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Rape Culture In The Scarlet Letter

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Roxane Gay once proclaimed, “Rape culture is a culture where we are inundated, in different ways, by the idea that male aggression and violence towards women is acceptable and often inevitable.” Imagine being attacked, stripped of your identity, and being forced into and blamed for actions you did not give consent to. This is considered normal for many women who experience the appalling act of sexual assault and its effects brought upon through the media’s depiction of rape culture. In The Scarlet Letter, a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the protagonist named Hester Prynne is objectified for her act of adultery and forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her bosom for all of eternity. The letter “A” serves as a symbol which outcasts Hester …show more content…

Rape and sexual assault does not only occur in the ancient times of The Scarlet Letter but is extremely prevalent in today’s society and is normalized through the depiction of rape culture presented in the media. In today’s society, it is imperative to address the rape culture that is being cultivated by the objectification of women, normalization of violence against them, and the recurring victimization of the victim because it leaves men confused in their relationships with women and women feeling disempowered and violated.
One of the initial causes of rape culture is the way in which women are being objectified by men and the media as it creates a society that disregards women’s rights and safety. From a very young age, men are encouraged to believe that all women are property because of the media. In magazine advertisements, it has been tested that sexual objectification occurs more frequently for women than for men and that women are 3 times more likely to be dressed in a sexually provocative manner. (Psychology Today) Men objectifying women leads to their misunderstanding of consensual sex. A judge in 2016 referring to the woman who was raped once stated, “They made their intentions

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705 Words | 3 Pages

The scarlet letter ‘A’ did not stand for “adultery” anymore. It stood for “able.” “The letter was the symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her, —so much power to do, and power to sympathize, —that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength.”

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1169 Words | 5 Pages

[7] In his book, “Missoula,” John Krakauer analyses the issue of rape in the college town of Missoula. Krakauer begins his work by quoting the article False Allegations of Sexual Assault: Rape is unique. No other violent crime is so fraught with controversy, so enmeshed in dispute and in the politics of gender and sexuality… And within the domain of rape, the most highly charged area of debate concerns the issue of false allegations. For centuries, it has been asserted and assumed that women “cry rape,” that a large proportion of rape allegations are maliciously concocted for purposes of revenge or other motives.

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934 Words | 4 Pages

In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, adulteress Hester Prynne must wear a scarlet A to mark her shame. Her lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, remains unidentified and is wracked with guilt, while her husband, Roger Chillingworth who seeks revenge. In June 1642, A young woman named Hester Prynne was found guilty of adultery in the Puritan town of Boston. Then a crowd gathered to witness the punishment and now she must wear a scarlet A on her dress as a sign of shame.

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305 Words | 2 Pages

Novelist, Roxane Gay, in her essay “The careless Language of Sexual Violence”, voices her concerns about rape culture and how it is perpetuated in today’s society. She uses anaphora, imagery, and rhetorical questions in order to demonstrate how society “carelessly” (131) normalizes rape. In her essay, Gay uses rhetorical questions and anaphora to further stress her concerns and talk about how writers are gratuitous when talking about rape. She opens her essay using anaphora comparing “crimes” to “atrocities.

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997 Words | 4 Pages

The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in the nineteenth century, provides insight into the social stigma surrounding gender equality in his own community and era. Throughout the chapters, Hawthorne's uses Hester to provide a direct reflection to the lives of women in the nineteenth century. Hawthorne employs devices such as specified diction which pertains to each individual character, multiple shifts in the tone used in order to draw attention to shifts in judgment or beliefs of characters, and imagery in order to validate his overall personal belief that women deserve the autonomy and respect that men have possessed for centuries. Hawthorne uses the Scarlet Letter as a novel for social change by characterizing Hester as a woman

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896 Words | 4 Pages

Although publicly admitting to sin can be a challenging task, time will heal the initial pain. Hester Prynne, of the Scarlet Letter, lives this lesson as she commits the sin of adultery. Her punishment for the sin is to wear the letter “A” on her bosom until she is allowed to remove it by the Puritan authorities wishes. Initially, Hester feels guilt and shame as she wears it. As Hester’s character grows in strength, she overcomes the letter’s original purpose of punishment.

