To Dimmesdale this implies that he should wear the mask of shame like Hester does, even though the community interprets the "A" in the sky as angel, marking Governor Winthrop's entry to heaven. ... The Scarlet Letter is one of the first American, symbolic novels, and has helped to influence the symbols used in the novel today. ...

• Word Count: 1366
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

Nathaniel Hawthorne used his writing skills to appropriately show the strict intolerant ways of the disciplined Puritan America of 1850, with his novel The Scarlet Letter. ... Towards the end of her life, the letter grows to mean "Angel", and "the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world's scorn and bitterness"(Hawthorne 229) and it was even "looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too." ( Hawthorne 260). ...

• Word Count: 2338
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School