(ooooh creepy)
When Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne
ventured into the woods, I imagined a foggy forest with branches masking their
conversation. But course in The Scarlet Letter,
the forest isn’t just an ordinary forest No, I think the forest has the power
to change people and distort perceptions.
Before Reverend
Dimmesdale crossed into the metaphorical alternate universe, he was upset. He was
emaciated. He had no hope. But in the forest, something happened. Hester
courageously spoke of her undying love for him, and surprisingly he also
yearned to run away with her. His eyes twinkled again, and the sun peaked. When
Dimmesdale emerged from the forest, he was a new man. He felt liberated and
alive again. He exclaims:
“I am not the man
for whom you take me! I left him yonder in the forest, withdrawn into a secret
dell, by a mossy tree-trunk, and near a melancholy brook! Go seek your minister,
and see if his emaciated figure, his think check, his white, heavy,
pain-wrinkled brow, be not flung down there, like a cast-off garment!” (195)
He felt as if old Dimmesdale was shed off physically. But
with his happiness came a great cost. He suddenly had malicious intentions for
others. He scoffs off a new church member and wants to be cruel towards the
kids – a total 360.
Hester Prynne entered the woods as a
confident, strong woman. But as time elapsed in the eldritch woods, she became
less sure of herself. Immediately after she threw her Scarlet A away and let
her hair cascade over her freely in a dramatic fashion, Pearl appeared. Pearl
acted as if she did not recognize her own mother without the embroidery on her
chest. Pearl had a fitful scene until Hester pinned the letter back onto her
clothing and tied her hair back. Hester is characterized as dreary now. As she left the woods, Hester Prynne was no
longer spirited and a conformist to society – a total 360.
How would the magical forest flip your personality??
love,
Courtney
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