Hawthorne used nature to contrast against the Puritan society and to make a deviation of the two. In the Novel, the Forest and every component that Nature is a part of is affectionate and gracious. From the outside, the forest looked obscure and dark but the inside was freeing and liberating. It was an escape from the cruelty of the Puritanism. Hawthorne used the “black flower of civilized society” to contrast against the rose bush. The black flower symbolizes the abuse and discipline of the Puritan Society, and the rose bush symbolizes forgiveness. 3
Nature has played a vital role in the Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne enforced Nature in the Scarlet Letter to mirror Human Nature and how Nature altered it, evaluate theme, and to precede comprehension into characters. He accomplished this by using symbols of Nature to adjust a characters beliefs, used Nature to express intuition of the characters and used Nature to add theme and imagery to the Novel. Nature had benefited the Novel in portraying the diverse state of minds that the characters were in. Without the use of Nature in the Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne could not have made the Novel this intense and