"The Scarlet Letter"

Paper Summary:

This paper analyzes "The Scarlet Letter" from a sociological perspective. It discusses societal labeling which is a community's need to self-consciously create deviant persons or outsiders to uphold its own sense of order. The author also uses differential association and learnt behavior, to further dissect the film. Symbolic interactionalism, society's need to create meaning through symbolic devices, is another sociological perspective emphasized.

From the Paper:

"Although symbolic interactionalism may be the most persuasive theory to analyze and explain the plot of the film, it does not address the fact that Hester's behavior, however normal a transgression, and however understandable given the unhappiness of her marriage, is still a kind of 'deviance,' or an example that something is wrong, and would be regarded as such, even in contemporary America. Thus, while it may take into factors outside of the immediate confines of the film, the best explanation of all may in fact be structural strain theory, discussed at length in Chapter 6 by James M. Henslin in Essentials of Sociology. On the surface, the rural Puritan community may seem like a classically organic society, with clear rules and norms."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Henslin, James M. Essentials of Sociology. New York: Pearson, 2006.
• "The Scarlet Letter." Starring Demi Moore and Gary Oldman. 1995.

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• Analytical Essay # 142408 : "Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter"
• Analytical Essay # 124563 : "Characters in "The Scarlet Letter"
• Analytical Essay # 124489 : "Perspectives on "The Scarlet Letter"
• Analytical Essay # 120733 : "Adultery in "The Scarlet Letter"

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