For both pairs, their isolation from society is caused by a child born out of wedlock. For both, also, they had a choice of where to settle. The two, however, chose differing degrees of isolation: Hester lives in a cottage on the outskirts of town, accessible and visible to all, while Nana’s kolba is totally isolated, surrounded by willows and requiring a trek to arrive at. The fact that Nana chose to live in such isolation illustrates her shame in baring a harami, and, when compared to Hester Prynne, suggests that the way Afghan culture regards adultery is more strict and shameful than colonial Boston. No matter their living conditions, the mothers’ connections to their daughters are much alike.
Women have come a long way to fight for their representation. Before females were allowed to vote or work they were viewed as homemakers; they were their husbands’chattels. They were considered vulnerable and incapable of intelligence. Should women have to depend on the man of the family to represent their needs? Children of patriarchal societies should have the ability to learn even in college, whether they are male or female.
Nevertheless on sundays she attended the very fashionable, very high services in the Negro Episcopal church on Michigan Avenue. She hoped some good christian would speak to her, invite her to return, or inquire kindly if she was a stranger in the city. None did, and she became bitter, distrusting religion more than ever”. The quote talks about Helga’s experience with the church and how she did not ever get approached by anyone. This is very detailed to the point I could picture sitting in the church watching this unfold.
Have you ever thought, what would it be like to be on your own with a child and being shamed? Well, through the story The Scarlet Letter is a woman, named Hester who had went through that situation. It tells the story of how she had dealt with all of the situations that got thrown her way. The puritans point of view compared to today 's point of view of the the same situation. During the mid 17th century, it was not acceptable to have sex unless you were married, so having a child and not being married was extremely unacceptable to the puritans; whenever Hester stepped out of the prison and walked to the scaffold, were a majority of the town was to see her and criticize the book states that one of the women there to judge her had said “ If the hussy stood up for judgement before us five, that are now here in a knot together, would she come off with such a sentence as
" Much like Miller's example of parents disowning their child, the town disowned Hester Prynne after her sin became publicly known. Not only did they disown her, they constantly gossiped about her. For example, on page 54, a woman said, "This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die." The townspeople discussed how Prynne should have a harsher punishment, such as physical pain or even death.
The recognition of her self-worth would make the other social ills, such as, class and racial stereotypes and social expectations become irrelevant, as she would recognise herself, and what she is worth (Larsen). Helga Crane desires to strive for inner happiness; rather than, the material wealth of the society would have made her happier. Her constant pursuit for happiness in the external society; rather than, the quest for happiness inwardly, caused her to seek gratification and happiness from material wealth and the chase from men (Larsen). The need for her to use her body and beauty to lure wealthy and affluent men reflects on her lack of gratification and appreciation for what she has and this would make her seek for status and class; rather than internal happiness. Helga constant search for leisure, beautiful surrounding, and attention, would have been replaced with a search for meaningful relationships, innate happiness, and the internal self-awareness and peace (Larsen).
Considering the townspeople’s reactions toward Hester’s sin of adultery, it can be concluded that in the Puritan era, religion was of utmost importance, and the Puritans met sins with extremely harsh punishments. Because the majority of the Puritan town viewed Hester as a disgrace, she became “Lonely . . . and without a friend on earth” (56). This made it effortless for the inhabitants of the town to continue to insult and degrade Hester because they did not care to learn her true personality. While a few civilians had sympathy for Hester, the town mostly regarded her as shameful and
Often times women were unable to break of their repressive bonds in their marriages. Throughout the 19th century, many women were left at home all day to oversee domestic duties. They had such great influence at home which gave men the need to constantly put them in their place, which was beneath theirs. It was the women’s job to please their husbands who dictated every aspect of their life. In all four texts, Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, Emily Dickinson’s, “She Rose to His Requirement”, Susan Glaspell’s, Trifles and Zora Neale Hurston’s
In the novels, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, discipline played an important role. Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter committed adultery and was sentenced to wear the letter “A” on her bosom at all times and to stand on a scaffold every Sunday at twelve. In The Crucible, discipline was known to be more extreme. Innocents began to lose lives as they were either hanged or pressed by stone. In both novels, the discipline was supported by the townspeople.
Daily life in the Victorian era held people to many expectations on how they were supposed to live, whom to talk to, and for women, how to take care of the family. This caused some women, who were free-spirited, to rebel against the expectations and etiquette of the time. In Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening Edna’s actions break society’s expectation of social norms for women in the Victorian era. In the Victorian era a wife is expected to live happily in the same house as her husband, but Edna decides that she wants to move out and into her own little house.
During the Middle Ages, women held the common positions of wife, mother, peasant, artisan, or nun. Besides taking on these traditional roles, Heloise was a brilliant “scholar of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and had a reputation for intelligence and insight” (New World Encyclopedia). She was raised in the nunnery of Argenteuil, where her mother lived. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, male primogeniture was established, this allowed for the eldest son to inherit all the property instead of sharing it among the family. In this period, “many wealthy women chose to live in monasteries, where they could receive education” (New World Encyclopedia).
Medieval society often put forth the idea that men were superior to women in intellect. Abelard writes, “the weaker sex needs the help of the stronger, so much so…that the man must always be over the woman…” (Abelard 39). This ideology of male superiority is clearly depicted in the wide difference between occupations made available to Abelard and Heloise. Although Abelard chose a life of a scholar and philosopher, he had the option to choose from a wide variety of occupations, ranging anywhere from a merchant to a priest. All of the professions available to men were those that put them in dominant positions over the women in society.
In the modern world divorce is not something that is considered overly strange or obtuse regardless of whether the person to instigate the divorce is the husband or wife. For many people, marriage is both a legal contract between two individuals who decide building their life together but also the divine union of two separate spirits. In A “Doll House” by Henrik Ibsen, the character of Nora leaves her husband of several years in order to pursue her own goals in life and find herself. While many people might still see this as a controversial decision as the woman had children with her husband, others instead point out the ways in which Nora acts as a kind of precursor to the women's rights movement as she decides to make a change for her own betterment instead of for the betterment of her family. It is in this light that Nora’s perspective on her life, the changes that she needs to make, and the overall way she is treated by her husband that allows her to make her decision as one that is not only understandable but preferential to the alternative of staying with Torvald.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne explores recurring themes of suffering surrounding the main characters, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester and Dimmesdale both commit adultery with each other, and, as a result of this, both experience gruesome and occasionally unbearable forms of suffering. Though they undergo different forms of pain, both of their experiences are highly reliant on how the Puritan society treats them. Hester 's pain stems from the shame and estrangement she receives from the community, while Dimmesdale’s is due to the reverence with which the community regards him. Although, in spite of the fact that both Hester and Dimmesdale receive harsh penalty for their sin, by the end of the book, Hawthorne shows how their suffering is, in fact, the key to their salvation.
In the “Scarlet Letter,” Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays hypocrisy of the Puritan society, where the protagonist Hester Prynne face many consequences of her actions and the how she tries to redeem herself to the society. During the seventeenth puritans believe that it is their mission to punish the ones who do not follow God’s word and it is their job to stop those from sinning. Therefore, the hypercritical puritan society punishes Hester harshly for committing adultery, but in Hester’s mind, she believes that what she did was not a sin but acts of love for her man. Eventually, she redeems herself by turning her crime into an advantage to help those in need, yet the Puritan society still view her as a “naughty bagger.” (Hawthorne 78)
