great forest scene, the critical stage of the communication phase between the two characters. (540) Pearl approaches Hester as a real-child, she demands that her mother pin the discarded A back on her breast. Pearl’s actions bring immediate results from Hester who returns the A to her chest, and the mother and child relationship is restored. Pearl does not speak to Dimmesdale in a human voice and he himself uses the word preternatural to describe her agitation. (542)” Another VERY important happening in the forest of truth. (3) It is here in the forest that all of the “meat” of the story takes place. Everything that is accept the cruelties of the outside hypocrites and haters. In the forest they can be with one another’s true self without stones and burnings. In the forest, we see care for one another and not care for laws, "Be thou strong for me," Dimmesdale pleads. "Advise me what to do."(p. 187) When he asks her to help him we see Hester take on a new role in the story. She becomes the strong one and he then is weak. This goes back too, to the article where we are shown Hawthorns love for a lady that weakened him and gave him an upper hand within the relationship between man and woman. When Dimmesdale asks for help, he is silently admitting that she is an equal and is strong in her convictions. She then uplifts him in words much like his own in sermons. "Begin all anew! … Preach! Write! Act!"(p. 188) She is taking a stand! "Whither leads yonder forest-track? Backward to the settlement, thou sayest! Yea; but onward, too! Deeper it goes, and deeper into the wilderness… until, some few miles hence, the yellow leave will show no vestige of the white man’s tread." (p. 187) Man has tread in the forest for many things food, warmth from wood, herbal medicines for healing and (in this case) verbal medicines for the healing of the soul. Where could man and woman unmarried ...
