in what ways has hawthorne constructed the action of the story to set the village and forest against each other?

The village is a place of safety. The paths are well lit and people know one another. The forest, however, is described as dark, strange, and foreign territory,

He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind. It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such solitude, that the traveller knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude.

Where the streets of the village is full of recognizable neighbors, the "dreary road" and "narrow path" of the forest is beset with an "unseen multitude" lurking in the "dreary" shadows.