The Hawthorn Symbol in Hester: Analysis and Study Guide
What the Hawthorn Is in Hester
The hawthorn—also called the May tree, the hawthorn flower, or the thornbush—is a low, wide flowering tree with curled, gnarled branches. In Hester, it carries a double identity that mirrors the novel's central tensions. In England and Scotland it is known as the May tree, a name that ties it to May Day and the boundary between the ordinary world and the realm of faerie enchantment. In Salem, Nathaniel Hathorne calls it the hawthorn, a name that sounds almost like his own, and he jokes about the coincidence when he asks Isobel Gamble to embroider it.
The tree appears in the novel as a living thing in folklore, as an illustration in Edward's book of medicine and plants, and—most importantly—as an embroidered motif on Nat's handkerchief. Each appearance shifts the symbol's meaning, moving from romantic courtship to inherited danger to a form of personal power.
A Token of Courtship
The hawthorn enters the story when Nat asks Isobel to stitch his initials onto his handkerchief. He adds a request for a sprig of hawthorn blossoms, laughing at the invention of a flower with a name so close to his own. The request is framed in the language of romance: Isobel recognizes that a knight who asks a lady for a token of herself—a lock of hair, a snippet of lace, a sample of her needle—is wooing her. The hawthorn becomes the emblem of their secret courtship, a private language stitched into cloth.
But the hawthorn is not merely decorative. When Nat describes it, he reaches for poetry, reciting Robert Burns's Highland Mary and its lines about the hawthorn's blossom. The reference connects the tree to Scottish literary tradition and to Nat's own ambitions as a writer. For him, the hawthorn represents the enchantment he seeks—the magical world he confesses he wants to live in. He tells Isobel that in Salem, wandering off the path beside the May trees can leave you lost for days in a world of enchantments. The hawthorn is his invitation to that world, and Isobel is the guide he hopes will lead him there.
The May Tree and Scottish Folklore
For Isobel, the hawthorn is not a literary conceit but a living piece of her Scottish childhood. When Nat mentions the May tree, she blurts out that they have it in Scotland, where the faeries live. Her pap taught her that the May tree is magical: falling asleep beside it might carry you into the world of enchantment and never let you return. This is a warning as much as a promise. Isobel cautions Nat that the faerie world isn't for men, and that faeries and demons are jealous creatures who can make you dangerously lost in their enchantments.
The hawthorn thus carries a double charge for Isobel. It is the tree of her father's stories, the threshold between the safe world and the dangerous one. It is also the tree that connects her to the witchcraft accusations that shadow her family—the same folklore that marked her namesake, Isobel Gowdie, as the Queen of Witches. When Isobel embroiders the hawthorn, she is not just decorating a handkerchief; she is handling a symbol that has already been used to condemn women like her.
The Hawthorn in Isobel's Needlework
Isobel's response to Nat's request transforms the hawthorn from a romantic token into an expression of her synesthetic power. She searches Edward Gamble's book of medicine and plants and finds the hawthorn listed as a remedy: a tincture of hawthorn may be useful in healing a broken heart. The medical meaning sits alongside the folkloric one, suggesting that the tree can heal as well as enchant. The book also notes that the hawthorn belongs to the same Latin family as the traditional rosebush.
She sketches the hawthorn illustration into her notebook beside Nat's initials—N, a red letter; H, a copper yellow—and begins to embroider the flower in white and pale greens. The colors are not arbitrary; they are the colors her synesthesia assigns to the letters and to the world around her. As she works, she feels a new power in her needle, and she wonders aloud whether it is witchcraft, a trick of light, or a strange dream that stays even when she is awake.
The finished handkerchief carries the hawthorn branch curled around Nat's monogram like two hands holding a heart. Isobel also stitches a tiny red A, for Abington—a detail that links the hawthorn to her Scottish home and, through the red A, to the scarlet letter that will define Hester Prynne in Hawthorne's novel. The hawthorn embroidery becomes a hidden language of resistance, a way for Isobel to claim her own power in a world that would call it witchcraft.
The Hawthorn's Darker Face
The hawthorn is not only a symbol of courtship and healing. In the novel's interleaved sections set in Salem's past, the May trees take on a menacing quality. Tituba, freed from the Boston jail, remembers the craven branches of the May trees that reached for her along the Witch Path, and the death stench of the May tree blossoms that rotted along the hedgerow. For Tituba, the hawthorn is inseparable from the terror of the witch trials—the trees that lined the path to the gallows, the blossoms that smelled of death.
This darker association complicates the hawthorn's romantic meaning. The same tree that Nat offers as a token of enchantment is, for Tituba, a marker of persecution. The hawthorn thus spans the novel's full emotional range: it is the tree of faerie magic and broken-heart remedies, but also the tree that witnessed the hangings. Isobel's embroidery of the hawthorn carries this history with it, whether she knows it or not.
The Hawthorn and the Novel's Themes
The hawthorn ties together several of the novel's central themes. It connects to synesthesia as a double-edged inheritance through the colors Isobel sees and stitches. It is a key example of needlework as a hidden language of resistance, since the embroidered handkerchief becomes a private communication between Isobel and Nat. The hawthorn's folkloric associations link it to witchcraft persecution as a weapon against female difference, as the May tree's faerie magic is the same magic that marked Isobel Gowdie as a witch. And the red A stitched beside the hawthorn connects the symbol to the Scarlet Letter reimagined through women's needlework.
The hawthorn also speaks to inherited guilt and the haunting of history. Tituba's May trees are the same trees that Isobel embroiders, and the witch trials that haunt Salem are the same trials that marked Isobel's ancestor as a witch. The hawthorn is a living link between past and present, between Scotland and Salem, between the faerie world and the world of persecution.
Study Questions
1. How does the hawthorn's meaning change between Nat's request and Isobel's finished embroidery?
Nat initially presents the hawthorn as a romantic token, a sprig of blossoms to accompany his monogram. He connects it to Robert Burns's poetry and to the enchantment he seeks in his writing. For Isobel, however, the hawthorn carries the weight of Scottish folklore—her pap's warnings about faerie enchantment—and becomes a way to express her synesthetic colors. By the time she finishes the handkerchief, the hawthorn has become a symbol of her own power, like two hands holding a heart, and she wonders whether her needlework is witchcraft. The meaning shifts from courtship to self-discovery.
2. What does the hawthorn's dual nature—healing and dangerous—reveal about Isobel's situation?
The hawthorn is both a remedy for a broken heart and a gateway to dangerous enchantment. This duality mirrors Isobel's own position: she is a skilled needleworker whose art can heal and beautify, but the same skill, and the synesthesia that accompanies it, could mark her as a witch. The hawthorn's dual nature reflects the novel's central tension between creative power and persecution.
3. How does Tituba's memory of the May trees complicate the hawthorn's romantic associations?
Tituba remembers the May trees along the Witch Path as craven branches that reached for her, and the blossoms as having a death stench. For her, the hawthorn is not a token of love but a marker of terror and persecution. This contrast shows that the hawthorn's meaning depends on who is looking at it. For Nat, it is enchantment; for Tituba, it is the path to the gallows. The contrast reveals how the same symbol can carry radically different meanings across different lives.
4. Why does Isobel stitch a red A for Abington beside the hawthorn?
The red A connects the hawthorn to Isobel's Scottish home and to the family history of hidden red letters that her mother sewed into her clothing. It also foreshadows the scarlet letter of Hawthorne's novel, linking Isobel's embroidery to Hester Prynne's famous badge. The red A transforms the hawthorn from a purely romantic symbol into a marker of identity and inheritance, connecting Isobel's personal story to the larger history of women marked by letters.