Feminism in The Scarlet letter

Topic:   Feminism in The Scarlet letter

Name:   Goswami  Gayatri M.

Paper no:   10 – American literature

Email ID: gayatrigoswami19@gmail.com

Semester:   3 , Roll no - 8

Enrolment no: PG13101011

Year:  2014-15

Submitted to:    Department of English

           Smt. S. B. Gardi

                             Maharaja Krishnakumar sinhji Bhavnagar University

v Introduction of Scarlet Letter novel:

·       The scarlet letter , published in 1850.

·       This novel set in seventeenth century puritan Massachusetts , the novel centers around the travails of Hester Prynne , who gives birth to a daughter Pearl often an adulterous affair  .

 

·       The scarlet Letter novel is most famous novel.

 

·       The first quintessentially American novel in style, theme , and language.

 

·       This novel Scarlet Letter connected with human life.

 

·       The Scarlett Letter is considered Nathanial Hawthorn’s .

 

 

·       Hawthorne’s novel is concerned with  the effects of  the offair rather than the affair itself , using Hester’s public shaming as a springboard to explore the lingering taboos  of puritan new England in contemporary society .

 

·      The Scarlett letter novel symbol of   “Feminism”.

 

·       The Scarlett Letter was an immediate success of reasons.

 

·       Hawthorn’s novel offered a uniquely American style, language , set of character and most importantly   a uniquely American control dilemma.

 

·       The Scarlett Letter also became intensely popular upon publication because it had the good fortune of becoming one of American‘s first mass published  book .

 

·       The Scarlett Letter has been adopted many time on film , on television and on the stage ,the first film was a 1917 ‘block and white silent film.

 

·       The novel also benefited because of Hawthorne’s support and respect coming New England’s   literary establishment.

 

·       Thus, the novel become popular not only with the masses , it was heralded as “Appropriate” reading despite its attention to Adulterous love  .

 

·       This novel started with the “Custom house”.

 

·      Character of the Scarlet Letter:

 

·      “Introduction of Characters in the  Scarlet Letter”:

 

v Hester Prynne:

·       Hester Prynne the protagonist of the novel Hester is married to Roger chilling worth and has an affair with Arthur  Dimmesdale   the affair produces a daughter Pearl. Hester plays many roles in the Scarlett Letter .

 

·       Devoted mother , abandoned lover , estranged  wife , religious  dissenter , feminist , and outcast , to name just a few perhaps her most important role is that of an iconoclast , one who opposes established conventions

 

·       Hester is not just a rebel, she’s a glorified rebel, she’s and Hawthorne   uses her to criticize the puritan’s strict society. Hawthorne emphasizes that Hester never looked more attractive as when she first emerged from prison wearing the Scarlett Letter.

 

·       In scarlet letter Hester is the main character of Hester shows the reality of the puritan society . Hester stands alone against to the society for her child Pearl.

 

v Introduction of Pearl:

·       The illegitimate daughter of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmsdale . Peal serves as a symbol of her mothers shame and triumph . At one point the narrator describes Pearl as “the Scarlet Letter endowed with life”.   Like the letter, Pearl is the public consequence of Hester very private sin.

 

·       Pearl becomes Hester source of strength Pearl defines Hester identify and purpose and give Hester a companion to love. Although she often struggles to understand Pearl rebelliousness and devilish spirit. Hester in her loving devotion to Pearl.

 

·       Pearl an outcast, drowse to other outcast such as mistress Hibbing and her witch friends. Pearl‘s affinity for the occult associates her character with sin and evil, but Pearl is first and foremost a product of love, not just sin.

 

·       Her rumored happiness and success as an adult  in Europe  make  her character a symbol of the triumph of love our a repressed and oppressive society.

 

v Definition of Feminism:

 

·       “feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining , establishing , and defending a state of equal political , economic , cultural , and social right for woman’s".

 

·       In Hawthorns the Scarlett Letter Hester is the key example for feminism in the novel.

