The Cemetery And The Forest In The Scarlet Letter

918 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Strengths and weaknesses of the scarlet letter novel

“A truth is still the truth, even if no one believes it. A lie is still a lie, even if everyone believes it.” (David Stevens) In the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, sins, including those of revenge, have a destructive effect on the protagonist, Hester Prynne. Truth, by contrast, is forgiving in a natural setting. Even though readers often consider places as just a backdrop where the story takes place, Hawthorne uses them to add to the overall meaning of the work. Two evidently conflicting settings throughout the novel include the cemetery and the forest. While the cemetery displays a negative implication, the forest exhibits veracity. Through these places, Hawthorne then depicts the central theme of sin versus truth. A cemetery, or burial ground, often conveys a gloomy connotation. In this novel, the underlying theme that sins have a ruinous effect is conveyed by this setting. This idea can first be seen when Chillingworth is gathering weeds out of the cemetery to make medicine. For instance, “I found them growing on a grave which bore no tombstone...it may be some hideous secret that was buried with him.” (Hawthorne 127) Chillingworth collects a repulsive looking weed from the headstone of an unknown man to heal Dimmesdale’s illness. However, the weed is described as a “dark, flabby leaf,” which suggests the man died with a …show more content…

As the cemetery uses Pearl and Chillingworth’s actions along with the burial of Hester to convey the idea that truth is forgiving, the forest uses Hester and Pearl’s attitudes to exemplify a theme of misdemeanor and lies. This, in return, provides the reader with a clear understanding of the central theme: secrets destroy the secret keeper, but are later revealed by the truth in a natural

Show More
Related

  • The Minister's Black Veil Analysis

    1188 Words  | 3 Pages

    When Hester and Dimmesdale meet in the forest, they discuss their true feelings about their experiences since Hester was branded with the scarlet letter. Hawthorne describes how, “No golden light had ever been so precious as the gloom of this dark forest” (192). The rare presence of light in this otherwise dark situation symbolizes the relief both Hester and Dimmesdale feel after sharing the truth about Dimmesdale’s torturous guilt and Hester’s marriage to Chillingworth. In every scene previous to this one, the forest is associated with witchcraft, evil, darkness, and secrets. This prior association is contrasted by the shedding of sunshine on the sinful pair after releasing the last of their secrets. This scene is a turning point in the novel and shows how despite Hester and Dimmesdale’s sin and the consequences they’ve had to suffer for it, they are able to find some peace in the fact that they have confided in each other and fully admitted their

    Read More

  • Unrelenting Selflessness In The Scarlet Letter, By Nathaniel Hawthorne

    769 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s well known novel, The Scarlet Letter, extensive diction and intense imagery are used to portray the overall tone of the characters. In particular, Hester Prynne, the wearer of the Scarlet Letter, receives plentiful positive characterization throughout the novel. Hester’s character most notably develops through the town’s peoples ever-changing views on the scarlet letter, the copious mentions of her bravery, and her ability to take care of herself, Pearl, and others, even when she reaches the point where most would give up and wallow in their suffering.

    Read More

  • Dealing With Guilt in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

    680 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne attempted to expose the varying ways in which different people deal with lingering guilt from sins they have perpetrated. The contrasting characters of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale ideally exemplified the differences in thought and behavior people have for guilt. Although they were both guilty of committing the same crime, these two individuals differed in that one punished themselves with physical and mental torture and the other chose to continue on with their life, devoting it to those less fortunate than they.

    Read More

  • Scarlet Letter Townspeople

    739 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, contains many profound characters. The townspeople intrigue the reader because they gradually evolve throughout the book, as would any solitary character. In the beginning of the novel, they are generally rigid and judgmental towards Hester, because she has committed adultery. Throughout the novel, they slowly allow Hester and her daughter into their community, but still look at them with suspicion and doubt. Finally, in the end of The Scarlet Letter, the town forgives her of her sin, and she cautiously finds her place in society. Hawthorne uses the strict Puritan townspeople as a criterion by which all societies can be measured. The townspeople, as with any individual character, possess a certain depth that develops with knowledge.

    Read More

  • The Lasting Effect of Sin and Guilt on Hester and Dimmesdale

    1448 Words  | 3 Pages

    Without an honorable reputation a person is not worthy of respect from others in their society. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, the struggle to shake off the past is an underlying theme throughout the novel. Characters in this novel go through their lives struggling with trying to cope with the guilt and shame associated with actions that lost them their honorable reputation. Particularly, Hawthorne shows the lasting effect that sin and guilt has on two of the main characters in the book: Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale.

    Read More

  • Isolation Through Symbolism in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter

    690 Words  | 2 Pages

    First, two symbols in the town show how sin isolate people. In the first chapter there is a plant that stands out, “But on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rosebush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems” (46). It stands out as wild and different among the grass and weeds as Hester does in the Puritan town. She wears her scarlet letter as the rosebush wears its scarlet blossoms. Later in the book Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth (Hester’s unknown husband) discuss a strange dark plant that Chillingworth discovered. “I found them growing on a grave that bore no tombstone, nor other memorial of the dead man, save these ugly weeds that have taken upon themselves to keep him in remembrance. They grew out of his heart, and typify, it maybe, some hideous secret that was buried with him, and which he had done better to confess during his lifetime” (127). Here there is a man whose sin was not publicly discovered while he was alive. This person tried to keep wrongdoing a secret by hiding it within himself. Yet the sin was too strong to hide and later reveled after his death. There remains nothing honorable about the place where this person lies, but the weed that grew out of the blackness of this person’s heart.

