Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is considered a classic that was written before 1900. The novel is a tale that gives the reader a look into what committing adultery in the 19th century was like compared to now. The Scarlet Letter has a variety of events that happen throughout that could have the reader confused about which way the novel is going, whether for or against how adultery was handled in that day and age.
Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” is set in the same era as The Scarlet Letter, and it has some of the same events. “The Crucible” is mainly a play on the Salem Witch Trials, but it also has an affair mentioned and how it was handled. Comparing “The Crucible” to The Scarlet Letter there are the major differences, but there are also the things that the two works have in common. For example, Abigail, from “The Crucible,” was a girl who had lost her parents and was going to be living with a neighbor of her aunt and uncle to work. That is when the affair happened. Abigail slept with John and was immediately kicked out of that household and forced to live with her aunt and uncle when John’s wife found out. John and his wife agreed with Abigail to keep the affair between the three of them. The Scarlet Letter’s main character, Hester, moved to the area after her husband was declared lost at sea when he was trying to immigrate to her, essentially losing him. Both the main characters had major losses to their personal lives causing them to have to find a way to deal with it. Both Abigail and Hester dealt with the pain of losing loved ones by sleeping with someone. Abigail had her affair with a married man and Hester had her affair with the new priest.
With both the novel and the play, they handled the affairs the best ...
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...eturn shocks the women of the village, mainly because she continues to wear the “A.” There are many women who say that it is unnecessary for her to continue torturing herself as she is.
Based on today’s standards both of these women would not have any major problems getting involved in the community again. In that era it was a sin that was punishable by death, where as today, the most that will happen is a divorce. Today’s standards will slow the two women down a bit, but they will not die. Had the affair’s happened in the 21st century instead of the 19th, their lives would have been greatly changed, but they would have adapted easier than then. Today, affairs happen more often than not and the world continues to spin. These standards have slowly evolved over time to get to the point that they are at now where affairs no longer mean death of the involved parties.
Death is a major theme through both Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. In the first text, mass hysteria rips through Salem after a group of girls danced in the woods and blame everything and anything on witchcraft. The girl who could be identified as the main trouble-maker is Abigail Williams. She kicked up all of the witch suspicions because she had an affair with John Proctor, the identifiable hero. The story climaxed with the death of characters that drew affection from the readers. In the second piece of literature, the main conflict happens to be that of Hester Prynne, who committed adultery and had a child. There was a lot of public ridicule in this instance and many underlying plots within it. Again, the climax of the story could be argued to be the death of a beloved character. These two particular titles do in fact share a lot of common ideas and themes, while at the same having very
In Arthur Cleveland Coxe’s review of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, he repeatedly criticizes the novel and expresses his moral disapproval for the story. Distinctively, Coxe argues that lying is made out to be a worse sin than adultery, that Hawthorne intends for the evil-doing characters to stand out and be specifically fascinating, and that the novel overall is entirely rude in that it attempts to accumulate pity for the sinners. Taken as a whole, Coxe feels that the novel challenges ethics which he and his fellow-church-goers have been holding true for hundreds of years. I mostly disagree, but there is some truth in his statements.
Corruption has always existed in our society since the beginning to present time due to conspiracies such as the witch trials and the communism era. The Crucible by Arthur Miller was written during the era of communism to mere the hysteria. The Crucible is about the Salem witch trials in Salem Massachusetts in 1692. It’s a corrupt witch trial in Salem that’s due to false accusations of witchcraft for personal gains. John Proctor is the protagonist in the story The Crucible who goes through the ultimate test by choosing his reputation over integrity. He also had an affair with a young girl named Abigail who is the antagonist and is the main reason the bloodshed is occurring in Salem. Initially, Proctor hesitates to deal with his sin, but as the play progresses, he begins to understand its effects; this ultimately leads him to find goodness in himself as he stands for the truth.
“And be the stern and sad truth spoken, that the breach which guilt has once made into the human soul is never, in this mortal state, repaired” (158). Arthur Dimmesdale confesses his sin, but it makes such a big impact on him that he will always be reminded of it. The sin leaves a “breach,” or a hole, in him which cannot be fixed. Living in a Puritan community also makes it that much harder for Dimmesdale to keep his secret. Since the religion is completely strict and absolutely prohibits sins like adultery, he has no choice but to feel guilt and regret. The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a novel of gothic romanticism. It was written in the 1800s, but takes place in the 17th century. Hester Prynne lives in Boston, Massachusetts and commits adultery with Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. She is punished by the town and has to wear a beautifully embroidered scarlet “A” on all of her clothes, which stands for “Adulterer.” The Reverend keeps his secret for many years while Hester’s husband, Roger Chillngworth, comes back to town and seeks revenge. Reverend Dimmesdale confesses his sin and ends up dying. The character Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter is a dynamic character because in the beginning of the novel he is a healthy and intelligent minister, but towards the end, he becomes very guilty and emaciated.
