The Scarlet Letter: The Harsh Puritan Society

The Scarlet: The Harsh Puritan Society

The novel, The Scarlet Letter, contains a Puritanistic-structured society consisting of harsh regulations forbidding anyone from divulging his or her innermost thoughts. Within the walls of the city, none of the citizens receive the opportunity to express how each truly feels. Instead the emotion of each person becomes bottled up until it turns volatile. Because this Puritan society does not permit free expression, the characters have to seek alternate means in order to alleviate themselves. Luckily, at least for the four main characters, Hawthorne provides such a sanctuary in the form of the mysterious forest. Hawthorne uses the forest to provide a shelter for members of society in need of a refuge from daily life. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the forest as an escape route from the rigid Puritan society to expose the true identity of his characters.
In the deep, dark portions of the forest, many of the pivotal...