Hester Street

Scrivener” by Herman Melville, the two main characters face conflicts with society. In the “Scarlet Letter”, Hester Prynne, a young woman, is forced to bear a symbol of her affair with Reverend Dimmesdale on her chest and face public humiliation for the rest of her life. “Bartleby the Scrivener” is a story about a man who is a misfit, struggling to fit into society as a scrivener for Wall Street, who eventually dies in a prison. Both characters struggle with an oppressive society, rebelling in their

of The Scarlet Letter goes through the peaks and valleys of Hester, Pearl and Dimmesdale’s emotions as their plan to leave for a new life fades away in an instant. The struggle these characters have to endure for it all to fall apart proves why it is, in fact, a sad ending. A ceremonial parade marched down and through the small town where there was to be a new governor elected. The whole town had gone out to this event, including Hester and Pearl as Dimmesdale was to give a speech to the crowd. Through

the atrocious treatment of the “outsider” in his book, “​ The Scarlet Letter​ ,” through the character  Hester Prynne. Hester is shamed publicly for her sin of adultery, for which she bears the mark of  an “A” upon her bosom, and she is forced to live alone with her daughter, isolated from the rest  of the townsfolk, creating even more of a barrier between her, the “outsider”, and the Puritans.  For years after her condemnation, Hester is scorned by nearly everyone she meets for an act she  had done long ago. “Clergymen

“Do you think that we're products of our environments? I think so, or maybe products of our expectations.”(Wes Moore) This quote, said by author, Wes Moore is an essential aspect shared between both novels. The Other Wes Moore, is the story of two boys that grow up in the same community, share the same name, and grow up to be very different people. One of the Wes’s becomes a successful author, and the other Wes is sentenced to life in prison. Author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, is responsible for producing

with two different outcomes. In the book The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is punished and humiliated for committing adultery with the man she was deeply in love with. Where as in the film Chicago, Roxie Hart had her name in lights for killing the man she slept around with. Adultery is the center in both stories; but the characters and, the views society had in the different ears is what makes these stories so different. In comparison, Hester Prynne and Roxie Hart, are not much alike. Heaster is a strong

of Hester’s past that she can never forget but also represents a sense of strength that she overcame all the hardship that was a result of her sin, though she still feels the pain of the letter when encountering Mr. Dimmesdale. In chapter sixteen, Hester plans to meet with the minister in order to discuss their plans about what to do with Roger Chillingworth, but also just to talk to somebody who understands her situation. Eventually, Pearl brings up the Black Man again when she describes how “he

In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the stories of how the community perceives Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth versus their genuine individuality reveal how society may view individuals in a malicious way rather than who they truly are.​ Prynne is seen as a sinful woman who committed a crime and is often shunned by the community. She is an ethereal woman that stands up for herself and is very brave. Dimmesdale is renown as the town's holy minister

Pearl identifies most with the forest. Since her birth, she has been described as having a “wild,” personality. In the town, she is just a part of Hester’s sin and is not given the chance to be independent outside of her mother. She does not have friends and is referred to as a “devil child.” In the forest, however, Pearl seems to come alive. For the first time in the novel, Hawthorne uses symbols other than the scarlet “A,” on Hester’s chest or the negative aspects of birds and fairies as symbols

as a search for one’s own self. Both Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne goes through this process and finally succeeded in finding the duality of one's personality, and the impossibility of complementing the split between individual and community identity. However, they were compelled to take different paths on this journey, and they react quite differently when they finally arrive at the conclusion of this search. Dimmesdale and Hester start out from the same point: their adultery. This "sin"

The relationship between the individual and society is not just something found throughout human history, but also within the pages of a literature classic. From the first days of settlement in America, to racial tensions and slavery, to the development of capitalism, there has always been a relationship between the individual and society that is reflected in the written pieces of each time, revealing the connection between oneself and the collective spanning across the centuries. ‘The Scarlet Letter’