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What Is The Difference Between The Scarlet Letter And The Coquette

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“The Scarlet Letter” by Nathanial Hawthorne and “The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton” by Hannah Webster Foster at first glance may seem to be entirely unrelated tales. “The Scarlet Letter” is the story of Hester Prynne, an adulteress who is forced to raise her daughter on her own and to wear a scarlet A to mark her indignity. “The Coquette” is a fictionalized account of a socially elite woman, Eliza Wharton, who dies after giving birth to a stillborn, illegitimate child. Although the fate and circumstances of each woman in these stories are on the opposite ends of the spectrum, at the core both comment on ideal womanhood, a woman’s sexual freedom, and sin in a patriarchal society. Hester Prynne and Eliza Wharton go against society’s

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