1

Taylor Gridley

Dr. Ginger Jones

English 3070: American Literature I

April 29, 2023

Nature in The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne, in The Scarlet Letter, explores the themes of nature, morality, and

society through the story of Hester Prynne. Hester commits adultery in a Puritan society and is

ostracized for it. She and her daughter Pearl take refuge in the natural world, choosing to abide

by their moral compasses instead of those imposed by Puritan authorities. The tension this

creates between Hester’s family and society is a reflection of society’s ability to influence and

potentially override human nature. Hawthorne examines the role of nature in terms of the natural

world and of human nature unaltered by society by characterizing the wilderness as a place of

refuge and moral freedom, highlighting the differences between Hester’s morality and that of

Puritan society, and using her daughter Pearl as an example of uninhibited human nature existing

within the natural world.

Hawthorne describes Hester and her daughter Pearl as those who are welcomed by the

natural world. For Hester, the wilderness surrounding her village is “a place of potential escape,

rather than the civilized continental world” (Ahmad 383). Hawthorne emphasizes the isolation

Hester experiences while in her cottage. It is located “On the outskirts of the town…not in close

vicinity to any other habitation” (Hawthorne 248-249). This location places her outside of the

realm of socialization but does not entirely separate her from it. Rather, she is able to enter the

town but is also able to retreat to the wilderness and seclusion of her cottage. It is partially
 2

obscured by trees which, “did not so much conceal the cottage from view, as seem to denote that

here was some object which…at least ought to be, concealed” (Hawthorne 249). The partial

concealment of the cottage emphasizes the idea of Hester’s identity as a bridge between the

natural world and society. She holds herself apart from society but does not completely

disengage from it.

Hester’s wild abode, and thus her separation from society, echoes the differences in

human nature and character between Hester and the townsfolk. As a Puritan settlement, the town

is subject to strict moral codes of behavior, ones that do not necessarily correlate with human

nature. The natural world “offers Hester a kindred association for her innate passion and sense of

independence; and a free atmosphere in which to ignore the confines of a judgmental society”

(Daniel 307). In the wilderness, Hester is able to temporarily escape “the undying, the ever-

active sentence of the Puritan tribunal” (Hawthorne 252). The village became a place of constant

discomfort. Hester was frequently accosted by children, had sermons directed at her, and felt her

mark of adultery with a “dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token” (Hawthorne

252). Despite the unpleasantness felt in these encounters, Hester “neither accepted the idea of the

widespread guiltiness of others, nor did she continue to see herself as guilty. Instead, she had

arrived at the conclusion that sin was nominal, and that what the Puritans condemned as evil was

in part the result of arbitrary social arrangements” (Katz 9). Nature, therefore, became a respite

for her, somewhere she was free from the influence of Puritan morality. Her own moral compass,

or her “moral wildness” is “echoed by the wilderness without” (Ahmad 383). Hester, and

therefore Hawthorne, rejects “the Puritan idea of innate depravity,” instead favoring the idea that

“Nature is morally neutral” (Katz 4). This idea is extended to human nature as well, denying the
 3

Puritans’ ideas concerning morality and instead looking at human nature as closer to morally

neutral.

Nature, and thus human nature, is personified by Hester’s daughter Pearl. Pearl is

“ostracized from her community of humans, [and] is received into nature's community by

personified sunshine” (Daniel 307). Hawthorne states that “Mother and daughter stood together

in the same circle of seclusion from human society (258). As a result of this hostile isolation,

Pearl “requited [the sentiment] with the bitterest hatred that can be supposed to rankle in a

childish bosom” (258). These negative interactions with society caused Pearl to scorn many

aspects of it. She is described as a child that “could not be made amenable to rules” (255). As she

was conceived in an act of passion that broke with Puritan society, Pearl’s existence was due to

the fact that “a great law had been broken; and the result was a being whose elements were

perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in disorder…The mother’s impassioned state had been the

medium through which were transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of its moral life (255-256).

Hester saw her own traits compounded in Pearl, “her wild, desperate, defiant mood, the

flightiness of her temper, and even some of the very cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency”

(256). Pearl could not be ruled, and “Hester was ultimately compelled to stand aside, and permit

the child to be swayed by her own impulses” (256). These descriptions show that “she reflects

the untamed qualities of her primitive environment” (Daniel 307).

Though some of Pearl’s traits could be said to be had of children in general, Hawthorne

goes so far as to distance Pearl from other humans. She is described as laughing “like a thing

incapable and unintelligent of human sorrow” (Hawthorne 257). Despite her connection to

sunshine and the natural world, she is simultaneously “An imp of evil, emblem and product of

sin, she had no right among christened infants” (257). Even Hester herself is unsure of Pearl’s
 4

nature, “the mother felt like one who has evoked a spirit…but…has failed to win…control [of]

this new and incomprehensible intelligence” (257). She is also described as having “the wild-

flower prettiness of a peasant-baby” (255), with “a native grace” (254). In this respect, Pearl

symbolizes both a wildness of spirit and the potential of the morally neutral natural world to

contain both beauty and chaos.

Overall, Hawthorne explores both the natural world and the nature of humans in The

Scarlet Letter. Hester is a personification of the tensions between Puritan society and its artificial

morals, and the freedom of conscience experienced in the wilderness. Hester takes refuge in the

isolation of her cottage, which exists on the outskirts of her village. She is not completely

removed from society, nor is she completely independent in the wilderness. The effects of being

shunned by society are also felt by her daughter Pearl. As a result of her mother’s perceived

immorality, she is left without a positive association with society and her fellow children. Thus,

she becomes closer to the natural world. Through these characters, Hawthorne explores the

effects of society on individual morality. The neutrality of the natural world reflects the true

neutrality of conscience associated with human nature. The rules and codes of ethics imposed by

Puritan society are shown to be at odds with the natural state of the environment and humanity.
 5

Works Cited

Ahmad, Kashif, et al. “Nature In Narration: An Ecological Re-Reading Of The Human

Environmental Inter-Relationship In The Scarlet Letter.” Journal of Positive School

Psychology, vol. 6, no. 9, Dec. 2022, pp. 373–87. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=160403584&site=eds-live.

Daniel, Janice B. “`Apples of the Thoughts and Fancies’: Nature as Narrator in the Scarlet

Letter.” ATQ, vol. 7, no. 4, Dec. 1993, p. 307. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9410050848&site=eds-live.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Chapters from The Scarlet Letter.” The Dover Anthology of American

Literature, Volume I: From the Origins Through the Civil War, edited by Bob Blaisdell,

Kindle ed., vol. 1, Dover Publications, Mineola, NY, 2014, pp. 246-262. Dover Thrift

Editions: Literary Collections.

Katz, Seymour. “‘Character,’ ‘Nature,’ and Allegory in The Scarlet Letter.” Nineteenth-Century

Fiction, vol. 23, no. 1, June 1968, pp. 3–17. EBSCOhost, https://doi-

org.ezproxy2.lsua.edu/10.2307/2932313.