devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil's office.

Chillingworth's appearance has changed so because he has undertaken the "constant analysis" of a heart that is tortured; he has violated the secrets of Dimmesdale's heart.  In fact, Hester tells him that he has "burrowed and rankled" in the minister's heart, stealing the life from Dimmesdale. To this Chillingworth agrees, as the "lurid fire in his heart blaze(s)" before Hester's sight.  In seeking his revenge upon the lover of Hester, Chillingworth has transformed from a scholar into a devilish man who realizes that he has become a fiend, but who feels that he can do nothing to stop his being from becoming evil, telling Hester, "It is our fate."

In this chapter, therefore, both Hester and Chillingworth are touched by the marks of sin, which are symbolized by red.  Hester wears the scarlet A, which no official will order removed from her breast; she must live out her punishment. Chillingworth's eyes look red, his heart emits "a lurid fire."  He even admits to having become a fiend as he punishes and tortures the heart of Arthur Dimmesdale and virtually steals the man's soul, but he contends that he cannot be anything else, for as he tells Hester, "It is our fate."

The first sentence of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter says just about everything that must be said about the Puritan lifestyle, at least according to Hawthorne.

A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.

A throng of people, probably a good portion of the community, was gathered in their "sad-colored" clothing in front of a door which we find out in the next sentence belongs to a prison. These somber Puritans have gathered not for church but to see the spectacle which will emerge from the prison door. 

That spectacle is the adulteress, Hester Prynne, and her newborn daughter, and the people are here to ensure that she receives a suitably harsh punishment: standing on the scaffold in her shame, bearing the insults directed at her, wearing a giant "A" on her chest, and listening to haranguing sermons about her sin.

Some of the ladies in town think this is not enough:

"The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch,—that is a truth," added a third autumnal matron. "At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead. Madame Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she,—the naughty baggage,—little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!"

The Puritan lifestyle is one of guilt and punishment, hidden sin and hypocrisy. Though of course everyone in town commits sin, those whose sins become public are shamed, ostracized, or killed. Church is where the Puritans go to have those beliefs reinforced, and the forest is where they go to commit their secret sins. While the sins of adultery and witchcraft are called out, put on display, and punished, hypocrisy, gossip, and treating one's neighbor as less than oneself are perfectly acceptable in this Puritan community.

Just as their thoughts center around guilt, shame, and sin (either in others or in themselves) so do their lives. They do not pursue pleasure except illicitly and they do not tolerate those who fail to conform to the strict moral code of their community, as demonstrated by the throng waiting for Hester outside the prison door. 

Hawthorne's use of color in The Scarlet Letter is certainly meant to be symbolic, especially when you look at his use of color contrast.

The two colors most often referenced throughout the novel are red and black, and white (often portrayed as "light") is used in contrast to these.  First, consider the use of the color red, or scarlet.  Hester is sentenced to the punishment of wearing a red letter 'A' upon her chest forever.  In contrast to the dull tans and browns that most Puritans would have been wearing, the color red would stick out as something shamefully bright and ironically beautiful.  Red here could symbolize a burning fire (of shame or of hell) as this letter causes Hester to feel physically and emotionally punished.  Pearl is also described as looking very similar to the scarlet letter that Hester must wear.  In this way Pearl and the letter on Hester's chest come to represent the same shame and the same ironic beauty of one another.

The color black is most often used in conjunction with description of Chillingworth (the "black man") and description of the forest.  Here, black directly symbolizes evil.  Chillingworth, as a character, is set on revenge.  His heart does not harbor forgiveness, but is instead darkened by evil and sin.  Also, as a doctor, he combines western medicine with the "dark arts" of the natives.  His physical and psychological "remedies" for Dimmesdale's sickness only bring more weakness.  The black symbolism used for Chillingworth is directly contrasted by Dimmesdale's pale countenance.

Further, the forest is described as dark and full of shadows.  The forest itself is meant to represent something outside of the Puritan society, and is therefore considered evil.  This is where Mistress Hibbins is said to conduct her witchcraft.  This is also where Dimmesdale and Hester meet for the first time away from the community.  In the scenes in the forest, the shadows follow Hester and the sunlight follows Pearl, contrasting the sin and shame of the mother with the purity of the child.  Here, red, black, and white come together for the first time, reflecting change in each character.  Hester casts off her red letter (momentarily) and feels a sense of lightness (and sunlight) on her for the first time in years.  Dimmesdale's health is momentarily restored by his connection to Hester, and his pale cheek gains a bit of a blush (red).  Throughout this scene, the sunlight through the trees causes the shadows to move about but always seems to remain on Pearl.  This creates the sense of movement and change, but suggests that Pearl is a constant, and is pure.

