Self Reliance Essay

Independence is growing through the course of our veins starting many generations ago. In the novels, The Scarlet Letter, The Glass Castle and the play A Raisin in the Sun, They all display some sort of independence and self reliance. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Jeannette Walls, and Lorraine Hansberry’s characters achieves self-reliance through their individual hardships. All novels share characteristics of Independence by, escaping hardship, striving for personal goals and not letting their environment affect them.

The Scarlet Letter is a novel written by writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. In his novel, his main character Hester Prynne is forced upon her community to becoming independent. Through her independence, she takes care of her daughter and herself,

In her novel, she describes her hectic lifestyle with her parents during her childhood. During this time period in her life, she is very dependent on her family, for the fact that she is very young, and the fact that she can’t exactly provide an income for herself. Although, she did grasp self reliance at a young age for being able to cook for herself, her family did live in poverty and struggles to the brim to get out of it. At first, she doesn’t realize anything wrong with her family and the way she lives. But, as she grows, she learns her family has an abnormality to them, against most other american families. She does not think about becoming strictly independent until her sister brings up the idea that she will move to New York after high school, and that 's where Jeannette’s dream starts. She is getting sick of moving place to place, not knowing when’s the next time she will get a hot meal. So, as the time comes and she is helping her sister to earn more money to leave, she sets her sights out on leaving after graduation. She though, leaves one year earlier than planned, but she knows this is the right thing for her to do. After her father begs her to stay, she does say goodbye painfully to the family, taking on her independence to New York. Escaping the nightmare of the movements of her parents seems to be a relief, escaping the hardships and the intoxicating environment that comes with the Walls family. She did reach her goal to be independent by have a place to lay her head every night, eating a hot meal everyday, and being able to say she does it all on her own. She finally gets the happiness that comes with the American Independence. She is able to do anything by herself, for