This study shows similarities in the attitudes of and literary influences upon Maurice Maeterlinck and Nathaniel Hawthorne, especially in Maeterlinck's drama Pelleas et Melisande and Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter. Circumstantial evidence indicates Maeterlinck's familiarity with Hawthorne's novel. Since no previous comparative study of Pelleas et Melisande and The Scarlet Letter exists, the works themselves are the major sources of information.

This study analyzes specific scenes in the novels dealt with in order to determine the type of women characters Mauriac has created. This study covers Mauriac's early, middle, and late periods as a novelist. The heroines are nearly all examined in relation to each other chronologically. The study shows that Mauriac first portrays a religious and simple heroine. The heroines become agnostic, if not atheistic in several of the subsequent novels. Through Therese, they become progressively more psychologically complex. They then become less complicated and, except for the last heroine, are religious. The last heroine is psychologically portrayed but is the least original of the heroines. The examination of Mauriac's women characters seems to show that the author is deeply sympathetic with the majority of them.