Who Is Hawthorne's Criticism Of The Woods In The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne is known for his criticism of the Puritan society in almost all of his works of literature. In his novel, The Scarlet Letter, it seems as if Hawthorne has addressed Puritans immorally. In the novel, Hawthorne uses nature as a vehicle for change of the main characters in order to show the Puritan’s fear of adapting to a new society; however, when the Puritans stepped onto virgin soil, a change in their lifestyle was necessary in order to assimilate into the new world: the United States of America. Hawthorne uses the woodlands as a place of change for the main characters, though the Puritans in the novel are fearful of the woods. Hawthorne’s utilization of the woods hints to an underlying message of the Puritan’s fear of

Hawthorne makes it very clear that the Puritan society is deathly afraid of the forest surrounding Boston. They are terrified of the woods because of the Black Man, a creature that haunts and dwells in the forest. In the story, the “Black Man” represents the devil and people’s sins. Hester also claims that the “Black Man” has left the scarlet letter “A” on her bosom when Pearl questions the creature to her mother ( Hawthorne 167-168). What Hester suggests is that the infamous “Black Man” gave her the letter. This infers that the “Black Man” does not exist in a physical form, meaning that there is nothing in the woods for the Puritans to be afraid of. Hawthorne is trying to spread a message to the readers that the Puritans are in fact, afraid of adapting to a new life because of the “Black Man” being non-existent. This message makes perfect sense because nature symbolizes change in the character’s lives. Another possibility of fearfulness of nature could be the fact that Native American’s had lived in the woods. The Puritan’s angst of Native Americans, however, does not exist. Their terror is not present because they are often seen in the Puritan’s town trading, and are even seen at Hester’s public humiliation at the very beginning of the story. The novel also states that “...the red men were not so infrequent

In an article titled Old World Civilization and New World Wilderness in The Scarlet Letter, the author, who is not named but is getting their information from a Puritan named “Johnson”, explores the history of the Puritans in Hawthorne’s novel. The author claims that the Puritans had fled their old civilization to come to America in order to begin a new life.(Johnson). As many people know though, America was nothing but wilderness before the Pilgrims/Puritans had arrived. This means that Nathaniel Hawthorne is incorrect on his aspect of the Puritan lifestyle. Hawthorne is not accurate on his because when the Puritans arrived at America, they had to face the woods and build a town. Since nature means to modify , the Puritans faced change at the very beginning of their journey. Another piece of evidence claims that Puritans are not going to the woods because the church is telling them not to venture into the wilderness (PBS). This information means that the church does not want the Puritans to change because the church desired to keep their power over the people that they had held in the Seventeenth Century, meaning that they could have possibly lied to their people by saying that adaptation should not be a part of life. The church also has harsh punishments if the Puritans disobeyed them (PBS). This could also explain how Dimmesdale was not afraid of