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.41 The 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.2 This 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 physicians 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. Bunyans awful doorway in the hillside, and quivered on the pilgrims face. Ch.10 Doorway is used as a portal to another persons place. In this case, it might have been something evil because it is saying ghastly fire and awful doorway. The entrance to hell in Bunyans The Pilgrims Progress, a popular allegorical book of the late 17 th 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.11 Chillingworth 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.23 This 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 impedimentsand, at all events, went in. Ch. 24 In 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