Dolls House/ Scarlet Letter

The first 200 words of this essay...

Jasmin Van Malderen

Humanities

11 September 2011

Often, besides portraying the dynamic changing character straightforward, authors will interweave a certain object that symbolizes the protagonist throughout the course of the story. A couple good examples of this can be shown using Nathanial Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House. While both have different symbols, they both portray the women protagonists in the story, its meanings changing over time. For The Scarlet Letter, the protagonist Hester Prynne's symbol is the letter "A" sewn onto her dress while in A Doll's House, Nora Helmer's symbol is the Christmas tree her family gets for the holidays. In the beginning of the book, each symbol means one thing, while at the end of the story it takes on a completely new meaning, almost the opposite.

In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne's symbolic letter "A" retains a benevolent meaning by the end of the story, while at the beginning that was far from, somewhat opposite, of what it was supposed to mean. Adulterer. Accused of committing adultery while waiting years for her husband to come home to her, a scarlet letter "A" is embroidered upon the