The Scarlet Letter: Civilization vs. the Forest
People generally have the same behavioral tendencies, despite their location, like from a town to a forest someone’s behavior will not change much if at all. Although, in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, they represent polar opposing behavioral systems. The town represents civilization, a rule-bound space where everything one does is on display and where transgressions are quickly punished. The forest, on the other hand, is a space of natural rather than human authority. In the forest, society’s rules do not apply, and alternate identities can be assumed. This physical and social separation allows for two different lives to be played by two of our main characters, Dimmesdale, and Hester.
These lives between the forest and the town are fairly contradictory. To the public eye, Hester and Dimmesdale seem to have no relationship beyond the fact that Dimmesdale is a young minister of the town that Hester lives in. Yet when Hester and Dimmesdale meet in the woods, for a few moments they become happy young lovers once again. “[T]hat he [Dimmesdale] knew not whether it were a woman or a shadow” (171). This quote from the narrator is an example that the possible shadow Dimmesdale saw, could have been any lady, and that he could not have known who it was. Signifying that in the forest, the public life of a person is no longer assumed, and that individual could behold a completely different life in the forest than in the town. An additional quote from this same encounter in the woods, “So strangely did they meet, in the dim wood, that it was like the first encounter, in the world beyond the grave, of two spirits who had been intimately connected in their former life, but now stood coldy shuddering in mutual dread; as not yet familiar with their state” (171). Here the narrator describes Dimmesdale’s and Hester’s encounter in the forest, as if they had known each other, but not met. This quote demonstrates that even though that even though obviously they have met in
These lives between the forest and the town are fairly contradictory. To the public eye, Hester and Dimmesdale seem to have no relationship beyond the fact that Dimmesdale is a young minister of the town that Hester lives in. Yet when Hester and Dimmesdale meet in the woods, for a few moments they become happy young lovers once again. “[T]hat he [Dimmesdale] knew not whether it were a woman or a shadow” (171). This quote from the narrator is an example that the possible shadow Dimmesdale saw, could have been any lady, and that he could not have known who it was. Signifying that in the forest, the public life of a person is no longer assumed, and that individual could behold a completely different life in the forest than in the town. An additional quote from this same encounter in the woods, “So strangely did they meet, in the dim wood, that it was like the first encounter, in the world beyond the grave, of two spirits who had been intimately connected in their former life, but now stood coldy shuddering in mutual dread; as not yet familiar with their state” (171). Here the narrator describes Dimmesdale’s and Hester’s encounter in the forest, as if they had known each other, but not met. This quote demonstrates that even though that even though obviously they have met in