preciousness. When the narrator says that these blooms seem to pity a proverbial prisoner who might exit through the door, he suggests that nature is a kind, moral force in the world.

Similes (in which two things are compared through the use of the words “like” or “as”) are one of the most common of all literary devices. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses a number of similes in the second chapter of his novel The Scarlet Letter, including the following:

• At one point the narrator describes how the town beadle (that is, an officer of justice) emerges from the jail

like a black shadow emerging into sunshine . . .

• At another point the narrator comments, concerning Hester, that

there were intervals when the whole scene, in which she was the most conspicuous object, seemed to vanish from her eyes, or, at least, glimmered indistinctly before them, like a mass of imperfectly shaped and spectral images.

• Finally, near the very end of the chapter, Hester recalls the hopes she once had of

a new life, but feeding itself on time-worn materials, like a tuft of green moss on a crumbling wall.

The first and third similes listed here present striking and literally colorful imagery; the second is far more abstract and indistinct, in a way that is perhaps appropriate to a description of “spectral images.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne uses lots of figurative language in his writing, and we can find a number of similes in chapter 3 of The Scarlet Letter.

At the beginning of the chapter, a stranger arrives in town. Although Hawthorne calls him a stranger, there is a recognition between him and Hester. Hawthorne uses two similes when he describes how the stranger looks at Hester:

It was carelessly at first, like a man chiefly accustomed to look inward, and to whom external matters are of little value and import, unless they bear relation to something within his mind. Very soon, however, his look became keen and penetrative. A writhing horror twisted itself across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly over them, and making one little pause, with all its wreathed intervolutions in open sight. (Emphasis added)

A simile is a comparison using the words like or as. Hawthorne uses this literary device to help us understand how the stranger's look changes once he realizes who Hester is. At first, he cares little for her, but once he recognizes her, he becomes fearful. By comparing the movement to a snake, Hawthorne helps us visualize this. As we continue to read the book, we might understand more why Hawthorne chooses to compare this man to a snake.

Hawthorne also uses similes to describe other characters:

There he stood, with a border of grizzled locks beneath his skull-cap, while his grey eyes, accustomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking, like those of Hester's infant, in the unadulterated sunshine. He looked like the darkly engraved portraits which we see prefixed to old volumes of sermons, and had no more right than one of those portraits would have to step forth, as he now did, and meddle with a question of human guilt, passion, and anguish. (Emphasis added)

The above quote describes John Wilson as he begins the questioning of Hester. Hester, however, refuses to name the father of her child:

"I will not speak!" answered Hester, turning pale as death. (Emphasis added)

Hawthorne uses a simile here to describe to us what Hester looks like, and by choosing to compare her to death, he also set the mood of the piece.

A metaphor is a comparison of two unalike things where one thing is said to be the other. In chapter 13, the narrator describes the spiritual connection created by Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale's common crime as an "iron link," as opposed to the connections that have previously united her to other humans—"links of flowers, or silk, or gold," and which have all been broken. However, the "iron link" of their connection can never be severed by either one of them.

In describing Hester's selfless service to others in the town, especially when their houses are touched by sickness, the narrator says that "Elsewhere the token of sin, [the scarlet letter] was the taper of the sick-chamber." Here, the badge of her dishonor is compared, via metaphor, to a candle that brings light and comfort to people in their need.

The narrator describes the effect that the scarlet letter has had on Hester's appearance. He says, "All the light and graceful foliage of her character had been withered up by this red-hot brand, and had long ago fallen away, leaving a bare and harsh outline." Her former physical beauty is compared to the leaves that adorn a tree, and it is as though all the leaves have fallen, leaving her "bare" like the tree in winter. Further, the scarlet letter is compared to a red-hot brand, as though it has burned away the beauty she once possessed.

Figurative language is a literary device that is the use of words in a non-literal sense to express more than the literal words can convey about a person, place, event, circumstance etc. Some common figurative language is  metaphor (e.g., his resolve is a rock); simile (e.g., she is like a rose); hyperbole (e.g., he is the rock of Gibraltar); symbol (e.g., a waterfall over the soul); personification (e.g., a type of metaphor that gives human qualities to non-humans: the rock shrieked with heat). Other forms of figurative language are apostrophe, synecdoche, metonymy, allegory, parable, paradox, understatement, irony. [See Figurative Language for more detail.]

Examples of figurative language in Chapter 17 of The Scarlet Letter are:
Symbol: pathway through life was haunted thus by a spectre that had stolen out from among his thoughts.

