An American Tragedy Essay, Research Paper

An American Tragedy

by: Jamie Newlands

2nd hour

American Literature

October 30, 1996

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 which author did a better job in doing so, but with such different pieces of work, this is hardly a question that can be answered.

Miller’s the Crucible was written in the nineteen-fifties, with a definite purpose, to remind Americans of the horrible witch trials that took place in Salem, even before the American Revolution was a thought. It served as a tool to warn against the same thing happening with the Communist hearings going on in our country at the time it was written. Miller wrote a play, which was not well received by the first audiences to witness it, but none the less is now recognized as one the finest pieces of literature written by an American.

Hawthorne’s the Scarlet Letter was written in the eighteen hundreds, with no other purpose but for Hawthorne 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, tried as witches. Had Proctor chosen to reveal his sin of lechery with Abigail Williams before the problem got out of hand, he would’ve saved several women from being hanged. But Proctor, instead chose to keep quiet about it until it was his own wife’s destiny at stake, and then it was too late.

In Hawthorne’s novel, The tragic hero is Dimmesdale, who wouldn’t admit to being the father of Pearl. But Dimmesdale’s silence, and that of Hester’s lead only to his own demise. Pearl went on to live a very productive life full of luxury, marrying nobility as well as inheriting riches of her own.

A person reading Miller’s play and Hawthorne’s novel one right after the other might be tempted to say that the two are similar but this is very much a debatable subject. Although in both works, forbidden love is absolutely central to the plot, the actual concrete similarities beyond that are few. If these two works could be associated, one could associate any two works with a dead guy at the end and love society won’t allow in the middle. For example, the musical West Side Story, The tragic hero is Tony, a young man who has hated Puerto Ricans his whole life, until Maria. They meet, fall in love and plan a life together all in two nights, but alas Tony’s forbidden love for Maria and his loyalty to his friend, Riff, is the cause of his own demise. What person would associate this story with The Scarlet Letter? The similarities between the two are just the same as those between The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter. Both West Side Story and The Scarlet Letter have a tragic hero, as well as a climactic ending where the reader (or the auditor) actually thinks things may go as planned. But, in the end the hero dies and the heroin is left alone. No one would ever think to associate a musical with such an icon in American Literature, and in turn, shouldn’t associate the Crucible with it either. To say they are so very similar due only to the setting is as juvenile as saying two people must be twins since they are wearing the same sweater.

Though both fine pieces, the Crucible and the Scarlet Letter are not comparable beyond a very vague look at the settings and plot skeletons of the two. One a drama, the other a romance novel. One written almost a century before the other. One might refrain from saying they are similar beyond a very basic level.

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