The Scarlet Letter and A Tale of Two Cities: A Comparison

The ninth commandment tells man not to give false witness.(Exodus 20:16)
Nathaniel Hawthorn and Charles Dickens in their novels The Scarlet Letter and A
Tale of Two Cities, respectively, both use punishment for deception as a recurring theme. Although they do so to different degrees and in dissimilar manners, both authors agree that deception is a sin that requires punishment. In The Scarlet Letter, the heroine, Hester Prynne conceived a child out of wedlock. Despite the pleas and demands of the clerical community, she did not reveal the identity of the father. The Puritanical community in which she lived in demanded her to give up her conspirator or bear the consequences of
Every character was not as lucky as him, however. Another character who despised the Evr*mondes was Madame Defarge. She was not spared an unnatural death. Like Dr. Manette she hid the fact that an
Evr*monde wronged her in the past. In her case, it was an Evr*monde who impregnated her sister and killed her brother. She secretly abhorred the family of Evr*mondes and nurtured hopes for someday exacting a revenge upon them.
Unlike Dr. Manette, she could not separate Darnay from his infamous family and tried to have him killed during the Revolution. Because of her secret, she tried to confront Charles alone. This led to her confrontation with Ms. Pross when looking for the Evr*mondes. In her struggle with Ms. Pross, she draws a gun, only to be accidentally shot with it by Ms. Pross, ending her life. Dr. Manette had a secret hate for the Evr*mondes too, but his ability to see past Charles* name saved him from a fatal end. As a victim of the
Evr*mondes, it was necessary for him to risk his life when he wanted to save
Darnay from death. A letter, he wrote years ago before he knew Charles, that deemed all Evr*mondes as monsters made this impossible. Because of this he almost caused his only love in life*s, his daughter, the pain of losing her husband. The sacrifice of man named Sydney Carton saved him from going through his daughter*s grief and allowed his son in-law to live. The sacrifice of Sydney Carton was his punishment for secrecy. He was
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