Romantic Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter
As a Romantic writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses a great deal of imagery in his novel, The Scarlet Letter. An advocate of Romanticism, he often uses colors as well as lights and darks to introduce ideals of the Romantic movement. Woven carefully into the storyline, colors are used to contrast order versus spontaneity, the irrational over the rational, and society versus the individual. Light contrast, too, is applied to establish particular moods, reinstate Romantic themes, and emphasize morality. In this way, both colors and light play an integral role in the symbolic development of The Scarlet Letter.
From the very beginning of the novel, the color red is established as a symbol for sin. Although Henry James feels as though this application is "o