Frequently cited as the greatest novel in American literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter also presents many interpretive difficulties, some of which derive from the meanings attached to the symbols. Indeed, in his work, Hawthorne expands the import of certain symbols in order to create his signature ambiguity; but, maybe also to demonstrate the importance of not limiting the perception of a symbol as a single concept.

• The Scarlet Letter

Although the A signifies her adultery, in her artistic and elaborate fashioning of this symbol, Hester defies Puritan conventions of simplicity; so, it also pronounces her passion and individuality.  Hester's gesture of pressing her baby closely against her letter as she stands on the humiliating scaffold indicates that little Pearl, too, is a scarlet letter--the incarnation of Hester's sin.

By Chapter VIII, however, some of the townspeople "refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification," perceiving it as signifying Hester's great ability to tend to and sympathize with the ailing. Thus, the meaning of the symbol changes to "Abel"/Able, or even "Angel."

Interestingly, in Chapter XIII the scarlet letter "has not done its office" of disgracing and isolating Hester although her womanliness has certainly been diminished by it as she now does not have the luxuriant hair or the "face for Love" that she once possessed. In place of these feminine attributes, Hester now wears her letter as "the symbol of her calling." It has

the effect of the cross on a nun's bosom. It imparted to the wearer a kind of sacredness, which enabled her to walk securely amid all peril. Had she fallen among thieves, it would have kept her safe,

Further, when Hester toses it away in the forest into the brook, Pearl refuses to cross until her mother replaces this symbol. For, it has become such a part of her identity to the child. And, in Chapter XXIV, after many years in England, Hester returns to the Puritan village and takes up the letter that she has long ago dropped in the cottage. Now it a part of her identity, symbolizing her penitence and grace:

a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked up with awe, yet with reverence too.

For the Reverend Dimmesdale, the scarlet letter that is on his heart causes him much spiritual anguish, "burn[ing] in secret." His letter symbolizes secret sin.

"Happy are you Hester that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret!" 

• Dimmesdale's hand over his heart

Repeatedly in the narrative, the minister places his hand on his heart as though tortured by his secret. Pearl wonders if the Black Man placed his mark on the minister.

• The Black Man

Believing that evil a separate entity, Puritans felt one embraced it in the primeval forest, alluded to frequently. However, Chillingworth's increasing resemblance to this Black Man raises the question of evil's presence in the hearts of men.

• The Forest

Hawthorne's repeated use of the adjective "primeval" with "forest" suggests the unknown and the uncivilized to the Puritans. Yet, it is also a location in which Hester's and Dimmesdale's passions are released, where Pearl was conceived and where they can freely be themselves together.Without the constraints of society, the minister is released from his hypocritical pretense of holiness and truth while Hester's feminine beauty returns. The forest also represents her moral wilderness "as intricate and shadowy, as the untamed forest."

In writing The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne wished to convey to the reader a number of important ideas. Like a lot of writers, especially those of the first rank, he sought to do this through symbolism, which involves the expression of an idea through a specific object or person.

Instead of deluging the reader with several ideas, Hawthorne wisely decides to let symbols do the talking. Among other things, this ensures that readers do not feel as if they're being lectured at by the author.

In examining the symbolism of The Scarlet Letter, one should bear in mind that most of the ideas that Hawthorne wishes to convey are related to religion in some form or another. The central symbol of the story—which is, of course, the eponymous scarlet letter—is itself religious and represents the sin of adultery that Hester Prynne has committed and for which she's been punished by her local community.

Religious language tends towards the symbolic rather than the literal. All of the great world religions emerged in communities where complex ideas could only be conveyed by the use of myth, allegory, and, of course, symbol.

It is not surprising, then, that Hawthorne should invest The Scarlet Letter, which concerns the goings-on in a deeply religious community, with so many symbols. He may not have much time for the Puritans and their beliefs, but he still realizes the importance of symbols in conveying deep truths about the human condition.

One notable feature of Hawthorne's use of symbolism in The Scarlet Letter is the way he subverts the symbols used by the God-fearing Puritans of Salem. In ostracizing Hester for her sins, these people have effectively turned her into a symbol of all that's wicked and perverted. However, Hawthorne turns Hester into a symbol of personal and spiritual growth. By the same token, the people of Salem see Dimmesdale as the living embodiment of all that's good in the world. Hawthorne, on the other hand, presents this secret sinner as a symbol of moral and spiritual hypocrisy.

