Hawthorne presents the organic-mechanical contrast in the novel The Scarlet Letter by pairing nature with manmade things to expose how nature assists the human realm and is generally more hospitable.

An example of the organic-mechanical contrast appears in chapter 7 when Hester and Pearl visit Governor Bellingham’s mansion. The mansion, made by humans, is mechanical and, on its own, not very agreeable. It’s “crumbling to decay.” Yet the intrusion of nature gives it a “brilliancy.” Nathaniel Hawthorne describes how the “fragments of broken glass” work with the sunshine to create sparkles. Thus, Hawthorne presents the organic as coming to the aid of the mechanical. Without nature, the human-made world would be sad. Even the harsh mechanical prison is contrasted with a plucky, organic rose bush.

For Hester and Pearl, the mechanical world is thoroughly distressing, since human society stigmatizes and shuns them. The mechanical world contrasts with the organic world since the latter gives Hester and Pearl a welcoming home instead of lopsided opprobrium. “The truth seems to be, however, that the mother-forest, and these wild things which it nourished, all recognized a kindred wildness in the human child,” says the narrator, connecting Hester (the mother), Pearl (the human child), and the organic environment.