Every action reaps its consequences. This veracity is revealed in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, published by Ticknor, Reed, and Fields in 1850. Categorized into the genre of romance, The Scarlet Letter has a solemn, dark, mysterious, and almost eerie mood. The historical novel is set in the strict Puritan society of seventeenth century Boston, Massachusetts. When the book begins, the past action of adultery has already been committed. The story then follows the characters involved in the dirty deed and skillfully details their responses to the consequences.
The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, focuses on the Salem witch trials and the extreme behavior that follows the trials. Miller shows how the dark desires and hidden agendas provokes such extreme behavior. The Crucible was written in a time when the anti-communist movement was strongly protested. During the Salem witch trials, a person was guilty until he proved himself
The Scarlet Letter is a story about human reaction to circumstances and the justification behind these actions. Each of the central characters in the novel represents a side of an extremely serious situation, adultery. Each of the characters has a certain amount of justification behind their actions and each searches for a way to rise out of his/her condition.
The Scarlet Letter, a novel based in Boston with Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and Arthur Dimmesdale as the main characters, focuses on sin and its repercussions. Adultery and Hypocrisy are two such sins that are the main focus of the plot. Some think that adultery is the sin that the book is concerned with, but if that were so it would pervade through the entire novel on a less superficial level that it does. Hypocrisy, on the other hand, has a constant and repetitious under light in the entire novel that leads to the conclusion that the novel is not teaching about adultery, but hypocrisy with an underlying idea of adultery.
The Crucible is a novel based on the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts, written by Arthur Miller. The Crucible demonstrates forbidden temptation between John Proctor and Abigail Williams, honor and dishonor in the town of Salem, ruthless revenge, and the strive for high social status. The narrative style of this play is standard 1950s everyday language. The Crucible is set in a theocratic society of Puritanism in 1692.
Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible as a symbolism for his own failing marriage and the communist hunt in America at this time in his life. However, almost 50 years later, Miller also wrote the screenplay for his movie adaption of the play. Moreover, there were definite changes to scenes, characters, and dialog, between the play and the movie. Miller’s variation to his own play, showcase key differences in Abigail Williams, through his changes in her persona, relationship with John Proctor, and the added scenes in the film.
On the face of the play (“The Crucible”) it seems to be simply about the mass hysteria which led to the 1692 Salem Witchcraft trials, which talks about a handful of issues which are somewhat remote to a modern audience, who in turn find it relatively intricate to relate to such happenings. But as you study the play in more detail you realise that Miller not only stresses issues which were easy to relate to in the time in which it was set, but has also given the play a modern touch by stressing the rivalry between Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Proctor. Consequently Miller adds to the dramatic feel of the play by adding a series of modern touches and historic statements which makes the play not only relate to the happenings of witchcraft but also explore the crime of adultery, which makes the play more about the personal guilt of John Proctor. The play furthermore creates the “Crucible” in such a way as to illustrate how people react to mass hysteria, created by a person or group of people desiring fame (in this case Abigail because she is the main leader of all the happenings that go on in the performance), as people di...
Most everyone has two sides to their character, one that shows in public and one that stays confined to the safety of a more private setting. However, there are times when the private side overshadows the public persona and escapes. Then the person is either left standing there to clean up their damaged reputation or liberated with a sense of relief to finally show their true colors to society. Thus creates the predicament of the characters in The Scarlet Letter, written in 1850 by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Instead of starting the audience at the beginning of the ordeal, Hawthorne sits the reader right into the aftermath of Hester Prynne’s sin. The unforgiving nature of Puritan culture condemns Hester for having passion for any other besides her husband, even though they do not know if he is even alive at this point. Her private self, the side that longed for another man, overwhelmed her public Puritan image and escaped, leading her down the path of temptation. This Puritan atmosphere collides with many dark romantic elements, such as the guilt and sin of someone romanticized to the reader, and the evocation of sympathy to the “bad” character, the one wrong in the context of the book, but most everyone secretly roots for. Hawthorne mixes the Puritan culture with romantic elements to evince the struggle of the private self to create a false public image and conform to the masses.
“But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose.”(174). According to the legal statutes and the prevailing sentiment of keeping in accordance with a strict interpretation of the Bible, adultery is a capital sin that requires the execution of both adulterer and adulteress. The Scarlet Letter contains little glee and hopefulness. It is densely constructed in the dark with a single spot of vivid color. The theme of private sin versus public morality in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter creates internal conflict Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale with the reflection of the imagination.
Many times while reading the novel “The Scarlet Letter” and the playwright, “The Crucible” I noticed many similarities; many things that made me remember the other, but it was amazing to also see the differences between the two stories. Each plot has a different twist, something that makes it completely original. The two plots had a lot in common, affairs, lying, and ultimately sinful acts and the gnawing guilt you feel from sin. Although, the two stories have a lot that is not so common; levels of hysteria, the source of the chaos, as well as the final outcome.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Scarlet Letter”. American Literature: Volume One. Ed. William E. Cain. New York: Pearson, 2004. 809-813. Print