How man responds to guilt determines future success in life. Godly sorrow leads a person to repentance, or condemnation torments them forever. In both Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, protagonists Hester Prynne and John Proctor struggle with guilt for their sin. Both the novel and playwright take place in 17th Century Puritan Massachusetts, when adultery is considered witchcraft, and punishable by death. After Hester Prynne has an affair with Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, she receives a scarlet letter to represent her sin and display public humiliation. This new life of guilt and isolation is seen when she first emerges from the prison- “It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of ordinary relations
