Good and Evil in the Scarlet Letter

All conflict in literature is, in its simplest form, a struggle between good and evil." This quote illustrates a conflict between what is wrong and what is right. Making a wrong decision sometimes makes an individual outcast.

One belief that people live by is that evil is the nature of mankind, yet there are others that believe man has good intentions but those intentions can be overrun by the evil. Nathaniel Hawthorne points out that the former is true of all people in the novel The Scarlet LetterA.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, shows that one person with his or her own views may contradict a society.Hester's moral struggles lead to a fight between consciences vs. tradition. It's ironic, but conscience in these cases is right, and tradition is evil and cruel.

Hawthorne himself had ambivalent feelings under the influence of his ancestors. In his autobiographical sketch, Hawthorne described his ancestors as "dim and dusky," "bitter persecutors" whose "better deeds" would be diminished by their bad deeds. There can be little doubt of Hawthorne's disdain for the stern morality and rigidity of the Puritans, and in the eyes of his ancestors he is disdainful, unsuccessful, worthless and disgraceful. "A writer of story books!" But even he not disagrees with his ancestor's statement to him.he also feels an instinctual connection to them and, more importantly, a "sense of place" in Salem. Their blood remains in his veins, but their intolerance and lack of humanity becomes the subject of his novel.

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