Beginning of Essay
Two American authors, of two distinctly different time periods had one very similar task, to turn a piece of American History into a believable tragedy. Arthur Miller with The Crucible and Nathaniel Hawthorne with The Scarlet Letter. Perhaps one might wonder whi ....

Middle of Essay
.... to write a novel. Hawthorne perhaps chose this dark subject to convey his contempt for Puritanism. He was a man preoccupied with the hidden sin which is illustrated in not only the Scarlet Letter, but also in The Minister's Black Veil. One might even say that Hawthorne's ancestry (Hathorne) is what he might consider his own "Pearl", and this is why he changed his name. Like Miller's the Crucible, The Scarlet Letter takes place in Puritan Salem and has a tragic hero, but these are the only similarities between the two great works. In Miller's play, the tragic hero is John Proctor, a man whose pride causes the demise of many women ....