The novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a novel based on adultery and hypocrisy of society. In summary, the novel explains the story of Hester Prynne, a woman who is going through a long and rough period in her life because she is facing major conflicts with her society because of the adultery she has committed. Throughout the story line, Hester deals with conflicts with herself and her society when she is trying to keep the secret of who her husband is and who she had committed adultery with. She is also in conflict with her husband because he is not giving up on finding out who had an affair with her. This classic novel shares many literary elements with The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. However, can we say that both novels are similar? We will discuss this matter by comparing and contrasting the main male tragic heroes in each novel as well as the same themes used in each books.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, was born on July 4th 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts. He was the second child of a U.S Navy Captain who died of yellow fever in Suriname in 1808. Since he was only four years old, Nathaniel was raised by his older sibling and his mom. As he got older, he grew this insane love for writing. He wrote and published his first piece of literature, The Spectator, in the August of year 1820. To share his talents, he distributed that newsmagazine to all of his loved ones. A year later, Hawthorne enters in Bowdoin College, where he became friends with the future poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and future American President, Franklin Pierce. He then graduated in four years later in 1825. For the next ten years, Hawthorne begins to isolate himself from the world. He decides to stop talking to friends and family to focus on his writing to achieve his goal on becoming a successful author. Three years after his decade of intense isolation, Hawthorne publishes his first