The entity of Nature acts as a double-edged sword in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the novel, Nature displays its ability to both hurt and heal through its effects on the characters. The novel highlights the complexity of Nature by showing that the Puritan idea of ​​Nature as an entirely evil force is a naive misconception. The text reveals the beneficial attributes of Nature that the Puritans neglected or feared. On the contrary, the text shows that the aspects of Nature that help man are also harmful to him. The duality and complexity of Nature reflect the complex inner feelings and dual nature of the characters in the book. Nature represents the paradoxical juxtaposition of good and evil in man, displaying both good and bad attributes within itself. Ultimately, Nature reveals man's inherent inability to be pure. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay By presenting a number of aspects of Nature that are beneficial to humans, the text manages to discard the one-sided Puritan view of Nature as an entirely evil influence. Nature provides both Hestor and Dimmesdale with some feelings of refreshment and relief by giving them a sense of freedom from society. When surrounded only by society and separated from nature, Dimmesdale worsens. He retreats into his study or within himself, places where he can only breathe "his own polluted breath" (128). He wishes to “finally take free air” (128) and live life without the burden of his guilt, the burden of his society. He first achieves this feeling of freedom during his "long walks by the sea or in the forest" (119) with Chillingworth. Dimmesdale describes his relief and joy in conversing with another human being outside the typical sphere of society as the feeling that "a window was wide open, admitting a freer atmosphere into the closed and stifled study where his life lay wasting away" (120). Significantly, this sense of freedom manifests itself in Dimmesdale while he is in nature, away from the confines of society. The text metaphorically compares Dimmesdale's sense of freedom to the feeling of relief of breathing fresh air. The idea of ​​receiving fresh air alludes to the act of escaping confinement. It represents freedom from oppressive, humid and decadent ideas and institutions. By using metaphors that compare Nature to freedom, Hawthorne highlights the positive side of Nature, and Hawthorne reveals Nature's ability to provide relief and liberation. Significantly, Dimmesdale does not repeat the experience of liberation until he finds himself back in the forest. The forest, as a representative of nature, brings Dimmesdale out of his self-imposed isolation and the isolation of the Puritan community. Surrounded by Nature he experiences the "exhilarating effect" of "breathing a wild and free atmosphere" (198). The feeling strikes him as if he were "a prisoner who has just escaped from the prison of his own heart" (198). Nature provides him with relief and comfort from the oppressive Puritan society of Salem, as well as from the burden of his guilt. Because Nature is "an unredeemed, unchristianized, and lawless region" (198), Dimmesdale can temporarily distance himself from his ties to society and the guilt that these ties impose on him. In this way, Nature serves as a place where Dimmesdale can vent his true self, feel liberated, and sense the presence of a world outside of himself and Salem. Likewise, Nature provides Hestor with a sense of freedom from society's oppression. Being surrounded by the sea instead of the city distances herfrom the oppressive social influences of Salem. This distance allows her to gain insights that she could not have gained in the suffocating air of the Puritan city. Living in a “solitary cottage” near “the sea shore” (161), a place representative of Nature, he is able to conjure up thoughts “as he dared not enter any other dwelling in New England” (161). We are able to see the world in terms that the Puritans do not understand. Her separation from Puritan society allows her to understand the important and inherent contradictions and duality within herself and others. He glimpses these contradictions during his brief interactions with the city as he senses the secret guilt that other seemingly righteous people carry in their hearts. Her separation from society allows her the perspective needed to perceive duality in others. Her isolation from society amidst Nature's liberating influence frees her from the restrictions that determine what is acceptable to believe, allowing her mind to wander "as freely as the wild Indian in his woods" (196). Her “foreign point of view,” her “destiny and fortunes,” as well as her seclusion by the sea “set her free” (196) and gave her insight. This freedom demonstrates Nature's ability to confer beneficial influences on humanity, dispelling the idea that Nature can only be a force of evil. However, the novel forces the reader to recognize the negative aspects of Nature as well as the positive ones. Just as isolation leads Hestor to recognize the complexities and contradictions in himself and others, so the novel leads the reader to recognize the complexities in all things, including Nature. The text shows that, although Nature possesses positive attributes, its harmful aspects control and contaminate the otherwise beneficial ones. Dimmesdale actually enjoys the benefits of breathing "free air" (128) while surrounded by nature, but the text insists that the air is "too fresh and cold to be long breathed in comfort" (120). The fact that the fresh air initially heals Dimmesdale but then damages him after a long period of exposure to it shows the duality of Nature. Likewise, Nature reveals its complexity through the “plants that contain healing balms” (119) that it produces. Chillingworth collects these plants on his walks with Dimmesdale. Significantly, they are beneficial to the body only in the correct dosage. If administered incorrectly they can be poisonous. Furthermore, the plants produced by Nature prolong Dimmesdale's life, but for Dimmesdale this is