"Scarlet Letter" by Nathanial Hawthorne

Often throughout The Scarlet Letter there are symbolic references made. The story deals with a Puritan woman who commits adultery and raises an illegal child named Pearl. The author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, seems to be rather fond of using religious and natural images to symbolize different points, possibly because of his own Puritan background. One of the purposes of this symbolism is to show that Puritanism is hypocritical and that their religious viewpoints go against natural order, which is done by using contrasting natural and religious symbols in the descriptions of the objects in the story.…