 

·       In puritan age women were treated as inferior to the man.

 

·       Puritan times, women were thought of as lesser than man.

 

·       Women’s purposes were to raise children and give those good moral and values.

 

·       Character of Hester shows the ‘A’ it shows that the ‘A’ stands for ‘Able’.

 

·       Hawthorne paints Hester as a free woman.

 

·      Feminism in Scarlet Letter:

 

·       The Scarlet Letter one of the feministic piece of work by Nathanial Hawthorne has presented situation of the Harsh puritan society.

 

·       Nathanial Hawthorne created a story that exemplifies Hester as a strong female character living with her choices whether they were good of bad and also as the protagonist.

 

 

·       He also presents the daughter of Hester, Pearl as an intelligent female especially for her age.

 

 

“One is not born,

But rather becomes,

A woman.”

v The above quotation is by Simone de Beauvoir it shows the condition of the women in the every rigidity of society that how society makes harsh rules for women.

 

v Mid –seventeenth century Boston was not a place to find gender equality, freedom of expression, or feminism.

 

 

v Hester Prynne was a women who committed adultery, under circumstance that gave  even the puritans a touch of sympathy , for they condemned her not death , wich  was well within their legal power , but ruled that she would be forced to were upon her Brest the letter “A” made of read cloth and large enough for all to dearly see.

 

 

v Where was the feminism in this Scarlett letter?

·       It does not exist. Hester the life of a woman of her time she had no yearning to do men’s work or desire to be politically equal with men.

 

·       Indeed she did all in her power to do womanly god deeds around the word “Angel” rather than “Adultery”.

 

·       She had no aspiration to feminism or any of its goals .

 

 

·       While the community calls for Hester’s blood, these who are equally sinful remain silent.

 

·       In this novel Hester‘s role shown the position like man and Hester and Pearl both are character in the novel shows the reality of feminism.

 

·       Nathanial Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter is a novel sympathetic to the female cause.

 

 

·       Hawthorne identifies inequality between the two sexes such as oppression from expressing, moral difference between man and women and the use of transcendentalism.

 

·       The puritan society believes that any sin will restrict a soul from reaching haven and they believe that the subject individual will corrupt their society so he or she should be ostracized from the community.

 

 

·       Hawthorn use understood by ordinary reasoning  as a technique to show how Hester was suppressed , when Hester conformed to human low , nature  shunned her with the rest of society .

 

·       In the beginning of the book, Hawthorn paints  of the picture of female   named Hester who has sinned .

 

 

·       Not only is she publicly ostracized for having an affair while unmarried, but her punishment as well because she derives directly from sim.

 

“Man is defined as a human being and a

Woman as a female whenever she behaves as s human being she is said to imitate the male.”

By Simone de Beauvoir.

 

·       People identify feminism as an anti male movement hell – bent on making woman the dominant gender, but this is not the case.

 

 

·       In this novel, the Scarlet letter, Hester Prynne executes these ideas by overwhelming her public humiliation and rising  up against the predetermined ideas that  her puritan town holds for her.

 

·       Hester is a perfect example of what a feminist should be, which is a real treat considering the  time period and the fact that  Nathanial Hawthorne  really had no inspiration for his radical ideas .

 

 

·       The novel is “accidentally” a feminism novel because of the way Hester stands up against the puritan harsh criticism and because of the fact that Hawthorne’s ideas of women empowerment ahead of his time.

 

v The Scaffold scenes in the Scarlet letter:

v In the Scarlet letter there are three Scaffold scenes:

·       In the Scarlet Letter scaffold scenes are the structure of the novel.

 

 

·       Hester and Pearl stand alone. It shows the strength of her to stand alone in front of society.

 

 

·       At the beginning, middle , and end of the scarlet letter stand Hawthorne’s   three scaffold scenes.

.

