"The soil where this dark miner was working had perchance shown indications that encouraged him." Pg. 99
Along with apostrophe, this novel also employs the use of metaphors, chiefly to describe the individuals and their actions and suspected thoughts. I suppose for this reason, the metaphors could be closely connected with the indirect characterization which Hawthorne utilizes to describe his characters. This tag-team, if you will, can be seen during the scene of public display when Hester Prynne is said to have a distorted face "as if a snake had twisted across it" when she views Mr. Chillingworth. So too does this quote help to characterize Chillingworth, because he is one to dig into the personal life of Dimmesdale when he suspects Dimmesdale has something to do with the public shame of Hester Prynne. When I thought about why Hawthorne might employ such a tactic so frequently, I found myself drawn back to the introduction when the narrator confessed his sympathies to the reader for the not-so-adept portrayal of the work he happened upon. Hawthorne possibly utilized metaphors on behalf of this narrator in order to greater characterize the main plot individuals in a way that would seem fitting to the unrefined style of the narrator. He probably also used metaphors because they portray the inner workings of the characters' minds. In these pre-colonial days when few people could read or write, they only had the world around them to compare themselves and others to.
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