What Does The Rain Symbolize In The Scarlet Letter

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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is the story of two lives seemingly stripped of joy by deceit and shame. When Hester Prynne falls in love and commits adultery with a local minister, she is disgraced and forced to live a life of shame and repentance. Meanwhile, the sin of her partner in indecency, Reverend Dimmesdale, manages to hide his sin from the town, but his hypocrisy tortures him. It seems that both characters are doomed to lives of deceit, sorrow, and restriction, and can never again enjoy the unburdened lives of happiness they once led. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne frequently uses the imagery of sunshine to represent these ideals of truth, joy, and freedom that evade Hester and Dimmesdale for so long, and shadow to represent…show more content…
When Hester and Dimmesdale’s illegitimate child Pearl sees the dazzling sunshine dancing across the front of Governor Bellingham’s mansion, she beseeches Hester to retrieve it for her, but Hester replies, “Thou must gather thine own sunshine. I have none to give thee” (Hawthorne 71). At this point, Hester, fearful that Governor Bellingham will take Pearl from her, is left with no joy to give her daughter – Pearl must find happiness for herself. Later, while she and Pearl are walking through the forest to meet Dimmesdale, Pearl sees more sunshine and proclaims that Hester is unable to catch it because it does not love her. Indeed, when Hester tries to take hold of the sunshine, it disappears, and happiness continues to elude her. Interestingly, Pearl seems to “[absorb] it [the sunshine] into herself, and […] give it forth again, with a gleam about her path, as they […] plunge into some gloomier shade” (126), suggesting Pearl has managed to find the happiness her mother cannot give…show more content…
Hester’s sin is often amplified by the presence of sun – when she finishes serving out her prison sentence, she “[comes] forth into the sunshine, which falling on all alike, seem[s] to her sick and morbid heart, as if meant for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast” (53). In contrast, the lies of characters are often denoted by the presence of shadow. When Hester goes to Governor Bellingham’s mansion to beg for continued custody of Pearl, she and Dimmesdale must hide their romantic involvement, and so are described in relation to shadow. Hawthorne highlights “the shadow of the curtain [falling] on Hester Prynne” and “the shadow of his [Dimmesdale’s] figure…tremulous with the vehemence of his appeal” (75-79). Most notably, Hester’s husband (who, having arrived after Hester’s adultery, goes by the false name of Roger Chillingworth) and Dimmesdale, two figures marked by dishonesty, are often characterized with shadow imagery. According to Hawthorne, it seems “a circle of ominous shadow move[s] along with his [Chillingworth’s] deformity whichever way he turn[s] himself” (120), while Dimmesdale is described as a man who “[treads] in the shadowy by-paths” (46). Though Chillingworth does not seem to mind lying to the townspeople, Dimmesdale is tormented by his own hypocrisy, and Hawthorne writes that “the untrue man…in so far as he shows himself in a false
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