Book excerpt: Essay from the year 2016 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 12, University of Sheffield, language: English, abstract: This essay discusses how Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" engages with the role of women in the nineteenth century based on the example of the protagonist, Hester Prynne. A number of critical voices on the topic are analysed, and it will be discussed if, and how, the text portrays women differently than they were wanted to behave when the novel was published in 1850.