Along with this notion of conflict, we can notice while analysing those aspects of culture the presence of both good and evil. However, these opposed notions are not shown through symbols of culture only; they are also present in other ones such as colours and characters.
As we have mentioned, one way through which the duality of good and evil is expressed is colours. Nathaniel Hawthorne, as a romantic writer, uses colours such as black, red, orange, and purple to serve certain ideas. However, the most recurrent one is purple. Its association with both Beatrice and the unique shrub emphasizes its significance. Looking thoroughly at the meanings of red and blue in literature, whose mixture results in the purple colour6, the idea of duality comes into mind. The colour red symbolises anger and devil; while the colour blue symbolises heaven, truth and purity7. Thus, purple is a mixture of two opposite things, good represented in the blue colour and evil represented in red. In the story, the purple colour is associated several times with the shrub. Therefore, the purple colour of the blossoms embodies the goodness and malice of the shrub. On the one hand, those blossoms are of such beauty that the narrator relates it to "the lustre and richness of a gem" (Hawthorne: p7). On the other hand, this beauty hides beneath it a deadly poison. It is so poisonous that even the one who fostered it cannot approach it without a mask or gloves; the only one who can approach it is Beatrice. With respect to Beatrice, as we have already mentioned, she is also associated with the purple shrub. Thus, the romantic belief that nothing is fully good is conveyed through colours (purple) as well as characters (Beatrice).
Romantic writers have a different view on man than the Puritans. The latter consider man as either good or evil; a mixture of the two is intolerable; while the romantics consider man as good and evil.