Symbol: the first encounter in the world beyond the grave of two spirits who had been intimately connected in their former life

Personification: the crisis flung back to them their consciousness,

Personification: The soul beheld its features

Metaphor: in the mirror of the passing moment

Personification: something slight and casual to run before and throw open the doors of intercourse,

Simile: Arthur Dimmesdale put forth his hand, chill as death

Hyperbole:  clutching at his heart, as if he would have torn it out of his bosom  

[Note: As the Encyclopedia Britannica says, the literary device of alliteration is often called a figure of speech when in fact it is a literary device better referred to as a "figure of sound."]

Chapter 19:

In her was visible the tie that united them. (Page numbers will vary depending on edition, but I will include those from my own book, for reference. Page 141)

This quote is a metaphor showing the bonds that Pearl creates. She is part Hester and part Arthur Dimmesdale, and for seven years she has quietly kept them bound together without even knowing it.

She had been offered to the world...as the living hieroglyphic, in which was revealed the secret they so darkly sought to hide. (Page 141)

This simile compares Pearl to hieroglyphs, which were symbols used by the ancient Egyptians in some of the earliest recorded forms of writing. To our modern society, these little symbols are almost like puzzles, each pictoral representation seeming to contribute a bit of meaning to a larger effort. Thus, Pearl is a representation of the shared and secretive past between Hester and Dimmesdale.

I have a strange fancy that this brook is the boundary between two worlds... (Page 143)

Hester's world collides with Dimmesdale's in this story. Her choices also collide with the expectations of those in her town. Hester's world is often seen as a different world than most people are afforded, and she often finds herself in conflict with those around her. This brook that divides her from Pearl in this section is also a metaphor for the ways Pearl is separated from her biological father and from the truth.

Chapter 20:

She was fair and pure as a lily that had bloomed in Paradise. (Page 150)

This simile references a young woman who has recently dedicated her life's work to the church following one of Dimmesdale's sermons. Lilies often symbolize innocence, but this one has been grown in Heaven itself. This further amplifies the innocent nature of the girl.

As she drew nigh, the arch-fiend whispered him to condense into small compass and drop into her tender bosom a germ of evil that would be sure to blossom darkly soon, and bear black fruit betimes. (Page 150)

Dimmesdale feels that Satan is pressing him to defile this girl's innocence in some way, and the metaphor of a seedling is used to show the way one small, dark act could be planted within her and allowed to grow. He realizes that if he is able to accomplish this, she would eventually bear "black," or evil "fruit" herself, meaning that he could destroy her innocence.

Heralded as one of the greatest works of American literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is replete with figurative language.  Here are some examples:

Chapter XIX

• "Had she gathered pearls, and diamonds, and rubies in the wood, they could not have become her better! (figurative language) (paragraph 1) Pearl's beauty is such that simple flowers adorn her as well as gems." (simile)
• "In her was visible the tie that united them. (metaphor--Pearl is the visible proof of the physical union of Hester and Dimmesdale)  (par.4)
• "She had been offered to the world,...as the living hieroglyphic (metaphor), in which was revealed the secret they so darkly sought to hide...." "Pearl was the oneness of their being." (metaphor)
• "Our Pearl is a fitful and fantastic little elf sometimes." (alliteration of /f/;metaphor)
• "Pearl....had strayed out of the sphere in which she and her mother dwelt together...." (metaphor)
• "'....this brook is the boundary between two worlds..." (metaphor)
• "Or is she an elfish spirit...foridden to cross a running stream?" (metaphor)
• "Thou canst leap like a young deer!" (simile)
• "in the mirror of the brook"
• "flower-girdled and sunny image of little Pearl" (figurative language)

Chapter XX

• "the Old World" (metaphor for England and Europe)
• "...a ship...roamed over its surface with a remarkable irresponsibility of character." (personification)
• "No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true." (figurative language, metaphor in "face" as putting on the appearance)
• "a single day had operated on his consciousness like the lapse of years." (simile)
• "I am not the man for whom you take me!  I left him yonder in the forest,..." (figurative language)
• "He absolutely trembled and turned pale as ashes" (simile)
• "this terror in his heart"  (metaphor for fear)
• "You carry it off like an old hand!" (simile)
• "Another man had returned out of the forest; a wiser one..." (metaphors)
• "administered by a friendly hand" (metonymy)
• "I hardly think to tarry with my flock..." (metaphor for congregation)
• "A good man's prayers are golden recompense!" (metaphor)
• ..."and only wondered that Heaven should see fit to transmit (personification) the grand and solemn music of its oracles (metaphor) through so foul and organ pipe as he. ( simile)

In Chapter 19 of The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne employs the figurative language of symbolism, analogy, simile, metaphor, and personification. Incidentally and interestingly enough, it is the non-literal figurative language (tropes) in Chapter 19 that answers the oft asked question, "What is the meaning of Pearl?"

