What Does the Scarlet Letter A Mean?
One letter, three meanings, and a book about how symbols change
The scarlet A stands for adultery. Hester is forced to wear it after having a child while her husband is away. But Hawthorne never actually writes the word, and the novel shows the letter's meaning changing: years later many people say it stands for Able, because of Hester's strength and kindness, and an A seen in the night sky is read as Angel.
The book is really about how a community decides what a symbol means, and how a person can change it.
The meanings of the A
| Meaning | Who sees it that way | When |
|---|---|---|
| Adultery | The town's leaders and the crowd | From the first chapter |
| Able | The poor and sick Hester helps | Years into the story |
| Angel | Townspeople who see an A in the sky | The night Governor Winthrop dies |
| A mark of shared guilt | Dimmesdale, privately | Throughout |
| A part of who she is | Hester herself | At the end of her life |
Why is the A for adultery?
Hester's husband has been missing for two years when she gives birth. The colony's laws treat that as a crime, and the magistrates sentence her to stand on the scaffold and to wear a scarlet A on her chest for the rest of her life. They hope the letter will make her an example and a warning. Hester, though, embroiders it with gold thread, turning a badge of shame into something almost splendid.
↑ Back to the topHow does it come to mean Able?
Over the years Hester nurses the sick, sews for the poor and comforts people in trouble. She asks for nothing, and many people begin to say the A means Able, so strong is she. The symbol has not changed; the people looking at it have.
↑ Back to the topThe A in the sky
On the night Dimmesdale stands on the scaffold in the dark with Hester and Pearl, a meteor lights up the sky. Dimmesdale sees in it a great red A, a sign of his own guilt. The next morning a townsman tells him that people saw an A in the sky and took it to mean Angel, because the governor had died that night. The same sign means two opposite things to different eyes.
↑ Back to the topDoes Dimmesdale have an A?
Hawthorne deliberately leaves it uncertain. When Dimmesdale confesses on the scaffold, he tears open his shirt, and some witnesses say they saw a scarlet letter on his chest, which they explain in different ways. Others insist they saw nothing at all. The reader has to decide whether the mark was real, imagined, or a sign of guilt made visible.
↑ Back to the topPearl as the letter
Pearl is often called the scarlet letter in living form. Hester dresses her in red and gold. From infancy the child fixes on the A, pelting it with flowers, asking what it means and refusing to come near her mother in the forest until it is back in place. She is the consequence the letter stands for, and its brightest, most loving side.
↑ Back to the topThe final A
At the end, Hester and Dimmesdale share one gravestone, marked with a red A on a black background, like a coat of arms. After a life of being defined by the letter, Hester is remembered by it, but its meaning has become her own.
↑ Back to the topMore about The Scarlet Letter
Books Like The Scarlet Letter
The PearlJohn Steinbeck
All Quiet on the Western FrontErich Maria Remarque
Animal FarmGeorge Orwell
Catch-22Joseph Heller
A Handful of DustEvelyn Waugh
The Day of the LocustNathanael West
The Picture of Dorian GrayOscar Wilde
Wuthering HeightsEmily BrontëThis guide discusses the whole plot, including the ending.