Similarities Between The Scarlet Letter And The Great Gatsby

The Scarlet Letter and The Great Gatsby
Hawthorne and Fitzgerald, two great American romantics, display new attitudes towards nature, humanity, and society within their novels. The novels The Scarlet Letter and The Great Gatsby are very similar with their adjacent themes, motifs, and symbols. The comparison between these two literary pieces show the transition from adultery to ability, societal standards during the chosen time periods, and good vs. evil.
Hawthorne uses the scarlet letter “A” that Hester Prynne was required to wear as an inanimate symbol of her adultery. She had to bear the sin with her as long as she rested in that town. Pearl, Hester’s daughter from the affair, was the living, breathing symbol of her past sin. As many years passed, Hester began to wear the letter with pride and changed the meaning in her mind to ability. This was significant because it demonstrated her capability to overcome the stares and judgements from her fellow townspeople and to learn to be proud of her daughter, a gift from god. The adultery in The Scarlet Letter relates to The Great Gatsby in many ways.

The characters Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby from the novel The Great Gatsby commit adultery along with Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter.

“‘Mother,’ said Pearl, ‘was that the same minister that kissed me by the brook?’ ‘Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!’ whispered her mother ‘We must not talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest’”(Hawthorne, 134). This direct quote from Hawthorne’s piece, The Scarlet Letter, was just one of the countless examples where he shows symbolism of adultery. The betrayal of Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby demonstrate how most characters were self involved and did not care about societal standards in their town of Long

Island.
The Puritans were very strict with their rules during the 1630s and that was what Hester Prynne contested against with her bewitching child, Pearl. Adultery was a terrible crime to them so Hester was to be publicly shamed for the rest of her life. They wanted to make a Utopian Society, perfect society, but this was to be impossible with all their punishment tactics. If they had what they wished for there would have been no scaffold, prison, or public shaming because there would have been no crime. The expectations of the town was appalling and Hawthorne truly wanted to expose the ugliness of Puritan societies. Women were also discriminated against in the novel The Great Gatsby.
“I hope she’ll be a fool-that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool”(Fitzgerald, ch.1). Women were discriminated against in The Great Gatsby and were treated as if they were only suppose to be men’s trophies that were there to be shown off. Society also treated the people with more money better than the people who were poor and lived in poverty. Only wealthy people could go the large parties similar to the ones that Jay Gatsby held in his mansion. Good vs. evil also plays a big role in the comparison between Hawthorne and Fitzgerald’s novels.