The Scarlet Letter is rife with symbolism. The author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, uses this technique to make seemingly unimportant objects have tremendous meaning to the novel. One prominent group of symbols used was plants. The plants, an extremely versatile group of symbols, were divided up into two groups; one symbolizing good qualities, another representing bad qualities. Positive plants, such as flowers and trees, symbolized qualities such as hope, beauty, defiance and safety. Plants usually though of as ugly or invasive, such roots, weeds and burrs, were used to describe undesirable qualities such as evil and sin. All in all, plants prove to be an integral part of The Scarlet Letter.
While the story told by the novel may be cheerless, there are may positive symbols woven into the gloom. Flowers surface at many points throughout the novel. The first time they surface is during the description of the prison door in chapter one. While the prison itself is called a black flower, obviously representing something evil due to the color black, a rosebush does grow next to it. The rosebush “may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow” (34). Hawthorne is, at this early juncture, establishing the flower as a symbol of good, no matter where the story may take us. While not giving away any of the plot, this tidbit does tell the reader that most everything symbolized by flowers will have some good qualities.
The flower first asserts itself as a positive symbol with Pearl. The plant that is brought up in this chapter is a wild flower. Her appearance is described by saying she has “the wild-flower prettiness of a peasant baby,” (62). This is the perfect way to portray her. A peasant is usually thought of as not having a clean, regal appearance. It was also impossible to appear this way in Boston due to the primitive nature of...