Chillingworth In The Scarlet Letter

In the article “Three Orders: Natural, Moral and Symbolic” by Hyatt Howe Waggoner analyzes how three of the main importances of “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne are natural, moral, and symbolic components of the story. “The Scarlet Letter” is a figurative novel that has a lot of comparisons to the natural, moral, and symbolic pieces of the Puritan community. Hawthorne uses several different items to represent natural, moral and symbolic pieces in his novel. Waggoner’s article shows that Chillingworth is closely in relation to the weeds and black flowers in the cemetery, the letter Hester wears around her chest is close in relation to the red rose, and Pearl is exceedingly close in relation to the wild rose bush next to the prison.

Chillingworth can be viewed as sneaky, conniving, manipulating which is

Waggoner states, “Pearl is a difficult child, capricious, unintentionally cruel, unfeeling in her demand for truth, but she has both the ‘naturalness’ and the beauty of the rose, and like the rose she is a symbol of love and promise,” (Waggoner 335). Pearl is a symbol of her mother’s sin, but she Hawthorne doesn’t portray her character as a sin. She is a very beautiful young girl in their harsh Puritan community. Hawthorne proclaims, “We have spoken of Pearl’s rich and luxuriant beauty; a beauty that shone with deep and vivid tints,” (Hawthorne 69). Pearl’s beauty is natural she shows it through her imagination and spirituality. Pearl’s morals are represented the same as a wild rose-bushes could be presumed. She has a beautiful exterior like the wild-rose bush, but her personality represents the burrs because she can be very difficult to handle. She is symbolic because she shows that you don’t have to be the way everybody assumes you to be. In the Puritan village it is dark and gloomy, but the wild rose-bush proves that there can be a bright side to every