Hawthorne's use of symbols is noted as his most distinctive and significant contribution to American fiction. The chapters in which Hester and Pearl and Dimmesdale are in the forest are replete with symbols. In Chapter XVII, truth exists in forest:Sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, alongside fallen leaves, Hester and Dimmesdale spend a gloomy hour, yet "it enclosed a charm," that of the laws of Nature in which the minister may be "true," rather than the laws of man, under which he must be false. It is also in this "boundless forest" that Dimmesdale is free of the gaze of Chillingworth. Nature symbolically shows its approval of this truth in the couple's meeting by a sudden "flood of sunshine." As Hester casts off her stigma, the color returns to her hair, the yellowed leaves turn to gold, the "repining brook" becomes "a mystery of joy."
The greatest symbol is Pearl herself, who represents the illicit union. Albeit in harmony with Nature, Pearl is the warfare of Hester's spirit. She shrieks with passion and demands that her mother return the letter to her bosom, hide her hair, and again lose her freedom. Pearl is the scarlet letter, as Hawthorne writes, "in human form."As Hester's conscience, Pearl is the agent of salvation who effects Hester's atonement through the acceptance of punishment. The "melancholy" brook mirrors Pearl's image in sympathy.
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