What Does The Forest Symbolize In The Scarlet Letter

The symbols and motifs in The Scarlet Letter are scattered throughout the novel. One of the motifs that recurs in the novel is that of the forest. The forest, according to the citizens of Boston, is where the Black Man lurks, even though the forest hasn’t been touched by humanity. During Chapters 16-18, Hester and Dimmesdale encounter each other, and Dimmesdale can admit his misery, and confess his love for Hester. The forest also allows Hester and Dimmesdale to be free of their sin. On page 184, Hester removes the scarlet letter, saying, “Let us not look back. The past is gone! Wherefore should we linger upon it now? See! With this symbol, I undo it all, and make it as it had never been!” Her willingness to remove the symbol seems to indicate that the forest is a safe place, where Hester cannot be punished for the removal of the scarlet letter. Another minor motif is the names of the characters. For example, Roger Chillingworth is very unsympathetic throughout the novel. However, you only need to see the chill in Chillingworth to see that he is cold hearted. The same goes for Hester Prynne, who is an adulterer, and whose last name rhymes with sin. Also, as far as sin goes, the scarlet letter that Hester wears starts out as a mark of shame, with the “A” standing for adulterer. However, as the novel progresses, the letter

turns less into a mark of shame, and more into a mark of identity. A symbol that we are introduced to earlier before the scarlet letter is the rosebush outside the prison door. The rosebush means, as said on page 42, “It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow.”

4. One of the biggest reasons people watch fights, public punishments, or accident scenes is because it excites people, especially people who are very straight and narrow. Seeing somebody do something they shouldn’t do exhilarates people. However, another reason people watch fights and punishments is because the find joy in certain people being exposed to displeasure. For example, Chillingworth finds joy in Dimmesdale’s self mutilation, especially on pages 123 and 124, when he finds something on Dimmesdale’s chest that confirms that Dimmesdale is the other adulterer. The narrator describes the look on Chillingworth’s face on page 124 as, “what a wild look of wonder, joy, and horror! With what a ghastly rapture, as, it were, too mighty to be expressed only by the eye and features, and therefore bursting forth through the whole ugliness of his figure,”

5.

Feminism, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes”. However, The Scarlet Letter is a feminist novel, because it does feature a strong female main character. Hester is a single mother who is raising a child and supporting herself and her child through her profession as a seamstress. Although Hester is an outcast, he is successful in her career, as seen on page 89, when she is delivering gloves to the governor. This would seem to indicate that she is successful, as only a talented seamstress would be commissioned to make a an ornate pair of gloves for such a high ranking

individual.

7. Human nature is to hate more readily than to love. This is clearly seen with Hester’s young child, Pearl. During the novel, we are able to see a part of Pearl’s childhood, and Pearl is very negative towards other people in Boston. On page 83, during Chapter 6, we see that Pearl absolutely hates the other children, and the narrator says, “If the children gathered about her, as they sometimes did, pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations that made her mother tremble because they had so much the sound of a witch’s anathemas in some unknown tongue.”
If throwing rocks at other kids doesn’t indicate hatred, then I don’t know what would.