Importance of the Meteor in Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter :: Scarlet Letter essays

The Importance of the Meteor in The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthornes novel, The Scarlet Letter, is considered by numerous to be a masterpiece. It was a culmination of everything Hawthorne experienced in his life. He grew up in a household that held fast to Puritan ideals. This affected him in ways he himself may not have even up realized. Nathaniel Hawthorne placed many undercurrents of meaning in this novel(Tucker 16). At the climax of the story, a meteor flashes through the night sky. The appearance of this meteor at this particular(prenominal) moment in time contributes to the plot in many ways. First, Reverend Dimsdale thinks the meteor is a message from God specifically for him. Nothing was more uncouth in those days than to interpret all meteoric appearances, and other natural phenomena that occurred with less regularity than the rise and set of the sun and moon, as so many revelations from a supernatural source(149). Any person of that day would have assumed that s omething of that nature applied to some portion of his or her life. Then, and there, before the vox populi seat, thy mother, and thou, and I, must dead end together. But the daylight of this world shall not see our meeting(149) Just after those words leave Reverend Dimsdales mouth, the meteor lights up the sky as bright as day. Its as if God is proving Reverend Dimsdales words to be false. The light of the meteor resembles the letter A to Reverend Dimsdale because his moral sense is pricking at him. Subconsciencely he wants to punish himself for his sin since the townspeople cant punish him for a sin of which they were unaware. Therefore, his guilty feelings twist a natural part of foundation garment into a punishment of sorts. He believed the meteor resembled the letter A to convict him further of his sinfulness. ...a great red letter in the sky-the letter A which we interpret to stand for Angel. For, as our good Governor Winthrop was made an angel this past night, it was doubtl ess held fit that there should be some notice thereof(153). The fact that a member of his congregation also believes that the meteor resembles the letter A is ironic because of his belief that it stands for Angel in honor of the departed governor rather than something with a negative connotation. The mind can make one event appear as something to one person while another person observing the selfsame(prenominal) event will consider it the complete opposite of the first.