Major Themes and Symbols in The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne uses unique examples for literary devices (symbolism, allusions, flashback, motif, etc.) but one extremely unique literary device Hawthorne uses is called the "multiple choice" technique. Terry Dibble explains that with this Hawthorne "casts doubt on his own story and suggests that an incident may have happened in quite a different way if at all." (The Scarlet Letter Notes pages 84-85) "The reader is therefore left …showed first 75 words of 1522 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1522 total…would have led a much better life then the one she had in the novel. In closing, Pearl was a source of many different kinds of symbolism. She was a kind of burden yet, love for Hester. Pearl was more then her mother's only treasure; she was her mother's only source of survival. Through it all, Hawthorne illustrates that even sin can produce purity, and that purity came in the form of the energetic Pearl.