Far and away the most important scenes in The Scarlet Letter take place in two locations, the market-place and the forest. These are presented to us as very different places, reflecting very different human aspirations.

The market-place is public. It lies at the very heart of the tiny enclave of civilization the Puritans have managed to carve out of the vast, untouched continent. The market-place contains both the church and the scaffold- institutions of law and religion. It is where criminals like Hester are punished, where penitents like Dimmesdale confess, and where men put on the faces they wear for the world.

The forest, on the other hand, is dark and secret. It is where people come to let loose and be themselves. The forest track leads away from the settlement out into the wilderness where all signs of civilizat

Society's response to the letter, in turn, affects Hester. On the surface, she becomes a patient and penitential figure. She looks like someone seeking to live down the sin that the scarlet letter represents. But beneath the surface, rebellion is brewing. Society's insults make Hester angry and bitter. She becomes a scornful critic of her world. Hester takes the letter to herself. She becomes in fact the renegade she is labeled. Hester breaks free of conventional ideas and, as we see in the forest scene, she opposes Puritan truths with some devastating truths of her own.

Perhaps if Hawthorne reached back to Salem in the 1600s, he would find more figures invested with the same dark and dusky grandeur, more men and women who would speak as directly to his creative imagination.

Dimmesdale alone undergoes the necessary change of heart to find a doubtful peace.

The Scarlet Letter began life as a short story. (Hawthorne was advised to expand it into a novel, which he did.) In many respects, it retains the characteristics of a short story. The Scarlet Letter has the tightness and the economy we generally associate with the shorter fictional form.

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Approximate Word count = 2318
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)