By: Tanya Samuelian

A door symbolizes communication, contact with others and with the outside world.

An open door attracts because it signifies welcome, invites discovery.But a door can also signify

imprisonment, isolation.A closed door signifies rejection,

exclusion, secrecy. But also as a protection against danger

s and the unknown.

“A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and grey steeple-crowned hats, inter-mixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.” Ch.1, pg.41The door is heavily timbered and has spikes on

it, which might mean that it is guarding something precious and important.

Also, the fact that there are bearded men in sad-colored garments might mean that the thing behind the door might be bad.

“Stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward, until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character , and stepped into the open air as if by her own free will.” Ch.2This passage is explains the first time Hester walks

out with Pearl in public.The prison-door is a means of holding Hester back

from being free and moving on with her life.Also, as if passing the threshold, she became

stronger and started a “new chapter” in her life.

“Sometimes a light glimmered out of the physician’s eyes, burning blue and ominous, like the reflection of a furnace, or, let us say, like one of those gleams of ghastly fire that darted from Mr. Bunyan’s awful doorway in the hillside, and quivered on the pilgrim’s face.” Ch.10Doorway is used as a portal to another person’s place .

In this case, it might have been something evil because it is saying “ghastly fire” and “awful doorway”.The entrance to hell in Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s

Progress, a popular allegorical book of the late 17th century.

“Attiring himself with as much care as if it had been for public worship, and precisely in the same manner, he stole softly down the staircase, undid the door, and issued forth.” Ch.11Chillingworth is going into another

room, and closing the door behind him.In this case, the door is acting as a

protectorate from the outside world.

“In her lonesome cottage, by the seashore, thoughts visited her such as dared to enter no other dwelling in New England; shadowy guests, that would have been as perilous as demons to their entertainer, could they have been seen so much as knocking at her door.” Ch.13 The door is protecting Hester from intruders who

might not be welcome in her cottage.

“In a moment more the crowd began to gush forth from the doors of the church.” Ch.23This passage is beginning to shift the

meaning of the door.In previous passages, the door meant

seclusion and protection.Now, however, the door has become a

church door-somewhere sacred and holy.

“Near this latter spot, one afternoon some children were at play, when they beheld a tall woman in a gray robe approach the cottage-door. In all those years it had never once been opened; but either she unlocked it or the decaying wood and iron yielded to her hand, or she glided shadow-like through these impediments—and, at all events, went in.” Ch. 24In the end of the book, the door shifts to a

cottage-door.The meaning of the cottage-door is more

relaxed and easy-going. In this case, the door acts as an invitation to

see what has been kept behind the closed walls at the cottage.

All books can be viewed as doorways into other lives, other cultures, other worlds, other times, other values or doorways into imagination.

Doors could be symbolically or literally places of danger or safety. The words: “But if you do not do right/ Sin couches at the door” (Gen 4:7), spoken to Cain, demonstrates the biblical conception that danger lurks at entryways.

Also, the Bible suggests that doors are signs of deliverance.

Doors…

Doorways…

Nathaniel Hawthorne: Born in Salem, Ma.Born July 4, 1864