Settings Of The Scarlett Letter Essay, Research Paper

Setting is an important factor when it comes to telling any kind of story. Nathaniel Hawthorne s story is that of four main settings. The Governors Mansion, the prison, the platform, and the woods. He uses these places to further exaggerate the tale of the main characters, Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester Prynne, and Roger Chillingworth. Each place has a different meaning and emotional significance to a character. The words in the book give imagery to the novel and give it a more textured feeling. This is important when trying to keep the reader s attention when the book has language unfamiliar to most. The Governors Mansion, the prison, the platform, and the woods have a significant part in the tale of sin and redemption.

The governor s mansion is the place where Hester is placed under a microscope. The author describes the home of Bellingham as less than modest. It seems like the house of royalty, This was a large wooden house, built in a fashion of which there are specimens still extant in the streets of our elder towns There was the freshness of the passing year on its exterior, and the cheerfulness, gleaming forth from the sunny windows, of a human habitation into which death had never entered. It had indeed a very cheery aspect it glittered and sparkled as if diamonds had been flung against it by the double handful. The brilliancy might have befitted Aladdin’s palace, rather than the mansion of a grave old Puritan Ruler. (page 84) This house is certainly nothing like Hester s, so she and her daughter are in amazement of all the fixtures in the dwelling.

The armor in Bellingham’s hall has a distinct purpose. It is a distorted mirror that magnifies the scarlet letter on Hester’s dress and diminishes the woman who wears it. Here, in the Governor’s mansion, at the heart of the Puritan establishment, Hester Prynne, the individual, vanishes behind the symbol of her shame. Hester looked, by way of humoring the child; and she saw that, owing to the peculiar effect of this convex mirror, the scarlet letter was represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance. (page 87) She is no longer a woman of able being, she is back to being the wearer of the scarlet letter.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter, life is centered on a rigid, Puritanistic-structured society in which one is scrutinized by the public and not allowed to stray from Christian ideology. Unfortunately, Puritan society did not permit expression of ones feelings. So the in characters The Scarlet Letter had to seek alternate means in order to relieve themselves. Luckily, the two of the main characters, Hawthorne provides such a safe haven in the form of the mysterious forest. Hawthorne uses the woods to provide a shelter for members of society in need of a refuge from daily life. In the deep, dark portions of the forest, the main characters bring forth hidden thoughts and emotions. The woods lead away from the settlement out into the wilderness where all signs of civilization vanish. This is precisely the place where characters lose themselves and are not afraid to show their true feelings because they are not fettered by law and religion. The woods acts as a refuge where men and women can breathe a cathartic sigh of relief. It is here that Dimmesdale and Hester can openly acknowledge each other and their undying love for another. It is here that the two of them can openly engage in conversation, without the ears Puritan society judging them.

Truly, Hester takes advantage of this, when Arthur Dimmesdale appears. Hester openly talks with Dimmesdale about subjects which would never be mentioned in any place other than the forest. “What we did “had a consecration of its own. We felt it so! We said to each other!”(p. 156). This statement shocks Dimmesdale, and he tries quiet her, but he eventually realizes that he is in an environment where he can open up. It is assumed that by Puritan society that one only need oneself, and therefore should hold no emotional necessity for support. Yet in the forest, this idea is tossed away. “Be thou strong for me,” Dimmesdale pleads. “Advise me what to do.”(p. 157). This is a cry for help from Dimmesdale, with him finally admitting he can t go through this ordeal that is eating him up inside alone. This role-reversal would not be happening if not in the context of the forest. What other platform is there for a man of high regard in the community to pour his soul to a woman who is shunned by the public for a grave sin? Nowhere else but in the forest, could such an event occur.

The prison was on of the first things built by the Puritans when they came to the New World. I the few years of the church it had become weather-beaten, dark, rust-ridden fa ade and its oak doors. The prison is what holds Hester back from society. Even when she is released she is still metaphorically in prison. She lives with Pearl as her only contact. She is role-reversal only sees others when she is running errands. The prison is where all who break the laws of the court and the Holy book are sentenced. The prison is dark and dreary with no incoming sunlight. The prison is where Hester and Chillingworth first see each other since they parted before she came to the New World.

Recurring events show great significance and carry meaning. In The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne chooses the platform scenes to show powerful differences and similarities. At the beginning of the book, Hester is brought out with Pearl to stand on the platform. Here the scarlet letter is revealed to all. with all the townspeople assembled and levelling their stern regards at Hester Prynne who stood on the scaffold of the pillory, and the letter A, in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold thread (p. 50) Reverend Dimmesdale, Pearl’s Father, is already raised up on a platform and Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s lost husband stands below, watching the events take place. Dimmesdale is told to make Hester confess the name of her lover. It was said, “So powerful seemed the ministers appeal that the people could not believe but that Hester Prynne would speak out the guilty name.”(p. 57) Dimmesdale s speech is really meant for himself as a motivator to confess his sins openly. Yet he holds back.

A few years later the almost exact event is occurs again. This again helps us to see and feel Dimmesdale s torment. As before the tortured Reverend Dimmesdale goes first on to the platform. He then sees Hester and Pearl and asks them to join him on the scaffold. Pearl asks the minister if he will do the same at noontide and he answers no. He once again is too much of a coward to confess out in the open.

The last platform scene is the most important and greatest event in the novel. Dimmesdale grows weak and limps towards the platform. He knows this maybe his last chance so he calls Hester and Pearl to his side as he makes his way to the platform. Chillingworth senses his revenge coming to an end begs Hester and the Minister to stop. Dimmesdale has made up his mind so Chillingworth s attempts are futile. If you look up the word leech in the dictionary, you will find the meaning you expect: a blood-sucking insect. In past centuries doctors were known as leeches because of their common practice of bleeding patients. Later the term became synonymous with the people who used the leeches in common practice. Chillingworth, after all, has made his own life dependent on Dimmesdale’s. Revenge is his sole reason to exist. As the title of chapter nine reminds us, a leech is a parasite that dies along with its host. Dimmesdale confesses and new scarlet letter is revealed on another bearer s chest.

The Scarlet Letter is set in the seventeenth century, puritanical, New England colony of Massachusetts. The novel, opens with a prison setting, foreshadowing the future seclusion, gloominess and condemnation of the protagonists. The scenes shift around Boston with such places like the Governor s and Hester s house. The crucial platform scenes are set in the market place, while the decisive meeting of Hester and Dimmesdale is set in the forest. The settings are of crucial importance because all major decisions on the novel were made in them.