Lexie Doran, Abi Natesh, Jason Rowland, Maya Weathers

ThesisThe harsh, merciless Puritan setting reflects the rigidity of the townspeople, who work to confine and restrain the uniqueness and individuality of others, contrasting with the spirited and free forest in which Hester,Pearl, and Dimmesdale are able to be who they are.

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Chapter 1, Page 55“The founders of a new colony...have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison” M

Explication: 1• Realized that even the most

perfect society produces sinners• Puritans also deeply valued

following all rules, whether man’s or God’s. • Grave merely an extension of

the prison o religion is intertwined with

Puritan life

Chapter 2, Page 64“In fact, this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine...which was held to be as effectual an agent, in promoting good citizenship, as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists of France” J

Explication: 2• Scaffold serves as the perfect embodiment of the

Puritan society• Internal regret is a far greater punishment than

external shame caused them to construct the town around a market-placeo main attraction was the scaffold.

• It is here on this Scaffold where sinners are revealed and only in a Puritan settlement would this be seen as a proper and effective punishment.

Chapter 5, Page 94“On the outskirts of town...but not in the vicinity of any other habitation, there was a thatched cottage... Its remoteness put it out of the sphere of that social activity which marked habits of emigrants” A

Explication: 3• Straddles her between mother nature (truth

and purity) and human settlement (untruth and unnatural)• Explains Pearl’s wild tendencies

o spent childhood surrounded by nature (truth)

• Implements the theme of spheres o Boston in one and Hester in the other.

Separated figuratively by sin and physically by distance.

Chapter 18,Page 243 “All at once [after Hester removed the letter] forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest, gladdening each green leaf...the course of the little brook might be traced by its merry glean afar into the wood’s heart of mystery, which had become a mystery of joy”

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Explication: 4• Still cannot find happiness without first

shedding all chains of human oppressiono even when surrounded by nature

• By removing the Scarlet Letter it becomes evident that she has shed the shame of her pasto her sin was out of passion, a completely

natural emotiono the natural world “rejoices”

Chapter 18, Page 245“The great black forest-stern as it showed itself to those who brought the guilt and troubles of the world into its bosom- became the playmate for the lonely infant.”

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Explication: 5• The dark, ominous mood of this

passage is used in contrast to the elf-like spirit of Pearl. • Pearl connects spiritually to nature

because she is as connected to the natural world as anything

Chapter 22, Page 228“Mother,” said [Pearl], “was that the same minister that kissed me by the brook?” “Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!” whispered her mother. “We must not always talk in the market-place of what happened to us in the forest”

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Explication: 6• Hester is condemning Pearl for mentioning

their rendezvous with Rev. Dimmesdale in the woods• Separation between the woods and the town

is clearly emphasized o because actions that took place in the

woods are not appropriate to discuss in the town exist in different spheres

• Pearl did not understand this because she was a child of the natural world