Juno and The Scarlet Letter - Creative Project

The book The Scarlet letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the movie „Juno,” written by Diablo Cody, both explore the theme of internal destruction. To illustrate this theme, I decorated an old cigar box. The exterior of the box is decorated with a wood carving while the interior has the appearance of it being burnt. The box is meant to mirror the them of internal destruction because from the outside there is no visible sign of damage, however on the inside there is. 

In order to construct my creative representation of ‚internal destruction,’ I first had to find a box and plan out how to represent my theme. The design on the exterior of the box is symbolic because the cherub was a common design placed on puritan gravestones. The cherub was used to symbolise immortality, which I found paralleled both the story of the The Scarlet Letter and „Juno,” because while the character will eventually die, the story lives on forever. The idea for the roses on the exterior came to me because roses were a common symbolic theme in the The Scarlet Letter. The carvings on the outside of the box symbolise the continence of life or spirit, from the outside, nothing appears to be wrong. However, if you open the box, the interior is blackened as if it was burnt. The box symbolises ‚internal destruction’ because only after you look on the interior of the box, does it look like something is wrong with it. 

I chose to use a box to represent ‚internal destruction’ because the theme reminded me a bit of Pandora’s box. Pandora’s box was filled with everything bad in the world, so it embodies destruction. However, from the outside, the box could be very misleading. I had decided that burning the inside of the box would be the easiest and most effective way of illustrating destruction. To burn the box, I just used a candle and held it really close the the box, to avoid burning a hole in it. I chose to carve the exterior design because I thought it would look more polished in the end than if I had painted it. Carving the wood was much easier than I had originally anticipated, however, I did have to get a little aid from my mother when it came to the roses. I think that the exterior could have looked a little better, had I had more prior experience with wood carving. I’m sure that if examined more closely, one could tell which parts of the design I carved first because I definitely got better throughout my wood carving. 

Overall, I think my creative project went well and tat it represents ‚internal destruction.’ The interior of the box has the physical appearance of being destroyed by fire, while the exterior shows no evidence of destruction. If there was one thing that I would change, it would possibly be the wood carvings on the exterior. I had struggled to come up with a design for the outside, and I got my inspiration from puritan graves, which resonates more with The Scarlet Letter than „Juno.” If I was to do this project again, perhaps I would make the exterior designs more symbolic of the innocence of both Reverend Dimmesdale and Paulie Bleeker, instead of just Dimmesdale and his puritan community. 

I am satisfied with how the box turned out because I believe that it does accomplish the mission of a creative project that represents the theme ‚internal destruction.’ While there are multiple ways of showing this theme, this box is both a more literal interpretation as well as symbolic.