Rosebush+in+chapter+1-1

A rose traditionally means love and sometimes can mean resurrection. A red rose especially means blood shed by Jesus on the cross and has later become a symbol of earthly love. It can also mean virginity or fertility. This is important to the story because it showing that this story is about love and birth. "It may serve let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found alongthe track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow" (46). This shows that the story is about pain and how the love lightens up the story. The love between Hester and her daughter Pearl are also a sign of Hesters' virginity and how that has left her because of the adultery that she has committed.