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520 Words | 3 Pages

The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter written in the 1800’s is a novel about a Puritan society in the 1600’s. A Puritan is a religious person who believe that pleasure is evil. The novel is about a young, beautiful women named Hester Prynne. She has committed adultery and is forced to wear a scarlet letter A in shame. A baby girl resulted from the sinful act, named Pearl.

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1646 Words | 7 Pages

Imagine living in a place where one small sin could define who you are for the rest of your life. That is what happened in The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850. The novel is set in a seventeenth-century Puritan community in Boston, Massachusetts. A young woman by the name of Hester Prynne commits a small act of adultery and is shamed for the rest of her life, by wearing a scarlet letter “A” on her breast. The book is centered around the theme of justice and judgement.

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979 Words | 4 Pages

When questioned about rape, especially most women, they might think or even picture a stranger coming out of a dark place to assault someone. But in reality there’s more to it. According to the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, “About half of all people who are raped know the person who attacked them. This is known as date rape — forced sex that can happen not only on a date, but also somewhere like a party with someone the victim may know, like, or even be interested in.” Furthermore, social critic and feminist, Camille Paglia, has been discussing this persisting issue about date rape with a personal stance that many women may disagree with.

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Even though the Puritans may have designated the letter as a representation of sin, Hester’s renewed sense of pride does not want society to define the A for her. Rather Hester wants to define it herself and by doing so she develops responsibility and power over her own actions. Because Hester has the power to change who she is, she also has the power to change what the Scarlet Letter represents. By letting the letter be “embroidered with gold thread” readers are able to see how for Hester sin is not something to be fearful of; furthermore, it allows one to see how Hester has developed into an independent individual who accepts who she is and the situation she is presented with. Hester’s lover unfortunately

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796 Words | 4 Pages

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, the protagonist, Hester Prynne is a Romantic Hero. Throughout The Scarlet Letter, we see Hester Prynne’s struggle in Colonial America after she is condemned by the Puritan society. She is sent to America by her husband, but he never returns, and Hester later conceives a child with the local minister. She is convicted with the crime of adultery, but refuses to identify the father, she is then forced to wear the Scarlet Letter. The novel captures her experience as she struggles to survive the guilt, sin, and revenge.

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1142 Words | 5 Pages

When Hester finally takes off the scarlet letter “A” and her cape in the wilderness, it not only represents the beauty she held despite the emotional punishment she underwent, but it also represents her removing the Puritan and patriarch society holding her back. Hester’s feminist conscious is intricately portrayed throughout the

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1385 Words | 6 Pages

Meanwhile, men are encouraged to express their sexuality and therefore serve as the actors in society. Furthermore, rape culture is reinforced through the media’s images of sexual objectification. As seen on a Duncan Quin

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1479 Words | 6 Pages

“Although concerning sexual practices between adults and children have existed throughout history and across cultures, whether such behavior was conceived of and defined as ‘abuse’ has been dependent on the societal values of the particular period” (Denov, 2004). In today’s society, sex offending has become an increasingly, concerning phenomenon that individuals must become more aware of. Although generally regarded as a male phenomenon, over time, female perpetrators have become equally important as male perpetrators. Due to the lack of public awareness, female sexual predators go unreported. As a result, society must become more aware of female sexual perpetrators, as many incidents of females assaulting both young men and women have gone unreported for some time.

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521 Words | 3 Pages

In 1984 and society today, there is a casual disregard to sexual assault, ultimately leading to the dehumanization of women. Women are dehumanized in today’s world and 1984 because society dismisses sexual assault. Winston describes his physical attraction to Julia, saying, “I wanted to rape you and then murder you afterwards” Winston says this comment directly to Julia, Julia laughed, and shortly later dismissed the comment. (Orwell, 121).

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