Reputation In A Community In Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'The Scarlet Letter'

How does one escape a shameful and guilty reputation in a community that values conformity and condemns individualism? In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale—two partners in an adulterous sin from years past—face this very question when needing a way to escape the shame, guilt, isolation, and pressures from the community that cause them constant anguish. At the time of the novel, the Puritans held strong beliefs against individualism, claiming that a strong community was far more important. Also among the most important Puritan beliefs was the idea that nature, particularly the forest, existed as a dangerous place, and Puritans strongly discouraged members of their community from journeying too close to it. However, Hester, a townswoman, and Dimmesdale, the town minister, find

the answer to escaping their suffering and finding their individuality in the forest. The symbolism of the forest as an escape from the community and place of forgiveness for Hester and Dimmesdale emphasizes the themes of individuality and forgiveness in the Puritan community.

Because the Puritans view the forest as an unregulated and lawless region, it symbolizes an escape for both Hester and Dimmesdale from their oppressive community. The Puritans admittedly disapproved of individualism, claiming that it went
against religious ideals that stressed communal reliance.

Instead, they valued a strong community that they hoped acted as “a model of influence” over other religious groups that seemed corrupt (“The Scarlet Letter” 318). The Puritans also believed that nature, particularly the forest, was a dangerous place because it secluded those who ventured into it and allowed individuals to temporarily remove themselves from society, thus being prone to temptation and sin. However, Hester and Dimmesdale both use the forest as an escape from their suffering caused by the community’s opinions towards them. In particular, Hester finds that she relates to the forest better than she does anyone in the community, and she eventually uses the forest to free herself from the constraining Puritan ideas. She feels that she can relate to the forest because it depicts the “moral wilderness in which she had so long been wandering” and her “intellect and heart had their home” in the forest (Hawthorne 165, 180). By relating herself to the forest and realizing that her heart thrives in nature, Hester eases the pain of her isolation

within the community from which she suffers. After establishing her bond with the forest, Hester uses time spent there as a method of freeing herself from the restricting Puritan ideas. Her time in the forest “set her free . . . into regions where other women dared not tread” (180). By traveling into an area that the community views as dangerous, Hester liberates herself from the conformity of the community and becomes what the community fears—an individual. Next, the forest also offers Dimmesdale an escape from his suffering from the community’s opinion towards him. As the minister of the town, the community believes that every aspect of Dimmesdale’s life is perfect and moral, and, because of this belief, Dimmesdale suffers from the shame of his secret transgression and the pressures of masking his shame. When in the town, Dimmesdale tries to appear as if he has “kept his conscience all alive,” but when he takes his “meditative walks” through the forest, he no longer feels obligated to be the perfect figure in the community (180, 164). He can be an “irrevocably doomed” individual uninhibited by his shame (181). This freedom to not be the perfect figure of the community that Dimmesdale finds in the forest, along with the individualism that Hester finds in the forest, supports the theme of individuals in relation to their community. Despite the Puritan’s idea that the forest symbolizes a dangerous and sinful territory, Hester and Dimmesdale both use their time in the forest as a way of becoming individuals and escaping their community.

The forgiveness that takes place between Hester and Dimmesdale in the forest shows that the forest acts more as a symbol of forgiveness and escape rather than a symbol of sin and danger. The Puritans believed that “moral absence and evil” plagued the forest, therefore making it a dangerous territory (“The Scarlet Letter” 315). They also stressed the importance of forgiveness because they were convinced that sin “threatened . . . their soul” and stained the “possibility of religious and civil
perfection” (“The Scarlet Letter” 318). Ironically, however, the forest ultimately serves as the primary location of forgiveness in the novel and defies the Puritan idea of lurking evil existing in the woods. After years of not speaking to Dimmesdale about their sin, Hester finally musters the courage to approach him as he finishes one of his walks through the forest. She grabs his attention, and, as they begin to engage in conversation, they travel back “into the shadows of the woods,” an act most Puritan communities would advise against doing. Instead of being tempted by the alleged, skulking evil, however, Hester confesses her relation to Chillingworth and earnestly implores Dimmesdale, “Wilt thou forgive?” (Hawthorne 176). Dimmesdale forgives her, and the forest promptly transforms from a dark and evil place of seclusion to an area that “embodied the brightness” of Hester and Dimmesdale’s joy (83). The fact that the forest is the sight of the forgiveness between Hester and Dimmesdale proves that the forest does not completely symbolize the wickedness of sin, but rather, the beauty of forgiveness. Also, because of Dimmesdale’s forgiveness of Hester in the secluded forest, they both escape their suffering and leave it behind in the forest. Hester’s “burden of shame and anguish departed from her spirit” and Dimmesdale experiences an “excitement . . . of feelings,” allowing them to become free individuals instead of adherent members of the community (182, 194). The forest as a symbol of both the forgiveness between two individuals and an escape from the pressures of the community supports the theme of individuals in relation to their community. Because the forest is the site of forgiveness, as well as the place of both Hester’s and Dimmesdale’s shedding of the guilt and shame from the community, it symbolizes an escape from culpability and ignominy, as well as a place where Hester and Dimmesdale can become individuals instead of figures lost in the community.

Through his use of the forest as a symbol of escape and forgiveness for Hester and Dimmesdale, Hawthorne draws parallels between the forest and themes of individuality and forgiveness in relation to Puritan ideas. Hester uses the forest to make herself feel less isolated and like an individual free of any restricting ideas of the community. Dimmesdale similarly uses the forest as place where he can admit to being a sinful individual and free himself of guilt and shame without disappointing the community. Both characters engage in forgiveness in the forest, making it symbolic not only of forgiveness, but also of an escape from guilt, shame, and sin. The Puritan society values of a strong community and fears of the forest due to its seclusion from the community allow Hester and Dimmesdale to utilize the forest as a tool for breaking away from the community in order to find what they need to ease their suffering— individuality and forgiveness. Ultimately, Hawthorne seeks to provide readers with knowledge of the importance of individuality and forgiveness in a community and employs the forest as symbol to demonstrate that removing oneself from a community to seek individuality and forgiveness can be beneficial.