The Forest In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

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Differing Associations of the Forest Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850) is set in 17th century puritan Boston. Puritans are very strict when concerning religious matters and try to live a life absent of sin. They believe that anyone who stray from the normal puritan way, like not going church, of life is or in the process of becoming a minion of the devil. Throughout the novel the author perceives the forest as the home of sin and where witches and Native Americans meet with the black man. Hawthorne’s narrator even goes as far as to call it,” an unchristianized, lawless region.”(“The Scarlet Letter”560) The forest is also considered a place of honesty and purity, the opposite of the puritans view. These different and contrasting…show more content…
Instead she chooses to stay in a cottage on the outskirts of town and bordering the forest nonetheless. The narrator goes on to explain her logic as to why she chose to stay. “Her sin, her ignominy, were the roots to which she had struck into the soil. It was as if a new birth, with stronger assimilation than the first had converted the forestland, still so uncongenial to every other pilgrim and wanderer, into Hester Prynne’s wild and dreary, but life-long home.” (“The Scarlet Letter” 494) In this quote we see Hawthorne’s usage of forest-like words such as roots and soil to describe how her sin forces her to stay and live out her shame like a criminal returning to the scene of a crime. This is also an example of symbolism, which according to Encyclopedia Britannica is” a loosely organized literary and artistic movement that originated with a group of French poets…show more content…
During the 17th century the idea that witches, Indians, and other worshippers of the devil gathered in the forest to practice black magic and write in Black Man’s books was extremely popular. Later authors used this element as a way to better describe puritan societies. Cotton Mather’s Wonders of the Invisible World (1693), Washington Irving’s Legends of Sleepy Hollow (1820), and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (1953) are some favored examples According to Aileen Agnew of the Maine Historical Society, New England Puritans believed that the wilderness was the natural habitat of the devil. Since Native-Americans belonged to the wilderness, their familiarity with the ways of the devil seemed obvious to the settlers.” In chapter eight Mistress Hibbens, a character later burned for being a witch, invites Hester to a gathering in the forest. “Wilt Thou go with us tonight? There will be merry company in the forest; and I willnigh promised the Black Man that comely Hester Prynne should make one.” Hawthorne’s narrator also associates the forest with the idea that witches gather in there in order to practice their dark magic and to be with the Black Man. Hawthorne’s narrator also illustrated the idea that the forest is used for meeting in secret without the intent of signing their names in the black book. In chapter seventeen Hester used the forest in order to meet Reverend
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