THE COMPARISON OF ADULTERY PUNISHMENT IN THE VALUE OF RELIGIOSITY BETWEEN NATHANIEL HAWTHORN’S THE SCARLET LETTER AND ARTHUR MILLER’S THE CRUCIBLE

Abstract

This research explores The Comparison of Adultery Punishment in The Value of Religiosity between Nathaniel Hawthorn’s The Scarlet Letter and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Comparison is a method used to place together and thus brought into relief two or more person, ideas, or circumstances so as to establish their similarities and dissimilarities (Shaw, 1972:87). This research is to compare the adultery punishment toward the value of religiosity on Nathaniel Hawthorn’s The Scarlet Letter and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. The goals of this research are (a) to the result of the value of religiosity of the comparative theory about the influence of Puritanism to the adultery punishment on the two literary works; and (b) to give new understanding, that the dominant power could give a strong influence to history in which the author only play a small role to reflect the wholeness of the history. This research also can be categorized as a qualitative research. Furthermore, to analyze the data, I use Heller’s theory (2003) to categorize the value of religiosity of the two works. As the result of this research, I found the weakness in the Puritan system of law, where many of the guilty go unpunished. This means that they had not deep religiosity inside their heart to understand the value of goodness and humanity.