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Feminist criticism on the scarlet letter
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Hester’s undeniable ability to overcome hardships is what keeps her stable throughout the events dramatized within the novel. When the author mentions, "[t]hey said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength," he is allowing the reader to recognize Hester's ability to care for others while ,on the other hand, no one cares for her (Hawthorne 124). Her true ability to conquer troubles without any additional help made the people reconsider their views on Hester. She is belittled and neglected by the Puritan people, but her strength allows her to carry on. With her courage, Hester Prynne learns to accept that her sins are part of her.
On the other hand Hester doesn’t want or try getting attention through her actions. Also she becomes an outcast of the Puritan community and she slowly finds her way back through hard work and showing she cares. Secondly the way the two characters
By comparing the audience's perception of Hester to the outward openness and accepting nature of Hester; Hawthorne support his notion that women or in this case a sinner like Hester were held to a higher standard than that of men, which explained why the majority of the outrage and scrutiny from the audience was focused on Hester rather than her counterpart,
The Scarlet Letter is a popular novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne which is mainly read during one's high school years. The Scarlet letter is set during the sixteenth century in Boston Massachusetts where a young woman named Hester Prynne is publicly shamed by the Puritans. When Hawthorne was writing this novel he described the puritans as a sad, bland society which had a reliance on the consequence of sin. His description of the Puritan society was not fully opinion-based since the Puritans that came over from England did dress simply. This leads the reader to wonder how much of his personal opinion made its way into the story and how much is historical fact.
To Hester’s shock she discovered that Pearl was more mature and imaginative. Hester practically raised Pearl by herself and Pearl turned out to be a Godly, honest, and innovative young girl. People saw how hard it was for Hester and so things changed. Hester became known as the woman who was able to do anything.
Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne exposes the blindness of the Puritan people through the treatment of Hester, Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale’s external characters. Hester Prynne is labeled as an adulteress and mistreated by society because of their unwillingness to see her true character. Chillingworth, the husband of Hester, leads the town to believe he is an honorable man and skillful doctor, when his true intents root from his vindictive nature Finally, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester’s lover and the father of her baby, acts as the perfect man therefore the town views him as an exemplar model, while he is truly a sinner. In the novel, Hawthorne portrays Hester as a strong, resilient woman, though the members of her community
She cannot be defined by just one label, but both. She is a mother to Pearl, who is a child born from adultery. She is a caregiver, seamstress, a lover, and a counselor, but the Puritanical society Hester lives in constantly reminds her that she is just a whore. By subscribing to this label, Hester loses her identity in a way. The effect of being an outsider due to the letter causes her to become a shell of her former self.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, a famous American author from the antebellum period, notices the emphasis on individual freedoms in the works by Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalists during his residency in the Brook Farm’s community. In response to these ideas, Hawthorne writes The Scarlet Letter, a historical novel about Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale’s lives as they go through ignominy, penance, and deprecation from their Puritan community to express their strong love for each other. Their love, even though it is true, is not considered as holy nor pure because of Hester past marriage to Roger Chillingworth, and thus Hester gained the Scarlet Letter for being an adulterer. Hawthorne utilizes biblical allusions, such as the stories of
Women were typically unable to be a symbol of strength because they were largely oppressed. Yamin Wang furthers this by saying, “By the novel’s end, Hester has become a proto-feminist mother figure to the women of the community. Meng (2003) describes that the shame attached to her scarlet letter is long gone. Women recognize that her punishment stemmed in part from the town father’s sexism, and they come to Hester seeking shelter from the sexist forces under which they themselves suffer” (Wang 897). Wang is saying that other women in the society look up to Hester and realize that she was punished by the sexist males of the society.
Hester Prynne is the very embodiment of feminism because of her refusal to adhere to the societal norms, her independence in thought, and how the view of the society around her changes through the novel. One of the main reasons why Hester Prynne is an important and progressive feminist character in The Scarlet Letter is her refusal to follow societal norms or to be put down by her peers. A primary example of her refusal to be put down by her peers is when Hester brandishes her
Throughout the novel she also demonstrates her characteristics as a Romantic Hero. While some say that Hester doesn't fit the romantic hero, because she appears more of a victim then a heroine. Although Hester Prynne doesn't perfectly fit the Romantic Hero
Not only could Hester not work to her full ability, she also was shamed by the public. While she was to stand on the scaffolding, the townswomen would whisper about Hester. “There was, moreover, a boldness and rotundity of speech among these matrons, as most of them seemed to be” (Hawthorn pg. 35 ) Hester faced judgment from the townspeople no matter how hard she worked to achieve a better life. As time passed their shaming went down, but she was never able to have a normal place in their society, because everyone's first impression of her would the the red letter of her
WHile Hester suffered from ridicule and shame from her neighbors, she presents feminist spirit in her conscious. Hester develops a strong spirit and mind. Wang notes that the feminism is carefully placed throughout the story. He analyzes Hester's refusal and determination when she is asked who the father of her baby is. This showed her individualism and her determination to stand alone without a man by her side.
The Scarlet Letter, a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850, functions as an evaluation of Puritan ideas, customs, and culture during the 17th century. Through this evaluation, we can get a good idea of what core values and beliefs the Puritans possessed, as well as the actions they take in cases of adversity brought about by “sinners”. Some Puritan virtues created stark divisions between groups of people, some of which led to discrimination under certain circumstances. One of the most prominent of these is the treatment and standards of men and women, a concept that surfaced during some of the major points in The Scarlet Letter. The divisions that were created by Puritan standards of men and women played a great role in shaping the plot of The Scarlet Letter, determining the fate of many of the characters.
Throughout history, social status plays a significant role in the way people are treated. The Scarlet Letter is a novel with a clear distinction between the lives of those who are in the upper class and those in the lower class. Author Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ancestors were firm believers in Puritanism. Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter to portray the one-sided ideology of societies that allow socioeconomic status to determine how people are treated, and as a call for change to diminish this unfair treatment. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays the disparity between the treatment of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in order to establish that it is unjust to treat people differently simply due to their social status and that
