Puritans, or “the pure ones,” were English Protestants in the 16th century who enforced strict laws, principles, discipline, and religion. They strongly believed in leading simple, ordinary, religious lives. Therefore, a Puritanistic society would not tolerate any complex matters of self- expression or allow any violations of laws that would upset their “pure” way of living. In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses nature as a shelter from the strict mandates of the …showed first 75 words of 949 total…

…showed last 75 words of 949 total…shows the need to escape from a world of order to a natural world. Through the forest he gives the characters a place to run off to where their true emotions can be expressed. Here stories of sin are whispered to a babbling brook, and passions as wild as a rosebush by a prison door are ignited. Nature is used as a shelter of freedom from the strict laws one must uphold in Puritan life.