The Crucible Vs. the Scarlet Letter

The Crucible vs. the Scarlet Letter

The two stories, both set in Puritan America, tell two sad tales involving different people. The Scarlet Letter tells the tale of a young woman, convicted of adultery, and her life as she has to live with the burning A on her chest, symbol of an adulterer. The Crucible, the tale of the Salem Witch Hunts, tells the story of the girls who shocked the whole world by revealing "workers for the Devil." However different these stories seem, they have quite a few similarities.

In the Scarlet Letter, a young woman named Hester Prynne is charged with adultery, and forced to wear a bright red A across her chest, the Puritan symbol of an adulterer. Throughout the story, Hester is forced to deal with heavy weight of sin upon her chest, and she must care for her child who, born out of wedlock, seemed to be very strange ever since birth. But not once, even though the priests and leaders of the Puritan community begged her to, did she give up who her partner was. She stood steadfast against them. Her husband who had thought to be lost at sea shows up only to be greeted by his wife's sinfulness. He becomes a bit crazed, and intends to find out who his wife's fellow sinner is. The story comes on, and it turns out to be the minister who was the one who sinned along with Hester Prynne and together with their child, they reveal the truth. The story showed two different people, connected by the same sin, earning their penitence and dealing with it as they thought it should be dealt.

The Crucible was a bit different. This story, which was told in the form of a playwright, described the Salem witch hunt. A group of girls appeared to be attacked by curses and spells sent by witches who lived in the community of Salem. They would point out these witches in front of a court and judge, and many of the witches were sent to jail, and later death. One family was focused on most, the Proctors, and the leader of girls, Abigail Williams, has had an affair with the husband, John Proctor. Hoping to destroy the marriage, she and the other girls accused