AUTHORITARIANISM, CONFORMITY, AND THE QUEST FOR INDIVIDUAL AUTHENTICITY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE’S THE SCARLET LETTER AND ARTHUR MILLER’S THE CRUCIBLE

Abstract

This dissertation is a contribution towards investigating the themes of authoritarianism, conformity and the search for individual authenticity in American literature, notably, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter (1850) and Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible (1953). The study adopts Ihab Hassan’s theory of comparative literature which claims that the similarity that can be found between literary works is a result of the similarities in the historical and cultural circumstances that surrounded and led to the production of these literary works. Thus, the present work sets out to determine how The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible link to each other both in terms of the themes under study and the historical context. The present research work studies the themes of authoritarianism and conformity and examines, subsequently, the extent to which it is successful for an individual to resist conformity and achieve an authentic sense of the self. The topic of the study is approached in a New Historicist perception which helps to relate the literary works in question with their sociopolitical context