cruelty. Therefore, Nature manages to harm Dimmesdale despite the healing relief she also gave him. Similar to the way Dimmesdale's soul finds solace in Nature, Hestor's "intellect and heart" find respite in "deserted places" (196), or natural places. Hawthorne's use of the term "wilderness" means that Hestor finds her respite in a place where she can be free from men, laws, and oppression. By using the word "wilderness," she emphasizes the way Hestor's situation isolates her and at the same time brings her closer to Nature. This isolation and closeness to nature gives her freedom, creative inspiration and liberation. However, as the word “desert” suggests, she too suffers from her isolation. Despite the overwhelming freedom that the desert offers, it is ultimately too isolated, too harsh, and too barren to be completely beneficial to the human soul. As the desert metaphor suggests, too much exposure to Nature's freedom inevitably leads Hestor "astray" (196). The text emphasizes with this metaphor, as well as with the fact that fresh air is too cold to be breathed for long, and that theHealing plants can be poisons, which too much healing substance can be harmful. As a force, Nature offers freedom and liberation, especially to Hestor and Dimmesdale. However, when experienced in excess, or when not diluted by societal forces, it is not an entirely positive or harmless influence. Nature's main danger to Hestor and Dimmesdale is its isolating influence on them. Being alone in the forest separates them from the civilizing and moralizing influences of society. The "intense isolation of the forest" (184) leads both Hestor and Dimmesdale to ignore society's morals and tempts them to sin again. The effects of this isolation and demoralization emerge while they are in the forest. Hestor throws his scarlet letter "among the withered leaves" (198). With this gesture she abandons all the customs and principles of her society, because in this section the scarlet letter symbolizes the influence of society on her. Likewise, Dimmesdale metaphorically casts his "sick, stained with sin and pain The "blackened" self (198) "comes down upon these forest leaves" (198) and rises again "all renewed" (198). However, the birth of this new self occurs only through the abandonment of his previous social self. The isolation and wilderness causes Hestor and Dimmesdale to believe that they can abandon their social duties and themselves without consequences, and they happily renew their relationship. sinful. Hestor never realizes the error of their decision because "for such a long time she has not simply been a stranger, but banished from society" (195) and trapped in the "moral wilderness" (196) of Nature. Because of her "long isolation from society" (156) she has been unable to "measure her ideas of right and wrong by any standard." norm external to itself" (156). Therefore, he no longer understands the concepts of socially accepted morality. Dimmesdale also appears to abandon his social self in favor of a more lawless one. He feels that "another man has returned from the forest" (219), and now he "stands apart" from his "former self" (219). He believes he is grasping a “knowledge of hidden mysteries that the simplicity of the first [self] could never have achieved” (219). However, once he reenters the “physical limits of what [his] church defines as Orthodox” (120), the physical boundaries of the city itself, he appears to begin to reenter the spiritual and emotional agreements he had with civil society. The liberating and demoralizing spell of Nature and isolation seems to eventually dissipate as he realizes that he cannot escape his social obligations and finally faces the truth of them instead. The boundaries that Dimmesdale physically and spiritually appears to cross between Nature and society are extremely significant to the residents of Salem. The city desperately tries to create strict boundaries around itself to keep out the evil of nature. In reality, Salem could keep evil within her confines by isolating herself in the same way that Dimmesdale isolates himself in his study and in his mind. Like Dimmesdale, the town has been "choked by [its] polluted breath" (128). The city has little contact with other communities or with any other "type of intellect beyond those with whom [they] habitually conversed" (120). This isolation breeds religious fervor, fear of the devil in the surrounding forest, and a rigid intolerance of sin in the Puritan town because it does not allow an outside influence to control the proliferation of these fears and beliefs. Just as the forest isolates Dimmesdale and Hestor from Salem, it isolates Salem from the rest of the world. In the cases of Hestor and Dimmesdale, isolation causes them to abandon society in favor of human weakness. In contrast, Salem's isolation leads her to abandon the freedom of human nature in favor of the rigid mores of society and religion. Thisisolation, and the way it causes the residents of Salem to see things in absolute, black and white terms, is why the real "Bogeyman" lurks in the novel. The inhabitants of the text believe that "the Black Man haunts the forest" (74) around them. The novel, however, provides no evidence to suggest the actual presence of the "Bogeyman" in the forest, but suggests that the town's belief in the devil's possession of Nature is a danger. Their belief in the woodland devil causes the Puritans to blindly associate all of Nature with sin, danger, and temptation. Their belief in evil leaves no room for the possibility of positive influences coming from the forest. The inhabitants of the city therefore have a vision of nature that is too narrow and one-sided. The novel shows that Salem society's tendency to see things in absolute terms extends far beyond their view of Nature. Their willingness to see Nature in terms of absolute evil mirrors their willingness to brand a woman with a letter scarlet and to objectify her as the human embodiment of sin. The text itself presents a dual image of Nature that refutes citizens' one-sided perception