A Utah county attorney says he will not pursue criminal charges against this polygamous family made famous by a reality TV show. A federal judge is set to decide whether to allow a lawsuit to move forward that challenges the constitutionality of Utah's bigamy law. (AP Photo/TLC, Bryant Livingston, File)
For other uses, see Scarlet Letter (disambiguation). The Scarlet Letter: A Romance is an 1850 work of fiction in a historical setting, written by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. The book is considered to be his masterwork.
The scarlet letter symbolizes all those things that we already said, but it also symbolizes the danger of thinking symbolically. If we say that somethingâlike Pearl, or the letterâis a symbol that represents one thing and nothing more, then we lose life's complexity. We become like the Puritans, only able to interpret things in one way.