Harvard University

Out of all the high school books I have read, I believe I felt the greatest degree of attitude change after reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. In short, Hawthorne’s novel is about a woman named Hester Prynne who must live in contempt of society for having committed adultery; her shame persists through a scarlet letter “A” she wears on her dress and her illegitimate daughter, Pearl. This novel, although set in the mid-1860s, reveals many mechanisms of society today. I learned much about how social norms work and the concept of expression in society. In short, if one does…