Some of these are seen as follows. Hawthorne starts with symbolism in Pearl's name (foreshadowing the importance of this chapter to understanding the meaning of Pearl) and ends the chapter with personification as he gives the forest and the brook human characteristics. The forest has "multitudinous tongues" and the brook is "melancholy" and "overburdened." The symbol of Pearl's name is drawn out in the analogy comparing Pearl's adornment of wild flowers to the adornment of "pearls, and diamonds, and rubies."

Another analogy is introduced by Dimmesdale and compares his looks to Pearl's as his features are "repeated in her face" for people to "trace whose child she is." Hawthorne carries the analogy further via a symbol making Pearl the "visible tie that united" Dimmesdale and Hester. Using a simile, he continues the analogy further still by saying Pearl is "as the living hieroglyph" in which their "secret ... so darkly" hides. He finalizes the analogy by declaring Pearl is a "symbol" in which the "character of the flame!" of the heat of the passion that joined Dimmesdale and Hester could be read. Hawthorne uses metaphor to say that Pearl is symbolically Dimmesdale and Hester's "material union," or physical union, their "spiritual idea," in whom they "dwell immortally together."

In another metaphor spoken by Hester, Pearl is a "fitful and fantastic little elf" from England, whom Hester thus sets up as a foreshadow of their expected happiness. Hawthorne emphasizes Pearl's other-worldly qualities with a Biblical allusion and foreshadowing of his own when he describes Pearl as being "all glorified with a ray of sunshine." Glorification alludes to Jesus' transfiguration in the garden and, in company with the dual Pearls (on the shore and in the brook), foretells Pearl's own upcoming transfiguration, but one of a different nature and one foretelling in its own right an alternate outcome of Hester's expectations. Later, Hawthorne also bathes Hester in a simile of sunshine:

her beauty, the warmth and richness of her womanhood, departed, like fading sunshine.

Figurative language is any wording that helps create an enhanced picture in the reader's mind of what is going on. In its broadest sense, it can include any number of deliberate techniques that enhance the effectiveness of the writing (see list of literary devices).

Hawthorne adopts a slightly archaic style so that his diction seems a little unnatural, but not so much as to be fully off-putting: "Betimes on the morning of the day" is slightly archaic.

Descriptions of the "little metropolis" draw on prior symbols. Hester had earlier been described as having lost her human warmth and womanhood and as becoming like a statue; here her face is "marble" and she is "actually dead." Pearl had been described as lacking humanity and is again described as a "bird" flitting about.

Reading the heart is idiomatic and cliche, but it also connects to Hawthorne's enterprise in The Custom House prologue to craft a type of fiction, which he calls Romance, that involves such imaginative acts of reading, in comparison to what passed as fiction or information in the day.

The village is described as being temporarily relieved of its "customary cloud" which is a metaphor for the brooding Puritan atmosphere normally in force. The dreary atmosphere of the Puritan colony is contrasted to Elizabethan England, the birthplace of many of the settlers, called "a sunny epoch." The narrator suggests that had these Puritans not been in the first zeal of their theocracy, they might have celebrated more festivities, which he describes as the "grotesque and brilliant embroidery to the great robe of state," an obvious allusion to the scarlet letter on Hester's gown.

The narrator also laments that many of the Elizabethan forms of recreation were absent from the New World, most notably theatrical performances. This is a foreshadowing of what is to come in that the scaffold scene offers a type of stage on which the drama plays out between Arthur and Hester.

One can say, then, that Hawthorne uses figurative language in this chapter, as in many others, to layer a sense of the village and the characters within it. He seems to be offering the reader a somewhat objective set of observations about a distant past ("a picture of human life in the market-place"), but in each of his sentences, he seems to be using diction and syntax to infuse the image with a heightened sensibility. Hawthorne doesn't often present direct images, but shows them aslant so as to give the reader the type of vision Hawthorne describes in The Custom House:

Moonlight, in a familiar room, falling so white upon the carpet, and showing all its figures so distinctly,—making every object so minutely visible, yet so unlike a morning or noontide visibility,—is a medium the most suitable for a romance-writer to get acquainted with his illusive guests. There is the little domestic scenery of the well-known apartment; the chairs, with each its separate individuality; the centre-table, sustaining a work-basket, a volume or two, and an extinguished lamp; the sofa; the bookcase; the picture on the wall;—all these details, so completely seen, are so spiritualized by the unusual light, that they seem to lose their actual substance, and become things of intellect.

