Student Question
What are some quotes from The Scarlet Letter about the colors white, black, and gray?
Quick answer:
In The Scarlet Letter, colors symbolize various themes. Black often represents sin and evil, as seen with characters like Chillingworth and the Puritan elders. White signifies tranquility, contrasting Pearl's vibrant nature. Gray reflects the somber Puritan lifestyle, with Hester's gray clothing symbolizing her attempt to blend in. The novel's final line describes Hester's tombstone, emphasizing the red "A" against a black background, highlighting themes of sin and identity.
Roger Chillingworth is often described as being similar to or actually being the "Black Man," the devil's messenger or the devil himself. This description occurs at the end of Chapter 4, when Hester wonders whether he will ruin her soul. Further, in Chapter 6, Pearl imagines the "pine-trees, aged, black, and solemn" during her play as the Puritan elders, connecting them to the sinfulness often associated with that color in this text.
In Chapter 6, Pearl is described as lacking the "calm, white unimpassioned lustre" of the gem for which she is named. If whiteness signifies tranquility, then Pearl certainly is not connected to it. However, as in something of great value, Pearl's name is appropriate; she cost her mother a great deal and helps keep her mother from committing further sins. Further, Pearl is described as having "wild, bright, deeply black eyes" in this chapter, and this...
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seems to contribute to the feeling that she is otherworldly, or not simply human but of nature as well.
At the end of Chapter 9, Indian healers are referred to as possessing a "black art," and Chillingworth, who practices this art, has a "visage [which] was getting sooty with the smoke" of hell. This he is linked, via the color, to the Indians (who, to the Puritans, were heathens who were bound for hell). In Chapter 21, the narrator references the "gray or sable tinge" that characterizes the "mood and manners of the age"; by this he means that the Puritans seem so dark and somber and joyless that the colors gray and black are most fitting to them. Therefore, it makes sense when, early in the same chapter, Hester is described as only ever wearing the color gray: her "garment of coarse gray cloth." She seems to be trying to fade away, to escape notice by blending in.
Finally, the last line of the text shares what Hester's tombstone says: "'On a field, sable, the letter A, gules.'" This description conjures an image of a red letter A backed by solid black.