The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger, are both books about the alienation of an individual who wants to fit in society. In The Scarlet Letter, the protagonists, Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale, have committed adultery, which is an unacceptable sin in Puritan society. Hester is married to Chillingworth, the strange doctor seeking revenge. Pearl is born to Hester, as a result of their sin, however Hester does not reveal who the father is. She is forced to wear the letter "A" on her chest, as 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 fed up with the world. He gets expelled from school and wanders the streets of New York for a couple of days before returning home where he meets new people. Holden discovers more about himself and how he relates to the world around him. He briefly enters what we believe is adulthood and becomes a "fake" himself. At the end of the story, Holden realizes that he doesn't like the kind of person he has become, so he goes back to being a negative and judgmental person. The analysis of the main characters, Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth and Holden of The Scarlet Letter and The Catcher in the Rye shows that they are impostures and the main theme of the books is hypocrisy. Hester Prynne, the woman in the red letter who commits adultery, is partly responsible for the suffering and resulting hypocrisy in the story. From the beginning it is shown that Hester is a strong woman; faces the difficulties that his sinfulness has caused. She... in the center of the paper... The Catcher in the Rye." Hemingway Review 2.1 (1982): 70. EBSCO. Web. November 30, 2011. Buckner, Sally. "The Scarlet Letter. " Masterful Plots. 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, The Scarlet New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 1961. Book. Pimple, Kenneth D. " "Subtle hypocrite, but full of remorse": Dimmesdale's moral character. "Studies in the Novel 22 September 1993: 143. Print.Privitera, Lisa. "Holden's irony in Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye." Explicator. Number 4 ed. Vol. 66. Taylor & Francis, 2008. 203 -06. EBSCO Web, November 30, 2011. Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye, Boston, MA: Little Brown &, 1945.