ABSTRACT
This chapter considers some responses in art and literature to sin and forgiveness. It offers one example from art in the seventeenth century and the rest from literature written in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The story of the prodigal son performs two functions simultaneously: it conjures up an image and is charged with emotion. The parable of the prodigal son is of a different order. It is about relationships and about choice. The narrator comments: 'The letter was the symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her, - so much power to do, and power to sympathize, that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. Although Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about Hester Prynne with understanding and grace, he did not underestimate the threat a single, sexually active woman posed to this closed, patriarchal Puritan community.
