The Puritans saw the world through allegory, which is a kind of symbolic story. For them, natural events, like a meteor streaking through the sky, became religious or moral pronouncements on human events. Objects, such as the scaffold, were symbols for such concepts as sin and penitence. For the Puritans, nothing happened by chance. Ordinary people saw the presence of a mysterious and all-powerful God in daily events. For example, when Roger Chillingworth appears suddenly out of the wilderness and begins to treat the sickly Rev. Dimmesdale, the people of Boston see a "providential hand" in his "opportune" arrival.

The Scarlet Letter

The most obvious symbol in the novel is the scarlet letter itself, which has various meanings depending on its context. It is a sign of adultery, penance, and penitence. It brings about Hester's suffering and loneliness but also provides for her rejuvenation. Below are a few of things that the scarlet letter symbolizes:

1. History and memory: The entire novel springs from the tattered and faded red  A that the narrator discovers in the old customs house. His curiosity about the letter leads him to research the entire story of Hester Prynne.  
2. Shame and humiliation: The scarlet letter is imposed on Hester as an act of punishment. Its purpose is to publicly shame and humiliate her.
3. Passionate love: The scarlet letter symbolizes the passion of Hester's love for Dimmesdale.
4. Intolerance and hatred: The fancy embroidery in Hester's scarlet letter enrages the women in front of the courthouse. They would have preferred that this brazen hussy had worn plainer clothes and adopted a humbler attitude. So the letter also symbolizes Puritan vindictiveness..
5. Pride and defiance: The  elaborate embroidery and  fantastic flourishes of gold thread make the "A" look less like punishment than a fashionable accessory to Hester s outfit. Because of the beauty of this piece of embroidery, and Hester s  haughty and  not abashed attitude when she wears it, the letter symbolizes her defiance.
6. Personal spell or charm: The scarlet letter is Hester's personal charm. It protects her and Pearl and takes them out of "ordinary relations with humanity.
7. Pearl: Pearl is the living embodiment of the scarlet letter. Pearl  was the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life!
8. Strength and Endurance: When Hester starts helping the needy, the "A" represents "Able" or "Angel." It thus symbolizes Hester's strength and endurance.

Darkness vs. Light

Darkness is associated with concealment, evil, and deception. For example, Hester and Dimmesdale commit adultery and continue to meet in the dark forest. Dimmesdale stands on the scaffold during the darkness of midnight, thus concealing his crime. He and Hester's graves are always in shadow. Chillingworth is always associated with darkness. It is at night in the forest where Mistress Hibbens holds her witchcraft meetings, where she expects to meet the  Dark Man. Light is associated with openness and truth. When Hester steps out of the dark jail into the blinding sunlight at the beginning of the novel, her crime and her shame become public for all to see. Similarly, at the end of the novel, Dimmesdale confess his sin in the light of day for all to see..

Sunshine vs. Moonlight

Moonlight is associated with dreams and imagination, while sunlight is associated with harsh reality. Moonlight is suitable for dreams, imagination, and  romance writers. In "The Customs-House," Hawthorne's narrator explains that moonlight is the place where  the Actual and the Imaginary may meet, and each imbue itself with the nature of the other. Ghosts may enter here, without affrighting us. In other words, moonlight creates a world half real, half imaginary. Sunlight, in contrast, is hostile to imagination and creativity. Sunlight is associated with the harsh reality of Puritan justice and punishment.

Village vs. Forest

The Puritan village symbolizes Church and State. With its marketplace and scaffold, it embodies rigid rules, obsession with sin and punishment, and ruthless self-examination. Public humiliation and penance are symbolized by the scaffold, the only place where Dimmesdale can go to atone for his guilt and escape his tormentor's clutches. The collective community that watches, at the beginning and end, is a symbol of the rigid Puritan point of view with its unquestioning obedience to the law.

The forest, on the other hand, has two main symbolic functions. It is the home of the Black Man but also a place of freedom. First, the forest can symbolize darkness and evil. It is a place where witches gather, and souls are signed away to the devil, and Dimmesdale can "yield himself with deliberate choice...to what he knew was deadly sin." It is where Mistress Hibbens goes to meet the Black Man. Hester feels that the forest symbolizes the "moral wilderness" through which she has wandered for seven years.

The forest also represents freedom from Puritan conformity. Hawthorne describes the forest as pagan (pre-Christian), a place where the normal laws of Puritan society and the Christian religion do not apply. It is a "wild, heathen" place, "never subjugated by human law, nor illumined by higher truth. In this world, Hester can take off her cap, and let down her hair. Hester tells Dimmesdale that he might find freedom and happiness in the forest:  There thou art free! So a brief journey would bring thee from a world where thou has been most wretched, to one where thou mayest still be happy.

Illustrations by Hugh Thompson from The Scarlet Letter, an edition by George H. Doran Co., New York, printed by Morrison and Gibb Limited, Edinburgh, no date or copyright notice.