to interpret the A on Hesters bosom as Able or Angel. Hester and Dimmesdale both see the A in the sky and immediately interpret it to symbolize their passionate crime. An A appears illuminated in the sky above them on the scaffold. (52)Hesters A becomes her suit of armor with which she blocks all her emotions.Another instance in Nathaniel Hawthornes novel when the A is prevalent occurs when Hester Prynne, Pearl, and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale are standing on the scaffold together in the middle of the night. The A has the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself. By this placement of the letter she conceals all of her emotions as if using the A as a shield, similar to the suit of armor with the letter A on the breast plate found in Governor Bellinghams mansion. This scarlet letter is a symbol of Hesters sin which she will have to live with the rest of her life. The A is elaborately embroidered on Hesters clothes and must be visible at all times while Hester is in public. The most obvious symbol the A stands for is adultery. The A is visibly seen on Hesters clothing although it has several other meanings which reveal itself throughout the course of the novel. The scarlet letter A on her chest stands for her adulterous act, but it also represents something much more symbolic. The second part of her punishment is that she is required to stand on the scaffold in the town square for three hours and endure public humiliation and harassment from the crowd of towns people which gather below. The letter A which Hester is required to stitch and embroider on her clothing is part of her punishment for the crime of adultery. Throughout the novel the three main symbols which develop are the scarlet letter itself, A, Hester Pyrnnes daughter Pearl, and the sinister Roger Chillingworth. Some may be hidden and others are very obvious. Through the use of symbolism Hawthorne gives the book a much deeper meaning.There are many symbols which can be found in The Scarlet Letter.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, uses much symbolism throughout the course of his complex novel. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, symbolism is the practice ofrepresenting things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships.

Scaffold meaning in scarlet letter