George Stade

Though written in the 1850s, 'The Scarlet Letter' is a story fit for our modern times, with its exploration of female independence in a restrictive society where the concept of sin is used as a repressive instrument of control, particularly of women. A clear inspiration for Margaret Atwood's dystopian powerhouse, 'The Handmaid's Tale,' Hawthorne artfully highlights the hypocricy of Hester Prynne's humiliation, and charts her struggle to assert her...