Besides the characters, the most obvious symbol is the scarlet letter itself, which has various meanings depending on its context. It is a sign of adultery, penance, and penitence. It brings about Hester’s suffering and loneliness and also provides her rejuvenation. In the book, it first appears as an actual material object in The Custom House preface. Then it becomes an elaborately gold-embroidered A over Hester’s heart and is magnified in the armor breast-plate at Governor Bellingham’s mansion. Here Hester is hidden by the gigantic, magnified symbol just as her life and feelings are hidden behind the sign of her sin.
Still later, the letter is an immense red A in the sky, a green A of eel-grass arranged by Pearl, the A on Hester’s dress decorated by Pearl with prickly burrs, an A on Dimmesdale’s chest seen by some spectators at the Election Day procession, and, finally, represented by the epitaph “On a field, sable, the letter A, gules” (gules being the heraldic term for “red”) on the tombstone Hester and Dimmesdale share.
In all these examples, the meaning of the symbol depends on the context and sometimes the interpreter. For example, in the second scaffold scene, the community sees the scarlet A in the sky as a sign that the dying Governor Winthrop has become an angel; Dimmesdale, however, sees it as a sign of his own secret sin. The community initially sees the letter on Hester’s bosom as a mark of just punishment and a symbol to deter others from sin. Hester is a Fallen Woman with a symbol of her guilt. Later, when she becomes a frequent visitor in homes of pain and sorrow, the A is seen to represent “Able” or “Angel.” It has rejuvenated Hester and changed her meaning in the eyes of the community.
