Beginning of Essay
Throughout the novel, Hawthorne uses plant imagery to symbolize both the negative and positive character traits and to set the mood of the novel. The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne takes place during the age of Puritanism in Boston where a young and attrac ....

Middle of Essay
.... “plucking” the life out of Dimmesdale limb by limb. Also, Hawthorne describes grass as pure and without weeds to kill the grass; however, “when poor Mr. Dimmesdale was thinking of his grave, he questioned with himself whether the grass would ever grow on it, because an accursed thing must there be buried” (131). In addition, weeds symbolize secrecy and the impurity of society. During Chillingworth and Dimmesdale’s covert discussion about “the powers of nature call[ing] so earnestly for the confession of sin,[and discussing] that these black weeds have sprung up out of a buried heart, to make manifest an unspoken crime” (120) illustrates ....