In both of these examples, Hawthorne skillfully appropriates the Puritans' symbols and turns them into something completely different.

The Scarlet Letter is an allegory and therefore the major characters symbolize various traits associated with their characters. However, Hawthorne also believed in the duality of meaning, so some characters represent more than one idea. For example, at first, Hester represents a sinner, an adulteress. As the novel progresses, she begins to represent strength and honesty.

Dimmesdale's inability to admit his guilt and the debilitating effects this has on his health help point to the symbolism he represents, cowardice and the consequences of hidden sin. Chillingworth represents evil and retribution and the effects those sins. His behavior eventually leads to greater physical deformity. After Dimmesdale's death, Chillingworth dies because he not longer has a reason to live. Pearl is another character who can represent more than one thing. At first, she seems to represent judgement. She is a constant reminder to Hester of Hester's sin and her behavior is very strange. She refuses to come to her mother when she removes the scarlet letter during the forest scene with Dimmesdale. However, she also represents innocence. She had nothing really to do with her parent's sin and, as a result, she ends up the happiest of all the characters, rich because of Chillingworth's money and happily married.

In Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, he draws the reader's attention to the society of the Puritans, which was a combination of church and state. The Puritans had left England to avoid persecution by those who were intolerant of their strict beliefs and lifestyle. Ironically, when they arrived in the colonies, they went about doing exactly the same thing: showing intolerance for others.

In understanding the power of the scarlet "A," we must have an "appreciation" for Puritanism in general. Hawthorne is said to have been greatly influenced by the fact that his grandfather had been a part of the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts. Hawthorne looked very carefully into the heart of Puritanism.

In a historical context...

[The Puritans] sought to establish an ideal community in America that could act as a model...for what they saw as a corrupt civil and religious order in England...Directed toward the realization of such an ideal, the Puritans required a strict moral regulation...

In light of the worldview of the Puritans, it is safe to say that there was no room for imperfection within their ranks. People were punished if they fell asleep during worship, failed to attend worship, or failed to act in a sober manner in church. One fine for failing to do so was paid with tobacco, which was "the currency of the colony." The theocracy present among the Puritans is seen as ministers were required to remind their congregation of the laws that bound them simply with regard to church attendance:

...parishioners were reminded that failure to attend church twice each day was punishable...first...by the loss of a day's food. A second [time]...by a whipping and a third by six months of rowing in the colony's galleys.

Proper behavior was expected of adults and children. The Puritans were extremely harsh, their laws particularly rigid and inflexible. A sea captain who returned home on a Sunday, after being away for three years, kissed his wife in public and was sentenced to "several hours of public humiliation in the stocks."

A thief might been branded or hanged, even if stealing food. Petty crimes dealing with lesser offenses (public drunkenness, etc.) might well land one in the stocks or pillory. Punishments were generally delivered in public—humiliation an additional source of suffering for the "criminal."

The basis of the law was found in the presence of sin. And Puritans believed that sin was everywhere. So were those who watched each other for any indication of wrongdoing. (This, of course, was the mindset in the advent of the witch trials in Salem.)

Sex was an area of concern. Bestiality resulted in hanging (while the animals were also "executed"). Adultery was also a criminal offense. One young married woman convicted of adultery was sentenced to hang, as was one of the men who confessed having been with her. Hester Prynne was not hanged because she was pregnant, but was forced to wear her shame publicly each day in the form of a scarlet "A" on the bodice of her gown.

So the scarlet "A" is not synonymous of Puritanism per se, but its lack of tolerance and humanity, its penchant for exposing a person's sin for all to see, and a lack of understanding with regard to the New Testament's message of forgiveness. The scarlet "A" brings to mind the harsh treatment by Puritans for those within their own community, and reminds us of a group of people who found satisfaction in punishing each other. Their religion eventually disappeared.

This is a difficult question to answer concisely, but in general, here are several aspects of Hawthorne's version of Puritan communities as portrayed in The Scarlet Letter.

1. Hypocritical: It is not by accident that the author chooses a Puritan minister to be the mysterious father of Hester's illegitimate child.  He strives to show that not only is Dimmesdale able to deliver masterful sermons from the pulpit while struggling privately with his sins, but his parishioners are easily fooled by his outward purity because they base their opinion on the visible aspects of a person.

