In the 1600's, while searching through a dusty room in the Custom House in Salem, Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hawthorne came across a piece of red fabric and several pages written about a woman of humiliation and shame. With these few pieces of evidence and a knowledge of how it could have been, Hawthorne wrote his novel The Scarlet Letter, a religious and psychological allegory about a lustful sin in Colonial Boston and the years that follow. …showed first 75 words of 875 total…

…showed last 75 words of 875 total…in the story, especially since she does change at the end. She represents her mother's scarlet letter, her parents' angel of judgment, and the town's little imp. This allegory uses Pearl, her parents—Hester and Dimmesdale—and the other characters as well as other things like the scarlet letter to teach the lessons of honesty, forgiveness, and revenge. The Scarlet Letter is arguably Nathaniel Hawthorne's best work, and will always remain a classic.