The Scarlet Letter
            
             Adultery, betrayal, promiscuity, subterfuge, and
             intrigue, all of which would make an excellent coming
             attraction on the Hollywood scene and probably a pretty good
             book. Add Puritan ideals and writing styles, making it
             long, drawn out, tedious, wearisome, sleep inducing,
             insipidly asinine, and the end result is The Scarlet Letter.
             Despite all these things it is considered a classic and was
             a statement of the era.
             The Scarlet Letter is a wonderful and not so
             traditional example of the good versus evil theme. What
             makes this a unique instance of good versus evil is that
             either side could be considered either one. Hester could
             very easily have been deduced as evil, or the "bad guy," as
             she was by the townspeople. That is, she was convicted of
             adultery, a horrible sin of the time, but maybe not even
             seen as criminal today. As for punishment, a sentence to
             wear a scarlet "A" upon her chest, it would hardly be
             considered a burden or extreme sentence in present day. Or
             Hester can be seen as rebelling against a society where she
             was forced into a loveless marriage and hence she would
             be the "good guy," or girl, as the case may be. Also the
             townspeople, the magistrates, and Chillingworth, Hester's
             true husband, can be seen in both lights. Either they can
             be perceived as just upholding the law -she committed a
             crime, they enforce the law. On the other hand are they
             going to extreme measures such as wanting to take Pearl,
             Hester's daughter, away just because Hester has deviated
             from the norm, all to enforce an unjust law that does not
             even apply to this situation?
             Although the subjects of the novel do apply to
             important issues in history and could have had influences on
             the time period, they were not great. During the times and
             in the Puritan community this did not have a large affect on
             anyt...