2. Judgmental/Self-righteous: The townspeople think nothing of condemning Hester publicly nor holding her sin against Pearl when all of them struggle with their own sins.  Hester recognizes this as she matures and becomes more at peace with who she is.  She knows that each person has his/her own scarlet letter, but that they simply aren't as visible as hers.  When the Puritans can judge and punish others, it makes them feel better about themselves and their "purity."

3. Superficial: Because the Puritans seem to study the exterior others and disregard their true character, they place value on unimportant elements such as Rev. Dimmesdale's good looks, fancy, ornate clothing (such as Hester sews for them), and Chillingworth's seemingly innocuous appearance.  Only the characters who have practiced self-examination such as Hester and Chillingworth look at people for who they really are.

The opening chapter of this novel, following the narrator's account of his time in the Customs House, makes a very interesting observation about the New World that the Puritans voyaged to, with such hopes of creating a new Garden of Eden where they could follow God as their conscience dictated without fear of persecution:

The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognised it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetry, and another portion as the site of a prison.

Thus it is that the opening chapter of this book features "A throng of bearded men, is sad coloured garments and grey, steeple-crowned hats," gathering around the prison. Hawthorne could be viewed as poking gentle fun at Puritanism and colonial society here. In spite of their grand dreams of establishing a utopia, or a perfect place in the New World, they have to accept that the frailty of human nature makes it vital that they construct a cemetry and a prison. In spite of grand hopes for a "new start" and a "blank slate," human nature is not so easily changed, and crime and deviance still exists and still needs to be punished. Note too the way in which the Puritans themselves are presented as being rather serious and depressing, both in the colour of their garb and with their beards, but also with the fascination that the prison exerts, shown by the large crowd gathered around the prison as the novel begins.

At the beginning of The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne comments in some detail on the Puritan way of life and its system of punishment. The novel opens in Prison Lane, outside Boston jail, where a crowd has gathered. The author notes the forbidding expressions on their faces:

Amongst any other population, or at a later period in the history of New England, the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people would have augured some awful business in hand.

Hawthorne then describes the principal punishments, public whipping and hanging, and the minor or imaginary crimes for which they are inflicted, such as witchcraft, public drunkenness, or religious heterodoxy. Children or servants might even be whipped for laziness, if their parents or masters thought they deserved the sanction of the law.

The Puritan way of life is clearly linked with the system of punishment they have adopted. These people are narrowly and self-consciously virtuous and always vigilant to ensure that their neighbors follow the same rigid code of morals. Since they value their own respectability so highly, public disgrace is one of the worst sanctions they can imagine, which is why they make frequent use of it in matters too minor to merit hanging.

A 2,000 word essay is lengthy, and will require quite a bit of research at the beginning.  Certainly, your essay could be organized according to the three inclusion points listed.  You might aim to write 2 paragraphs on each point (though, logically, I would suggest you switch the order of point 1 and point 2).  Once you add an introduction and conclusion to the paper, you should have about 8 paragraphs total.  If each paragraph is 250 words in length, you'll have met your goal.

In order to help you get started on this assignment, I encourage you to brainstorm answers and ideas for each of the three inclusion points listed.  Most of this information is readily available on the Internet by conducting a basic search using keywords: Puritans, Puritanism, Puritanism in The Scarlet Letter.  Some basic information includes:

• Puritans refers to a number of Protestant groups whose purpose was to “purify” the Church of England
• Their theology stressed humanity’s inherent evil; they believed that all humans were sinners and deserved eternal damnation.
• They also believed in the mercy of God and that “the elect” would be saved through the death of Jesus Christ.
• The question that ruled their lives: How do you know if you are “saved” or “damned?”
• Puritans lived in fear of God's wrath; they created several "Biblical" rules and the people followed them out of fear.
• Magistrates, ministers, and governors, however, hypocritically acted as judges of others and considered themselves already "saved."
• The characters in The Scarlet Letter represent different people in a Puritan society.  Hester is a sinner living in judgement and fear.  Dimmesdale is a minister pretending to be righteous (for the people) but hiding his sin in secret agony.  Chillingworth is an outsider representing ideas from "savages" and the outside world; he seeks to punish Dimmesdale through guilt and manipulation.  Other magistrates, the governor, and the townspeople act as hypocrites, judges, and societal influences on the main characters.

The links below will supply you with additional helpful information in your research.