Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
A scarlet letter A is embroidered on a woman's dress.
In plain terms
A woman wears a marked badge.
What can you take from it?
Symbols carry heavy social weight.

Where it applies

  • literary analysis
  • social critique
  • costume design

Putting it to work

  • analyze symbols
  • understand stigma

Questions to consider

  • What symbols define you?
  • How do societies judge?

Another view

The context is specific to one story.

More from Nathaniel Hawthorne

  1. The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest p…

    Permalink to quote #38
  2. In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvelous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present…

    Permalink to quote #40
  3. In view of my previous weariness of office, and vague thoughts of resignation, my fortune somewhat resembled that of a person who should entertain an idea of c…

    Permalink to quote #37

Related quotes

  1. Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by steppin…

    Nathaniel HawthorneNathaniel Hawthorne quote #1
  2. Let every man honor and love the land of his birth and the race from which he springs and keep their memory green. It is a pious and honorable duty. But let us…

    Henry Cabot LodgeHenry Cabot Lodge quote #1
  3. Everyone is the other, and no one is himself. The they, which supplies the answer to the who of everyday Da-sein, is the nobody to whom every Da-sein has alway…

    Martin HeideggerMartin Heidegger quote #1