and suggests that the reader adopt the same awareness of duality and complexity in all things. In the novel, Nature not only serves as a mirror for society's behaviors but also as a mirror for the characters' emotions. Nature reveals to the reader the characters' innermost feelings by reflecting them in its external appearance. Hestor's melancholy spirits during his walk through the woods to meet Dimmesdale are reflected in the "cold and gloomy" weather (179). Sunlight escapes Estore in the forest just as happiness escapes her in her life. The text even describes the long-sought rays as "fleeting cheerfulness" (179), directly addressing the parallel between the external world of nature and the characters' internal world of feelings. The subsequent sudden "burst of sunshine" (199) that "pours a veritable flood" (199) of light into the forest as Hestor and Dimmesdale declare their love for each other mirrors the characters' joy in escaping the laws of society and giving in to their true desires. This sunlight is like “a sudden smile from the sky” (199) that matches the smiles of Hestor and Dimmesdale. Readers may interpret this mirroring as the intense effects of isolation on Hestor and Dimmesdale. This interpretation implies that characters narcissistically interpret everything they see, including Nature, in terms relative to themselves1. In many respects the text supports this interpretation. The forest would likely have been "bright in Hestor's eyes, and bright in Arthur Dimmesdale's" (200) because of their happiness, even if it had "retained its darkness" (200). However, the text seems to attempt to lead readers to recognize the complexities of all things. Therefore, readers can also interpret the reflections that Nature seems to make on Hestor's feelings and on Dimmesdale's as something more than simply meaningless mirror images of the characters' facial expressions. Reflections convey the very essence of the truth of the characters' feelings and situations. Throughout the novel, Nature seems to extract the truth from characters and events. The text presents Nature as a force that attempts to reveal the secret truth of many situations. Above all, Nature attempts to reveal the truth about the dark inner souls of Dimmesdale and Chillingworth. Dimmesdale carries with him a “manifestation in [his] bodily structure” (133) of his spiritual illness. This external disease is Nature's attempt to reveal the guilty truthwithin Dimmesdale. Likewise, Chillingworth also bears the marks of Nature's efforts to reveal his sin in his physical appearance. He has a "short, dark, deformed figure" (133) whose "ugly and evil" (124) facial expressions become "more obvious to the eye" every day (124). This external branding serves as Nature's attempt to expose Chillingworth's internal demons. Triumphant, Nature reveals Chillingworth's wickedness to Hestor and Dimmesdale during the night of the great meteor. “The meteoric light gives Dimmesdale a new expression” (152) of understanding. He sees the “malevolence with which” (152) Chillingworth stares at him, and develops an intense “horror for the man” (153) who is his doctor. Nature's efforts to reveal the truth aren't just focused on the sins of Chillingworth or Dimmesdale. The text suggests that Nature also attempts to expose Hestor's inner guilt as completely as it exposes the sins of Chillingworth or Dimmesdale. On the day of Hestor's release from prison, Nature seems to pour sunlight on Hestor "to reveal the scarlet letter upon his breast" (75). While this incident may have just been the twisted trick of Estore's "sick and morbid heart" (75), it also seems that Nature is highlighting the scarlet letter to signify that the focus of this situation is the letter and not Estore. Nature's role in the scene seems to be to show that Estor's life from this point on will revolve around the "A" on her breast. To most of the city, she exists only as the bearer of the symbol, the embodiment of shame, and not as a whole, complex person. Also apparently seeking the revealing truth, Nature gives Hestor a little girl, Pearl, who is like a scarlet flower who reveals to the world the truth about her mother's infidelity. Pearl herself suggests that "she had been plucked by her mother from the wild rose bush growing near the prison door" (108). The text reinforces the idea that Pearl is like "a lovely and immortal flower" (85) that blooms in the "luxuriant luxuriance" of her mother's "guilty passion" (85). The pearl therefore remains as a gift and a curse from Nature to forever remind Hestor and the citizens of Salem of the truth of his sin. Faithful to the metaphor of the wild rose, Pearl seems to be a daughter of Nature. It embodies the «wild and pagan nature of the forest, never subjugated by human law» (199). She is "wild as the sea breeze" (174) and is "endowed with the soul of sea fire" (240). His affinity with Nature manifests itself not only in the metaphors that describe his wild personality, but also in his desire and mysterious sense of truth. Nature and Pearl together prevent Estore from removing the scarlet symbol of truth from his chest. Pearl seems to know that Estor cannot completely abandon the society and morality represented by the scarlet letter. He points to "his mother's breast" (205) while "assuming a singular air of authority" (205), insisting that his mother return the letter to the right place. Nature reflects Pearl's angry "scowl" (205), her "pointing finger and imperious gesture" (205) in a small stream, "giving emphasis" (205) to Pearl's request. When Pearl's anguish intensifies into "piercing cries" (206), the woods echo her cries. As the forest resonates with Pearl's screams, it seems "as if a hidden multitude lent her their sympathy and encouragement" (206). The cooperation between Pearl and Nature causes Estor to reattach the letter to his chest, symbolically continuing to declare the truth of his sin to the world. In fact, Pearl always seems to sense the truth of a situation, or help unmask it. the truth. He constantly pesters Hestor about the meaning.