·       This novel large structural and thematic significance , each of the Scaffold scenes brings together in a moment of moral, emotional , and psychological tension the major characters  and farces of the story , concomitantly , each arcane counters attention in all dramatic manner on the Scarlet Letter .

 

·       They each contain a great deal of significance to the character involved, especially Dimmesdale.

 

 

·       The tree scaffold scenes are significant to Dimmesdale in different way because each successive sconce is on improvement in his personality.

 

·       The ‘first ‘scaffold’ scene is when Hester Prynne is accused of  committing adultery and Dimmesdale , her lover , lets her stand alone for the crime they both committed.

 

 

·       Dimmesdale is present throughout the whale scene but he is very hesitant to admit that he is the secret lover, although mr.Wilson is posturing him to find out who it is.

 

·       The first scaffold scene, we recall, takes place at midday. For this, as the beadle proclaims, is "the righteous Colony of the Massachusetts, where iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine."

 

 

·       As Hawthorne constructs the scene, Hester Prynne stands on the scaffold holding her infant, the people stand below, and the leaders of the community--civil officers, magistrates, ministers--stand above on a balcony.

 

·       As Hawthorne says in The Scarlet Letter: "when an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived."

 

 

·       The idea that sympathy and warmth come from the "people" is, as we have seen, at the very center of Hawthorne's democratic and artistic faith.

 

·       " Hawthorne sees through Puritan severity to a fundamental humanity  he may castigate or sport with the Puritan posture of grimness, but he cannot repudiate (he can do nothing but admire) the essential humanity that lies under the sad-colored garments of those he is describing.

 

 

·       “The puritans are term, somber ,and repressive : their children belong  to the most intolerant brood that ever lived  .

 

·       The center of attention in the first scaffold scene is, of course, the letter worn by Hester Prynne. "The point which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer," says Hawthorne, was the "SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom."

 

 

v In the Scarlet letter “Second Scaffold scene”:

·       Hawthorne's second scaffold scene, which comes precisely at the middle of his romance, turns the moral structure of the first inside out.

 

·       Hawthorne puts his meteor to good use.

 

 

·       But the massive self-projection of Dimondale’s guilt also finds embodiment in the meteor.

 

·       In terms of Puritan orthodoxy it can be nothing but a scene of pseudo-confession, a "mockery of penitence," in Hawthorne's words, a "vain show of expiation."

 

 

·       Alone on the scaffold, he feels that the entire world is gazing at the scarlet letter over his heart.

 

·       Accordingly it involves Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, Hester, and Pearl in a unique and lurid confrontation.

 

 

·       Returning homeward with Pearl from the same errand which has brought the Reverend Mr. Wilson and Roger Chillingworth to minister to the final spiritual and bodily needs of Governor Winthrop, Hester is summoned onto the scaffold by Dimmesdale.

 

·       Dimondale’s sense of its shape by illustrating the collective ego of the community.

 

 

v In the Scarlett Letter third and final scene:

 

·       Hawthorne prepares for his third and final scaffold scene by refocusing attention on Hester's.

 

·       After seven years it has become an object of familiarity in the town.

 

 

·       But in the marketplace on Election Day are many people from the country who have heard exaggerated rumors about the letter without ever having seen it.

 

·       They throng about Hester Prynne "with rude and boorish intrusiveness.

 

 

·       Noting the curiosity of the crowd, sailors "thrust their sun burnt and desperado-looking faces into the ring" and Indians fasten "their snake-like black eyes on Hester's bosom."

 

·       Once again Roger Chillingworth is present: in the first scaffold scene, he would know the name of Hester's partner in the second, he does know and in the third, he tries desperately to keep others from knowing.

 

 

v Conclusion:

 

·       Recurring events shows great significance and elucidated the truth beneath appearance in the Scarlet letter Nathanial Hawthorn chooses the Scaffold scene to show powerful difference and similarities.  

 

·       Each scaffold scene foreshadows the next and brings greater understanding.

 

 

·       “The puritan mind in the scarlet Letter follows logic of negative freedom”.