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Natural Imagery and Sin - The Scarlet Letter

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Natural imagery and sin are related in a way where nature gives sin a deeper and somewhat darker meaning. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the imagery of nature to depict sin in a deeper meaningful way like when Hawthorne goes from writing about something, to writing something using natural imagery to reveal the deeper meaning. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses natural imagery in most cases, to give something more emphasis and to give sin a darker and deeper meaning. If while one was reading The Scarlet Letter, they were to highlight a passage where nature is used, they would be able to find many passages containing nature. Hawthorne uses nature to add emphasis to anything he finds important, for example, “All these giant trees and boulders of granite seemed intent on making a mystery of the course of this small brook; fearing, perhaps, that, with its never-ceasing loquacity, it should whisper tales out of the heart of the heart of the old forest whence it flowed, or mirror its revelations on the smooth surface of the pool (Hawthorne 168).” What is going on here is that everything in the forest is depicted talking, listening, and somewhat taking notes on Hester and Dimmesdale’s conversation, basically eavesdropping on them. If read carefully, one can see all the detail that Hawthorne added that would not be normally needed. One other example of detail in nature comes right from the first chapter where at the prisons outer wall “rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rosebush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him (Hawthorne 46).” All the detail that is here like “rooted at the threshold," or “was a wild rosebush, [with its delicate gems]”, makes

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