Entrapment and Captivity

All of the novel’s disparate characters are connected via their shared experiences of entrapment and captivity. The author introduces this thematic exploration within the context of the young lovers in Chapter 1. The young man and woman flee their home in the Colony in pursuit of freedom. Although they are entering the unknown when they escape into the forest, they feel as if they are “Nature’s ward now” (5). Therefore, the natural world becomes their refuge and haven. In turn, the north woods become symbolic of freedom. By establishing this symbolic significance in Chapter 1, the author foreshadows his other characters’ coming relationships with the woods.

Over the course of the novel, characters including Charles, Alice, and Mary Osgood, William Teale, and Morris Lakeman are liberated from their circumstances by retreating to the yellow house in the north woods. In Chapter 1, “‘Osgood’s Wonder,’ Being...