The Scarlet Letter, The Crucible, And King s Letter From...

The Consequences of Conformity in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Miller’s The Crucible, and King’s â€Å"Letter From Birmingham Jail† Humans have a natural tendency to conform to each other; they strive to fit in with their community and to blend in with the crowd, undoubtedly because modern society seems to have put everyone on a leash. Its harsh judgment and constant pressure forces everyone to follow each other around like sheep — compliant — staying in line in fear of the repercussions. Likewise, in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, and â€Å"Letter from Birmingham Jail† by Martin Luther King Jr., conformity is an ongoing theme that causes the entire community to isolate Hester in The Scarlet Letter, believe in witchcraft in The Crucible, and discriminate against African Americans in â€Å"Letter from Birmingham Jail†. Hawthorne, Miller, and King all show the effects of the pressure and corruptions in the community, as well as the punishments the individuals receive as a result of conformity. In all three pieces of writing, the authors descri be the community as a powerful oppression that forces people to be obedient, simultaneously asserting that conformity ultimately leads to consequences in both the community and the individual. Pressures in the community compels everyone, even the most well-reasoned people, to be amenable and to conform to society’s standards. In The Scarlet Letter, everyone follows and complies strictly to Puritan