    Read More

  • The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

    821 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hawthorne portrays a society filled with betrayel, secrecie, and sinners. The people of society do not show their true colors and hide their true intentions. Dimmsdale, Chillingsworth and Hester all have fallen to sin, however they all believe they are not the worse sinner and try to seek justice for themselves.

    Read More

  • Contrasting Settings In The Scarlet Letter, By Nathaniel Hawthorne

    1310 Words  | 3 Pages

    “To the untrue man, the whole universe is false,--it is impalpable,--it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself, in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist.” (Hawthorne 115) Throughout the hostile novel The Scarlet Letter, author Nathaniel Hawthorne used contrasting settings to represent opposed ideas that were central to the meaning of the work. Some have argued that when it came to the theme that secrets have a destructive effect on the secret-keeper and truth, by contrast, was natural, a character evaluation would best advocate these differences. However, two settings, Dimmesdale’s house and the secrets that lie within, and the scaffold representing the truth, better embody the adverse ideas posed by the point at issue.

    Read More

  • The Forest In The Scarlet Letter

    837 Words  | 2 Pages

    The forest is generally sought out as a place where no good happens in many stories such as Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe. It is no different in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. It is where many mysterious things reside in the wilderness. The town in the book can contrast the forest as a sanction where people are are immune from the darkness. They differ, but they also aid in conveying the bigger themes of the story. Some people might see the forest as a “happy place” for Hester and Pearl, but it should really be looked upon as a place of sin when comparing it to its foil, the town, which in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter contrasts to aid in the themes of the nature of evi, civilization versus wilderness, and identity

    Read More

  • The Scarlet Letter: The Response to Sin

    1857 Words  | 4 Pages

    Through Hester and the symbol of the scarlet letter, Hawthorne reveals how sin can be utilized to change a person for the better, in allowing for responsibility, forgiveness, and a renewed sense of pride. In a Puritan society that strongly condemns adultery one would expect Hester to leave society and never to return again, but that does not happen. Instead, Hester says, “Here…had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and work out another purity than that which she had lost; more saint-like, because the result of martyrdom.” Hes...

    Read More

  • How Does Literature Shape American Culture?

    974 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne takes place in Salem, Massachusetts in the sixteen hundreds. Hester Prynne is accused of committing adultery in her small puritan settlement but little does the town know that the father is in fact Reverend Dismmesdale. Having sent his wife ahead of him two years before hand, Hester stops her husband in the crowd as she is standing accused on the scaffolding. Hester is given a punishment in the hopes of making her ashamed; however, she turns the mockery into amazement by making the scarlet A into a beautiful piece of patch work. Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, is on the hunt from at that point to find out the child’s father but not even Pearl herself knows. The Scarlet Letter showed how early Americans concentrated their beliefs of church and home in their daily lives. Nathaniel Hawthorne words reflect the flaws in American society during the Puritan settlement. This was also the era of the Salam Witch Trials which Hawthorne’s father played a part in. The central idea reflects that suffering comes from sinning. The Scarlet Letter was the stepping stones that paved future American novels to become so successful.

    Read More

  • Moral and Social Themes in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

    648 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, there are many moral and social themes develped throughout the novel.  Each theme is very important to the overall effect of the novel.  In essence, The Scarlet Letter is a story of sin, punishment and the importance of truth. One theme which plays a big role in The Scarlet Letter is that of sin and its effects.  Throughout the novel there were many sins committed by various characters.  The effects of these sins are different in each character and every character was punished in a unique way.  Two characters were perfect examples of this theme in the novel.  Hester Prynne and The Reverend Dimmesdale best demonstrated the theme of the effects of sin.

    Read More

  • Physical and Historical Settings in The Scarlet Letter

    1013 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the story is set in New England during the colonial times, mainly the middle of the seventeenth century. As the plot of the novel progresses, the importance of setting is further aggrandized when the main character, Hester Prynne, is isolated in a strict Puritan society. To further elucidate Hester’s situation, Hawthorne utilizes two types of settings, physical and historical setting. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne uses the settings to expose the rigidness of the Puritan society of the time period and how its obstinate and judgmental nature impacted people within the society.

    Read More

  • The Symbolism of the Forest in The Scarlet Letter

    923 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... Pearl the reader is reminded that Pearl is a mystic character. She leads the way towards the truth with her words and actions. Pearl in the forest knows that Dimmesdale must confront the townspeople with his sin. She foreshadows this truth by not accepting happily Dimmesdale’s affectations by means of kissing Pearl. Reaffirming the forest as a symbol of truth, the narrator uses the forest to develop the characters of Hester, Dimmesdale, and Pearl.

    Read More

  • The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

    912 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Scarlet Letter is a fictional novel that begins with an introductory passage titled ‘The Custom-House’. This passage gives a historical background of the novel and conveys the narrator’s purpose for writing about the legend of Hester Prynne even though the narrator envisions his ancestors criticizing him and calling him a “degenerate” because his career was not “glorifying God”, which is very typical of the strict, moralistic Puritans. Also, although Hawthorne is a Romantic writer, he incorporates properties of Realism into his novel by not idealizing the characters and by representing them in a more authentic manner. He does this by using very formal dialogue common to the harsh Puritan society of the seventeenth century and reflecting their ideals through this dialogue. The Puritans held somewhat similar views as the Transcendentalists in that they believed in the unity of God and the world and saw signs and symbols in human events, such as when the citizens related the meteo...

    Read More

More about The Cemetery And The Forest In The Scarlet Letter

Open Document