In the world today, society forces us to believe that living in an advance environment is the proper way to live, while residing in an undeveloped environment makes us savage and uncivilized. But Ken Kesey and Nathaniel Hawthorne, authors of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Scarlet Letter, respectively, use literature to render that false. Both authors use setting to demonstrate civilized places are harsh and brutal, while a natural setting brings peace and happiness.
In The Scarlet Letter, we can see that the community is judgmental and cruel toward Hester, but that is nowhere to be found in the forest. The town shuns Hester for her sins as each individual “had a roar of multitude” (52). Everybody, even the children laugh at her, but in the forest, where there is no one to mock her, Hester can finally become happy. The forest fills Hester with blithe because it is the place where Hester and Dimmesdale first fornicated, and also where she takes off her scarlet letter and regains her beauty when “she took off the formal cap that confined her hair; and down it fell upon her shoulders… her sex, her youth, and the whole richness of her beauty, came back.” (183). We can clearly see the town is brutal, while the forest gratifies her, which, is similar to the hospital and the fishing trip, respectively, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, it is obvious that the hospital is a cold controlling environment, similar to the town in The Scarlet Letter, while the fishing trip brings joy and laughter, just like how the forest brings happiness. The hospital is under control by the antagonist, Nurse Ratched and she is the sole reason why the hospital is so cold and manipulative. The way she treat the patients is similar to the way the town treats Hester. The patients know how much control she has over them as the Chief thinks: “The Big Nurse is able to set the wall clock to whatever speed she wants” (70). The fishing trip, on the other hand, is a moment of bliss and laughter similar to the forest as the patients are “swinging a laughter on the water” (212). We can see the differences of how the patients are in the hospital, and how they are on the fishing trip.
It is obvious that both authors use setting to show natural places brings harmony, while “civilized” places bring despair. Kesey and Hawthorne both use their writings to show that the world is not how society describes it, but a stale, controlling world.

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