The Mysterious Forest in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

In a surface examination of the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne, it is quickly evident that no good things come from the wilderness. Therein, the wilderness is often associated with the savages and the devil. In his work The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne finds herself exiled by society for having an adulterous affair with the town reverend which brought forth the child known as Pearl. Pearl is quickly established as the child of the wilderness: wild, capricious, and thought by the town to be a demon-child. She represents several entities in the novel just by her being, but when her morality is delved into, much more of the nature of the story can be revealed. Pearl’s role is often overlooked as a formative force in the novel. Some scholars have gone as far as to denounce her as unnecessary to the story’s makeup. Upon close examination, it can be determined that Pearl is indeed a necessary element. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Pearl presents themes of morality, both personal and cultural, as well as the divide between society and nature, through her interactions with Hester, Reverend Dimmesdale, and the scarlet letter itself.

forest is like a best friend. It treats her as if she were one of its own. The

This fact is demonstrated as she casts off her letter and her stigma in society, as in the wilderness no judgment is held against her, and thus, she is more pure and noble. Dimmesdale is able to cast aside societal standards as well, showing affection for Hester in the forest: “‘Do I feel joy again?’ cried he, wondering at himself. ‘Methought the germ of it was dead in me! Oh, Hester, thou art my better angel! I seem to have flung myself— sick, sin-stained, and sorrow-blackened—down upon these forest leaves, and to have risen up all made anew”. Dimmesdale is no longer being held in guilt by those surrounding him and isn’t being slowly driven to insanity hourly by Chillingworth. The Puritan society, with such high respect for the reverend, showed to how high of a standard he had to conform to. Remaining in the Puritan lifestyle caused him to become ill by the day, as his guilt crept up slowly but powerfully upon him, and Chillingworth, a symbol for his guilt, slowly tortures Dimmesdale morally. The forest sets the reverend free from his guilt and sin, absolving and rebirthing him such that he can feel joy once again, a noble man again, plagued by no illness, and feels once again sane and real, lest he return to society and back to the

            Nature is often used symbolically in The Scarlet Letter to describe people physically, emotionally, and socially.  Hawthorne uses this technique very effectively.  He gives the reader a good feel for the true psyche of some of the characters during different parts of the story.  An excellent example of how characters are revealed through nature is the description of the lone rose-bush.  It symbolizes Hester and the strength she

In the Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne utilizes the forest as the embodiment of freedom for members of the Puritan society in need of a refuge from the daily Puritan life. The forest itself is a free world with no Puritan laws. Nobody watches in the woods to report misbehavior, thus it is here that individuals may do as they wish.

Hawthorne adds to The Scarlet Letter is when he explains the prison as “the black flower of civilized society” (2). By this Hawthorne means that the prison is a place of evil and a place that conceals the truth, in the event that Hester is being held there with the truth about her adulterous act. Hawthorne also describes Pearl’s eyes as having “another face, in the small black mirror”, instead of holding her mother’s “own miniature portrait” (48). This explains that Pearl’s eyes were empty and filled with sin as she came into life as a result of Hester’s scarlet letter. Another example of how Hawthorne uses the color black, as symbolism, is when Chillingworth states: “Even in the graveyard here at hand, they are new to me. I found them growing on a grave, which bore no tombstone, nor other memorial of the dead man, save these ugly remembrance. They grew out of his heart, and typify, it may be, some hideous secret that was buried with him, and with he had done better to confess during his lifetime” (83). This takes place when Roger Chillingworth brings Arthur Dimmesdale herbs with dark, flabby leaves. By this quote, Hawthorne implies that the herbs that Chillingworth had collected had no meaning but to signify evil that had been growing out of the grave, the remains that were left from the dead man who had been buried there. Another major part of The Scarlet Letter also comes from the symbolism of the color black

    In Nathaniel Hawthorne's work, The Scarlet Letter, nature plays a very symbolic role. Throughout the book, nature is incorporated into the story line. One example of this is with the character of Pearl. Pearl is very different than all the other characters due to her special relationship with Nature. Hawthorne personifies Nature as sympathetic towards sins against the puritan way of life. Hester's sin causes Nature to accept Pearl.