Even in as common a description as a group of people gathering to see a ceremonial procession, Hawthorne finds a way to "spirititualize" what is seen and to make each individual a "thing of intellect."

In this chapter, the narrator refers to Hester as "the people's victim and life-long bond-slave."  This is a metaphor that describes the way Hester feels and has felt for quite a long time; she very much feels victimized by their treatment of her.  Further, Hester's many years spent lonely and victimized lead the narrator to compare those painful years to a "draught of [...] wormwood and aloes," another metaphor to describe the bitterness of Hester's punishment and life since her sin was found out.

Pearl's bright and colorful garments are also compared via metaphor to a "butterfly's wing" or a "bright flower," further strengthening her association with nature.  While Hester's brow is compared to "marble" (another metaphor), Pearl is matched, via simile, with a "bird."  

Pearl also uses personification to describe the "old trees" in the forest, trees which she says "can hear," as well as the sky, which she says can see.  The Puritans, however, are characterized as living a life "tint[ed] [with] sad gray, brown, or black," and the "mood and manners of the age" are described as being of "gray or sable tinge."  These colors are all symbols of austerity, muted emotion, and a certain darkness of character.  

Finally, the space around Hester is described as a "magic circle" into which no one will step, another metaphor: there is no magic, only the ill feelings of the other townspeople.  

With his seminal novel, Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne sets in motion the American predilection for symbol.  And, while symbols are the predominant literary device, there are others that are employed such as imagery and irony:

SYMBOL

• The Scarlet Letter which first represents the sin of adultery that Hester has committed.  Later in the novel, this symbol's meaning changes to that of Angel as Scarlet so selflessly devotes herself to helping the ill of the community.  Then, as Hester nurses the ailing and aged, and sews for others, her symbolic A represents the word Able.
•  The character Pearl herself is a symbol, representing the sins and passions of her parents, Scarlet and the Reverend Dimmesdale.  In the forest Pearl arranges eel-grass to form a green A on her own breast.
• The characters of the Reverend Mr. Wilson Governor Bellingham, and Mistress Hibbins are symbolic of the Puritan worlds of church, state, and witchcraft respectively.
• The groups of unnamed somber and self-righteous Puritans in the market place who talk of Hester are also representative of Puritanism in general.
• The iron door, "the black flower of society," and scaffold are symbols of the restrictiveness and humiliation doled out by the Puritan community.
• The scaffold also represents the open acknowledgment of personal sin.
• The rose outside the prison is the tenacious passion and independence of Hester Prynne that no scaffold or punishment can kill.
• The letter A upon the breast of the Reverend Dimmesdale represents his guilt over his secret-sin.
• The letter A against the black background on Hester and Dimmesdales' tombstone serves to unite them in their transgression and love.
• Night is used as a symbol for concealment and day for exposure.
• The sun is used as a symbol of untroubled, guiltless happiness; it also represents the approval of nature and of God.
• The forest represents the world of darkness and evil.  It also represents the natural world away from the Puritan community where Pearl can run freely and where Hester can take down her hair and be affectionate with Dimmesdale.

IMAGERY

• Light/dark imagery comes into play especially when Hester and Pearl are in the forest and the shadows fall on Hester.
• Gray is a predominant color used to represent the Puritan austerity.  The opening paragraph of the novel depicts the Puritans' in their "sad-coloured garments and grey, steeple-crowned hats..." before the iron dor studded with "iron spikes."
• Green is used to refer to nature. In the forest, a natural setting away from the Puritan community, Pearl makes an A upon her breast with green eel-grass.
• Black is used to connote evil and the sinister character of Roger Chillingworth as well as the "Black Man" who performs the Satan's Mass in the primeivel forest.

IRONY

• When Hester brings Pearl to the governor's mansion, the governor, himself a Puritan, has a fantastic home with suits of armor with a sword and resplendent ornamental English garden and stained glass windows. There the Reverend Wilson, a prominent Puritan clergyman, both delight in the sight of the crimson-attired Pearl, who recalls for them their "days of vanity, in old King james's time, when [the governor] attended a mask."  And, the Rev. Wilson recalls,"Methinks I have seen just such figures, when the sun has been shining through a richly painted window, and tracing out the golden and crimson images across the floor.  But that was in the old land. [An Anglican church!]  The leaders of the Puritan colony are themselves hypocrites, yet they condemn Hester.
• When Rev. Dimmesdale confesses to the congregation that he is "the worst of sinners," the congregation interprets his words as an attempt at humility, and, instead, "did but reverence him  the more."  While Dimmesdale wants the crowd to shun him, but they do and think just the opposite.

