The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a cult classic. And with good reason. Anyone who simply believes that the title of this book simply means that the protagonist wears a scarlet “A” on her dress in punishment for her adultery is ignorant. Obviously this document would not be necessary if this were true. Instead, The Scarlet Letter is extremely ambiguous. It can be argued that the scarlet letter is itself a character. I intend to delve into everything in literary, historical and symbolic terms. What is The Scarlet Letter really about? “It has all the makings of a soap opera, but it's much more than that,” writes Claudia Durst Johnson in her in-depth book The Scarlet Letter. Rather, it is about the consequences of violating the moral code, or in this case a moral law. It's about not being true to human nature. This is cruel and terrible revenge. It is about the hypocrisy of members of a community who refuse to recognize that each of them is just as human, just as vulnerable to passionate feelings as the women they label adulteresses. I could go on forever. The psychological aspects of the Scarlet Letter seem endless. The letter is a symbol. Although it has many implied meanings, it also has literal meanings. The first and most obvious of the latter is that the “A” in Hester stands for adultery and, as the narrator says, “feminine frailty and sinful passion” (83). But the “A” on her breast begins to represent different things as the story unfolds. For example, some people start to think that “A” means capable when it helps the community. “Throughout the novel, the “A” seems to encompass the entire gamut of the human being, from the earthly and passionate adulteress to the pure and… seventeenth century. He wanted his readers to develop their own interpretation of how America has changed. A number, with some exceptions, usually means nothing more than its value. So he was excluded. Why The Scarlet Letter? Why not Scarlet A? A title is much more effective when it is more general. At the end of the day, authors write books to make money. The Scarlet A is a confusing, as well as less appealing title, which would have sold much less. It's best to have the title be general and then allow the book to be more specific. What's more memorable? “The Scarlet Letter” or “The Scarlet Letter A: Adultery in the 1600s?” The Scarlet Letter was titled that for a reason. It symbolizes and appeals to all the major themes of the book, making it obvious at first glance what the book focuses on..