Both Greene's whiskey priest and O'Connor's preacher Asa Hawks have illegitmate daughters, recalling another famous literary minister with an illegitmate daughter--Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter. There seem to be many similarities between the realtionships of Dimmesdale and Pearl and the whiskey priest and his daughter Briggita. The whiskey priest wants to escape to a safe place so he can confess his sin to another priest, but he wonders what good is in confessing when you love the result of your sin. Dimmesdale experiences the same feelings of guilt and love for his child. Their feelings about their daughters really shape their actions for the entire story. While the whiskey priest is driven to confess, Dimmesdale resists confessing until the moment of his death. Dimmesdale gets to confess to everyone, while the whiskey priest dies without confessing. I think Hawthorne and Greene are both asking important questions about religion by using ministers set in a societyin which religion is very important. What is the effect of their sin on the men's eternal souls? Is there something about their love for their daughters that has a redemptive power? In Hawthorne, we see that although Dimmesdale dies, his confession changes his daughter, and she is able to live a happy life. We get no such assurance in Greene, who provides a less hopeful ending. The fate of the whiskey priest's soul is uncertain, and we are left to wonder if the love he had for his daughter left the same kind of redemptive mark for Brigitta. In contrast, Asa Hawks appears to not care about his illegitimate daughter at all, finally abandoning her in hopes that she will live with Hazel Motes. Asa Hawks' faith is ruined. His ability to believe, to be honest, to love is probably gone as well. It is interesting to think about how these Christian authors use the character of the illegitimate daughter to develop the character of the minister father.