Hawthorne presents the Puritans in a stereotypically stern and somber way.  The narrator describes the men as wearing "sad-colored garments, and gray, steeple-crowned hats" and the women as having a great deal in common with "the manlike Elizabeth"; this is an unflattering allusion to Queen Elizabeth I of England who was, in many ways, masculine in her speech, her assumption of power, and her will.  He notes the "severity of the Puritan character" and the combination of their religion with their laws.  Moreover, he paints them as incredibly unsympathetic and even cruel, especially in their judgment of Hester.  Despite the injunctions against judging others, the Puritans were "self-constituted judges" of this sinner.  This is certainly a fulfillment of the Puritan stereotype that even we still have.

The narrator also describes Hester as an "image of Divine Maternity," alluding to the Virgin Mary.  This is an ironic comparison and allusion because Hester's baby was brought into the world through her sin, and the Virgin Mary's baby was supposed to be the savior of the world.  It certainly helps to show us how wrong Hawthorne believes the Puritans to be in their judgment of Hester.

In the third chapter, the narrator describes the man we later learn to be Hester's husband with an allusion to the Garden of Eden.  He says, "A writhing horror twisted itself across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly over them [...]."  Snakes, because the Devil appeared as a snake to tempt Eve into sinfulness, are often associated with evil, and that association certainly fits here because of Chillingworth's terrible capacity for evil in the novel.

Further, in the fourth chapter, Hester refers to Chillingworth as "the Black Man," an allusion -- like the snake in the previous chapter -- to the Devil. 

Well, there are certainly plenty allusions for you to find! I will pick out one historical allusion for you and comment upon it, and hopefully this will give you the idea of how to work out what they mean, and above all, how Hawthorne is using them in this excellent novel.

At the end of Chapter 6, which concerns itself with the character of Pearl, Hester is thinking of the strange ways of Pearl and how some gossiping villagers insist that because the father has never been found she is the offspring of the Devil. Note how the author finishes this chapter:

Luther, according to the scandal of his monkish enemies, was a brat of that hellish breed; nor was Pearl the only child to whom this inauspicious origin was assigned, among the New England Puritans.

Luther here refers to the figure of Martin Luther, who was the leading figure in the Reformation in Germany. His revision of Christianity argued that salvation was to be won by faith rather than works. Here, then, this allusion allows Hawthorne to make an ironic comment on the Puritans belief that actually it was through works that they would be saved.

There are several historical allusions in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.  For instance,

• The Custom House alluded to in the Preface is, indeed, a real building where Hawthorne worked. 
• The character of the governor's sister is modeled after a real person
• A real person, Richard Bellingham, who came to America in 1634 and was elected as governor of the English colony in 1641, 1654, and 1655 is alluded to with the character of Governor Bellingham.
• Representative of the actual historical figure Ann Hibbins, who was executed for witchcraft in 1656, the sister of the governor, who is also a witch, Mistress Hibbins makes several appearances in the narrative.
• The Reverend Wilson is a character modeled upon John Wilson, a minister who came to America in 1630. He was a strong figure of Puritan authority and intolerance.

Allusions -- especially to the Bible -- appear frequently in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter. Other kinds of allusions also appear. Many of them are discussed in detail in a book by Richard Kopley titled The Threads of the Scarlet Letter, which has been described by its publisher (The University of Delaware Press) as follows:

The Threads of The Scarlet Letter offers new discoveries regarding the origins of Hawthorne's masterpiece, as well as critical interpretations based on these discoveries. Relying on a blend of close reading, biographical analysis, and archival research, this book demonstrates anew the power of traditional scholarship. The Threads of The Scarlet Letter illuminates Hawthorne's transformation of Poe's celebrated tale "The Tell-Tale Heart" and Lowell's long-neglected poem "A Legend of Brittany" and, identifying the hitherto-unknown author of the seminal narrative "The Salem Belle," investigates Hawthorne's brilliant borrowing from that novel as well. The present volume argues that Hawthorne repeatedly attenuated his sources, but also allowed sufficient detail to permit their recognition. Furthermore, this volume elaborates Hawthorne's reworking of formal traditions inThe Scarlet Letter—traditions that importantly clarify the meaning of the whole. The Scarlet Letter is shown to be a complex rendering of man's fall and redemption, and a triumphant assertion of literary vocation. The Threads of The Scarlet Letter includes a useful bibliographical overview of the history of the study of the origins of Hawthorne's greatest work. Richard Kopley is Associate Professor of English for Penn State DuBois and Head of the Division of English for Penn State Commonwealth College.