One night he drags himself up the scaffold steps and screams, hoping someone will find him. “It is done! The whole town will awake and hurry forth and find me here” (Hawthorne 99)! Dimmesdale wants to be found out. What makes him cowardly is the fact that he will night outright confess, but still complains about his internal wounds. As he stands on the scaffold Hester and her daughter, Pearl, walk by on their way home when Dimmesdale stops them and asks them to join him, “Come up hither, Hester, thou and Little Pearl… and we will stand all together” (Hawthorne 101). Dimmesdale, though he’s trying to understand what Hester felt, still refuses to stand there with them in the daylight. Dimmesdale is still just as fainthearted as

“Imagination is the key ingredient to overcoming fear and doubt.” Throughout “The Scarlet Letter”, Nathaniel Hawthorne tends to emphasize the intensity of Pearl’s imagination by describing the way Pearl saw the world around her and by talking about the way the people who noticed her vivid imagination, referred to her as a “witch-child”. In “The Scarlet Letter”, Pearl grows up secluded from the rest of the children in the New World. She learns to entertain herself and keep herself company by using her imagination. This is one big example of Pearl overcoming the hardships that she grew up with. As the book progresses, and as Pearl gets older, we see her overcome more hardships she is challenged with to create a strong, independent young girl. The poem provided written by Emily Dickinson comes to show how overcoming Pearl’s hardships led her to blossom from a strong, independent young girl, into an even stronger, successful woman.

Not only symbolism but imagery too, has a critical role in the Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne is successfully able to describe in detail the prison when it is first described in the beginning of the novel. From the door that is “heavily timbered with oak” to the building with a “beetle-browed and gloomy front,” Hawthorne successfully describes the place of darkness and sin. Oddly enough, in front of the prison, there is a rose bush. The rose bush can be used to describe a concept of peace or

The settings in which Dimmesdale’s public and private lives are set are distinguished. The scaffold is considered the public setting in the novel; not only is this where Hester was humiliated in front of the community, but it is also where Dimmesdale makes his final plea for the townspeople takes place. Generally, the forest is where the private conversations occur; it is where Hester and Dimmesdale talked to each other in privacy for the first time since their affair and where their sinning happened.

The man-made world seems to be engrossed in itself and has no intelligence of the natural world that it is assembled over. However, whether humans acknowledge it or not, they are dependant on the physical world’s knowledge. Architecture and roadways are constructed over the natural earth in an attempt to isolate it from their “civil” community. The societies they create are liberated of pandemonium and sinister spirits that lurk in the uncertainties of the unknown world. Although, it occasionally peeks out and uncovers the bitter reality that the man-made world is corrupt. This phenomenon that comes with the natural world, is camouflaged to most because they are completely submerged in false deception and sins of the artificial world. Nevertheless, outcasts that are forced away from the contaminated world are welcomed by the untouched world. These fugitives are insightful of the honesty and purity that the human world has concealed with their sins. In The Scarlet Letter, Pearl is isolated from society because she is a product of adultery. Her state of outcast allows her access to the organic world, man-made world, and the truth they both bear. Pearls appearance in the forest, actions on the beach, and her knowledge of the truth at the governor's mansion are classic signs of how she demonstrates her supernatural connection to the natural world in all different environments, due to her state of isolation. All of these occurrences portray her inner power to illustrate unwanted

Why, you can hardly walk without tripping over one commandment or another. Come to me, and be masterless” (Hawthorne 186).  Truly, Hester takes advantage of this, as soon as Arthur Dimmesdale appears.  She openly talks with Dimmesdale about unmentionable subjects which seem inappropriate in any place other than the forest: “What we did...had a consecration of its own. We felt it so! We said to each other” (Hawthorne 194)!  This exclamation shocks Dimmesdale.  He tells Hester to stop and quiet down, but he eventually realizes that he is in an environment where he can express his emotions.  The thought of Hester and Dimmesdale in an intimate conversation in the confines of the society in which they live is incomprehensible.  Yet here, in the forest, they throw away all reluctance and act as themselves under the umbrella of security which exists there in the forest.

To better understand The Scarlet Letter, we first must explore the author and his purpose for writing such a novel. Nathaniel Hawthorne was a philosophical thinker. He grew up in Salem, Massachusetts and was the descendant of William Hathorne, a Puritan magistrate and judge who became infamous for giving out harsh punishments. This was especially true during the Salem witch trials. Hawthorn’s family past seemed to fascinate and haunt him, and is represented in most of his works. This is coupled with his transcendentalist ideals, and clues the audience to the book’s intended

In “The Scarlet Letter”, Pearl, Dimmesdale, and Hester would always meet in the forest, the forest is a symbol of freedom and it doesn’t judge anyone, like the Puritans of the town do. Pearl is often seen playing with the bushes, this quote “the great black-forest-stern as it showed itself to those who brought the guilt and troubles of the