Chiaroscuro, as used by Hawthorne in The Scarlet Letter, helps to develop the atmosphere of various scenes, especially those which compare goodness and sin. Hester spent days with her child locked in a prison cell sewing the scarlet letter. As the prison guard escorts Hester to the scaffold to face public ridicule for committing adultery, she is led out "like a black shadow emerging into the sunshine" (36). Hester finds Roger Chillingworth in the forest picking herbs and plants and stops to speak with him. After doing so, Hester looks back at him and contemplates if "the sun which shone so brightly, really [fell] upon him? Or was there, as it rather seemed, a circle of ominous shadow moving along with his deformity"" (120). He is described in this manner because he is evil inside. Chiaroscuro changes the atmosphere in the forest when Pearl will not come to her other...