Symbolism Of The Forest In The Scarlet Letter

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Symbolism is a vital literary element and adds depth and meaning to a novel. In his book, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses various symbols with different meanings to engage his audience. For example, he uses the forest as a symbol throughout his writing. The forest is first introduced as a dark, unknown place, but later in the book, Hawthorne portrays the once foreign area as a place of freedom for Hester. In the beginning of The Scarlet Letter, the narrator talks about Hester’s house and it’s proximity to the forest. Hester’s house was located between the strict Puritan town and the unknown forest. To the villagers in Boston, Hester was an ignominy because of the immoral sins she had committed. Like the forest compared to the Puritan town, Hester was unorthodox. In Chapter IV, Hester connected the forest and Satan when she said, "Art thou like the Black Man [Satan] that haunts the forest round about us? Hast thou enticed me into a …show more content…
Pearl and her mother walked to the forest to meet with Pearl’s father, Reverend Dimmsdale. Hester described the forest as a forbidden place when she said, “The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread.”. (Hawthorne 118). The forest was free of the townspeople who did not dare to enter, making it the perfect place for Hester to meet with her fellow adulterer. If they were to speak about the issue in public, Dimmsdale would be exposed as the man who impregnated Hester. The forest also symbolized a place of freedom for Hester, it was where she took her scarlet letter off of her bosom. Talking about the feeling she had afterwards, Hester said, “The stigma gone, Hester heaved a long, deep sigh, in which the burden of shame and anguish departed from her spirit. O exquisite relief!” (Hawthorne 119). All of the weight was lifted of her chest, quite literally, and she felt like “her old self”
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