What Does The Wilderness Symbolize In The Scarlet Letter

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses a few symbols to illustrate the main themes. The most obvious symbol is the scarlet letter Hester is made to wear. The forest and the wilderness are also key symbols of the story. Another important symbol is the sun. All of these symbols support the main idea of the novel.

To begin with, the most influential symbol in the entire book is the infamous scarlet letter. Hester walks out of the prison, wearing the scarlet letter ‘A’, in the second chapter. The letter was a daily reminder of shame during the first few years of her punishment. Hawthorne writes, “Hester Prynne had always this dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token; the spot never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary,
to grow more sensitive with daily torture.” Although, later, the letter starts to mean other things to the people and Hester. Instead of bringing torture to her, it eventually becomes a different symbol to some people. Hawthorne writes, “They said that it meant ‘Able’; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength.” Hawthorne later writes, “The scarlet letter had not done its office.” The scarlet letter was originally meant as a punishment for Hester, and it has not punished her. In chapter 18, Hawthorne then writes, “Thus, we seem to see that, as regarded Hester Prynne, the whole seven years of outlaw and ignominy had been little other than a preparation for this very hour.” However, the scarlet letter does bring shame to Hester, as Hawthorne writes, it has not fulfilled its purpose. Hester plans to leave town on a ship and go back to Europe with Dimmesdale. If she had learned anything from the letter, she would not have been attempting to run away with a man other than her husband. There are many different meanings to the scarlet letter throughout the novel. It means different things to different people. It was a sign of wealth to the butler, curiosity for Pearl, and guilt for Dimmesdale. It was rebelliousness, revenge or motivation for Chillingworth. Another symbol was betrayal of one’s spouse. Although the true purpose was to punish and teach a lesson, neither of which the scarlet letter did successfully.

The second key symbols in the novel are the forest and wilderness.
The forest and wilderness are seen as the home of evil by the people. It is the unknown. This wilderness is compared to the moral wilderness that Hester has been lost in for years. Hawthorne writes, "She had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness; as vast, as intricate and shadowy, as the untamed forest.” Hester lives on the edge of town, on the border between wilderness and civilization. She straddles both worlds. In chapter four, Hawthorne writes, “Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us?” This essay was copied from erichmusick.com without permission. Hester is continuing the belief of the Puritans in the story. The Puritans see the forest as dark, evil, or as the place where the witches go at night to have meetings. They see it as a home of the devil. Possibly the Puritans made up things about the forest trying to keep the people from the Natural Law. They wanted people to believe in the Puritan Law. This is what Hawthorne is trying to get across. However Hawthorne makes a mistake. He tries to make the Puritans look bad. For example, in chapter 21, Hawthorne writes, "Their immediate posterity, the generation next to the early emigrants, wore the blackest shade of Puritanism, and so darkened the national visage with it, that all the subsequent years have not sufficed to clear it up.” The common interpretation Hawthorne tries to get across is that Natural Law is equal to God’s Law; that the Puritans’ beliefs are mixed up, and they’re wrong. Although, in actuality, Puritan Law is closer to God’s law than Natural Law is. This is shown in the book. The Puritans base their law on God’s Law, but the Natural Law portrayed in the book is not based on God’s law. However, Nature is associated with kindness and love from the very beginning of this story; our narrator says that the wild rosebush reminds all that “the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to
him.” However, in this book, nature is not always a place of comfort and peace. After a few hours in the woods with Hester, Dimmesdale becomes quite mischievous and unrestrained. The woods affect people in interesting ways. The creepy Chillingworth harvests his medicine and remedies from the woods, remedies that help keep Dimmesdale alive and tortured. The brook that Pearl plays in while her mom and Dimmesdale talk is important. The brook babbles and talks. It takes on a humanlike quality. The stream kept up a babble, kind, quiet, soothing, but melancholy. It was like the voice of a young child that was spending its life without playfulness, and did not know how to be happy during events of sadness. This brook seems to be almost childlike, but full of deep, dark secrets, like Pearl. It is not a gushing brook out of a fairy tale. There is something sad about this brook. Pearl tries to cheer the brook up, but it won’t be cheered. Her mom tells her that she could understand what the brook was saying if she had suffered something in her life. Pearl then decides that the brook is too gloomy and boring to be playing with. She finds other things to occupy her while her mom continues to talk with Dimmesdale. However, when Hester calls Pearl over to her so she can embrace her father, Dimmesdale; Pearl hesitates at the edge of the brook, and it forms a divide between her world and that of her mothers. Pearl will not cross this divide until her mother puts the scarlet letter back on her chest. It is like the scarlet letter attaches Pearl to her mother like not many other things in the world can. She does not know her mother without it. The scarlet letter has become a part of both of their identities and is a significant part of their relationship.

The last major symbol is the sunshine. Throughout the book, the sun shines on Pearl quite often, but it never shines on Hester. Then, in chapter 18, Hester and Arthur are talking in the forest. After deciding to go to England and live as a family there, Hester takes off the scarlet letter, showing that she is no longer bound by it. Hawthorne then writes, "All at once, as with a sudden smile of heaven, forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest, gladdening each green leaf, transmuting the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleaming adown the gray trunks of the solemn trees. The objects that had made a shadow hitherto, embodied the brightness now." This can be interpreted to mean that nature is happy with Hester and Arthur. According to Natural Law, Hester and Arthur aren’t guilty, since they are no longer oppressed. Since God has control over nature, He is happy with them. Although this is what Hawthorne tries to convey when he mentions sunshine over and over, his reasoning is incorrect. In the Ten Commandments, God tells His people it’s wrong to commit adultery. Many people say that Hester and Arthur never committed adultery because Hester, in their minds, was never actually married. However, those saying Hester and Arthur are not guilty would still be wrong. In the Bible, God says fornication, sex between two people who aren’t married to each other, is wrong. Although the sunshine is meant to represent nature’s, and therefore, God’s happiness with Arthur and Hester, the reasoning behind it is incorrect. The Bible says in Matthew 5:45, "… for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." This verse shows that just because God makes the sun rise or the rain fall for a person does not mean that he likes what they are doing. In closing, Hawthorne uses several symbols to illustrate themes and ideas in this novel. These three represent the most important ideas of the novel. The lesson learned from a sin is up to the person, not the punishment. The unknown can not be trusted, even if it is nature, and God is in nature. Just because a person is guilty does not mean they will be punished, and just because a person is not guilty does not mean they will be rewarded. These symbols support the main idea; sin ultimately destroys the soul.