ld in front of all the relenting eyes, “Hester Prynne might have repaid them all with a bitter and disdainful smile” (Hawthorne 45). Hester, despite the coldness of the community, chooses to refrain. She slowly begins to gain the sympathy of certain members of the community and “Her breast, with its badge of shame, was but the softer pillow for the head that needed one” (Martin 122). The letter brings her glory, yet this honor works against her and results in pain (Martin 120). Everything about Hester from her appearance to her being now all implies a certain contribution to her letter. Clearly after everything Hester has been put through, she still cannot come to “hate her sin” (Martin 121). Because of this she succumbs to the entire letter brings upon her yet remains able to avoid becoming bitter.Hester’s secret serves as an “emblem” of different fates of the Puritan generation. “Hawthorne seems to adorn the subject rather than present it, conceal it with fancy needlework, so that the Capital A might have been thought to mean…anything other than adulteress” (Fiedler 250). He portrays the guilt as craftwork, which he attributes to Hester’s prototype: “sporting with her infamy, the lost and desperate creature had embroidered the fatal token with golden thread and the nicest art of needlework (Hawthorne 56). This suggests the symbol “A” may have represented the proceeding Foti 5ages “forgotten art” that was now replaced by the darkest shade of Puritanism. The Scarlet Letter is concerned not only with passion but also with America (another possible signification of Hester’s letter). “It attempts to find in the story of Hester and Dimmesdale a paradigm of the fall of love in the New World” (Fiedler 249). However the many interpretations of the letter “A”, the common symbol by readers is ̶...
