Scarlet Letter: The Power of Sin

Sin is a powerful force that has the ability to destroy anything that comes in its path. In life, sin is able to control people and manipulate them into different individuals. Nowhere is this capability more evident than in Hawthorne¡¦s writing. Hawthorne uses powerful stories to display the pain and troubles even the smallest peccadillo can cause. In both ¡§Young Goodman Brown¡¨ and The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne demonstrates that shame and guilt caused by …

…the sinner. No matter what the case, shame caused by sin initiates an uncontrollable change in the identity of the one most deeply affected by the sin. Sin is the force that corrupts the hearts of so many. It eats away at man¡¦s soul and carves out a new one. Shame and guilt obliterate the previous identities of the individuals who are affected by sin. The strong can survive, but the weak will perish.