The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger, are both books about the alienation of a individual wanting to integrate into society. In The Scarlet Letter, the protagonists, Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale, committed adultery, which is an unacceptable sin in Puritan society. Hester is married to Chillingworth, the strange doctor who wants revenge. Pearl is born to Hester, as a result of their sin, but Hester does not reveal who the father is. She is forced to wear the letter "A" on her chest, because Dimmesdale lives his life remaining silent. In the book, Hawthorne shows the interactions of these characters and the reaction of these characters to Hester's sin. In The Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist Holden Caulfield is a teenager who is fed up with the world. He gets kicked out of his school and wanders the streets of New York for a few days before returning home where he meets new people. Holden learns more about himself and his relationships with the world around him. He briefly enters what we believe to be adulthood and becomes a “fake” himself. By the end of the story, Holden realized that he didn't like the type of person he became, so he becomes a negative and critical person again. Analysis of the main characters, Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth and Holden from The Scarlet Letter and The Catcher in the Rye, shows that they are frauds and the main theme of the books is hypocrisy. Hester Prynne, the woman with the scarlet letter who commits adultery, is partly responsible for the suffering and resulting hypocrisy in the story. From the beginning, it appears that Hester is a strong woman; she faces the difficulties caused by her sin. She...... middle of paper...... The Catcher in the Rye. " Hemingway Review 2.1 (1982): 70. EBSCO. Web. November 30, 2011. Buckner, Sally. " The Scarlet Letter. " Masterplots. By Laurence W. Mazzeno. Fourth ed. Pasadena, CA: Salem, 2011. 1-4. EBSCO. Web. December 2, 2011. Harris, Kenneth Marc. “Hypocrisy and Self-Deception in Hawthorne's Fiction.” American Literature Vol. 61. Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1988. 294. EBSCO Web November 30, 2011. Hawthorne, Nathaniel New York: WW Norton & Co, 1961. Book.Pimple, Kenneth D. ""Subtle but full of hypocrite remorse": the moral character of Dimmesdale. "Studies in the Novel September 22, 1993: 143. Print.Privitera, Lisa. "Holden's Irony in Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye." Explicator. Issue 4 ed. Vol. 66. Taylor and Francis, 2008. 203 -06. EBSCO Web, November 30, 2011. Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye Boston, MA: Little Brown &, 1945..