This is not what Hester wanted to hear. Everything she had hoped would come true, all of her struggle, was rejected by the one person she thought understood it. Hester's experience shows that there is no guarantee of happiness by following intuition, yet there is the gaining of personal integrity that helped her through all of her struggles. Her ability to stay strong through all of her hard times is the one characteristic that can be admired by everyone, and why she is a symbol of strength.
The city in which the novel takes place and the forest just beyond it represent good and evil. The city tries to reflect the "City on a Hill," a utopian town flowing with the human ideal for the city of God based upon His laws as read in the Bible. The people of the city attempt to be good in order to fit in to the city. Those who leave the city and go into the forest are looked upon as bad and evil. Hawthorne believes there was an excessive problem with the way of life in Puritan New England and their intent of aspiring to be the city of God, that is why very close to it lies the forest, the mysterious place where twisted malice and the devil himself are to be found.
The forest is where the laws of God are left behind and evil sins occur. To establish that the forest is a symbol of evil, light never shines there. Whenever light does shine through, it is meant to expose the sinful truth and nature in a person,.
They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendor, as if it were light that is to reveal all secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another. There was witchcraft in little Pearl's eyes, and her face, as she glanced upward at the minister, wore that naughty smile which made its expression frequently so elfish.
The minister, Mr. Dimmesdale, was Hester's sin who is even mistaken later in the novel by Pearl for the Black Man. The Black Man is the devil who leaves his mark on those in the forest.