Nature as a main character in The Scarlet Letter

(Following a description of a prison in a New England community):

“[O]n one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condoned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him” (33-34).

Before we meet any of the major characters of the novel, Hawthorne first introduces us to Nature through the personified kindness and beauty of the rose bush by the prison door. Indeed, Nature is one of the main characters in The Scarlet Letter, and from this passage, we see that Hawthorne is concerned with Nature in relation to human nature. The Puritan community in the novel is portrayed as wanting to isolate, control and “purify” their communal and individual human natures. One of the failures of this that Hawthorne criticizes is their refusal of the darkness, complexity, unpredictability and wildness of human nature, which is basically a refusal of freedom. This suffocation of human nature is contrasted by the Nature of the woods that surround the community, as well as hints of its presence within the town (like the rose bush), and the character of little Pearl. Pearl and Nature is a whole other entry, so instead I will give the first digestible chunk of the novel’s summary so you can have a context to understand the quotations and discussions.

I will try to make this summary of The Scarlet Letter as relevant and to-the-point as possible. I’ll try to focus on the aspects of the novel that relate to the themes of Nature, Individuality, and Imagination.

SUMMARY: PART ONE

The action of the novel begins when the heroine, Hester Prynne, and her baby, Pearl, emerge from prison back into the Puritan community. Hester and her baby are ostracized by the townspeople because she had the baby out of wedlock, and nobody knows who the father is, so of course they’re going nuts, not knowing which man among them to judge.

Part of Hester’s punishment is to wear a scarlet A (for Adultery) on the bodice of her dress as a symbol of her sin. But Hester embroiders a huge, exquisite, gorgeous “A” instead of a simple and shameful one. This “A” and Pearl become interconnected as symbols that keep Hester in an individual world apart from the community, while drawing her into a closer relationship with Nature: both earthly Nature and human nature. Hester and Pearl live in a little cottage on the outskirts of town, by the alluring and untamed woods.

Coming up in Part Two…Hester’s secret husband enters the scene and wants to find out who Pearl’s father is…see how dangerously easy summary commercials start to sound like bad daytime television?

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Dover, 1994.

Daniel, Janice B. “‘Apples of the Thoughts and Fancies’: Nature as Narrator in the Scarlet Letter.” Literary Criticism 7.4 (1993): 307-320.