Women’s Sacrifice in the Works of Hawthorne and Heywood: A Comparative Study

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to highlight the importance of women by closely examining Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel “The Scarlet Letter”, and Thomas Heywood’s play A Woman Killed with Kindness. By focusing on patriarchy and female sacrifice, this study aims to find similarities and differences between two different literary genres with two different historical backgrounds in the protagonist’s scope. Using “The Scarlet Letter” and A Woman Killed with Kindness as the primary sources of the research data, this paper also delves into how the patriarchal system affects women’s behaviors, and the possible consequences of rejecting it. Ultimately, this analysis offers a close reading of women’s suffering under the norms and traditions of the Boston community and the English seventeenth century.