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Society's Entrapment vs. Natural Escape
Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is a story of sin, guilt and salvation, centered in the purely Puritan community of Massachusetts in the seventeenth century. Within this community, we found all the central features of the town, the most symbolic of these is the scaffold; many souls are condemned upon it and are subjected to intense inquiry, where reality becomes a brutal punishment. In contrast to the scaffold is the forest beyond the town, here, there is no judgment and reality is relative to the individual. Hawthorne creates this setting for the characters to escape from themselves and society without restraint or worry, the comparison is clear: the market place, especially the scaffold, represents the harsh reality of Puritan society and public judgment and the forest provides getaway and escape.
The scaffold, just like the community itself, is a place where sinners are made to face the accusing public as the center of criticism......

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Approximate Word Count: 550
Approximate Pages: 3 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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