" (Hawthorne, 71) This statement of intent strikes as a core romantic value, contending with no small degree of irony that there is a sense of moral authority in the air which bears a dominant effect on the lives of New Englanders. Indeed, this is consistent with our understanding of Hawthorne's critical response to the forces of Puritanism. That the author is from the infamous settlement of Salem, Massachusetts, commonly referenced for its dark rash of institutionalized colonial era murders, all directed toward women accused of witchcraft, may be perceived as a meaningful context through which to understand the generally damning perspective which the author demonstrates in his work toward the gender order defining civil life. As we see in the Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne was generally fixated on the destructive dynamic which governed man's relationship with woman in such a society. That Hester could be so transformed against her will is to denote the effective actualization of social perspective created by the symbol of the 'A.' By expressing the notion that man's unrealistic expectation of woman to conform to his image of perfection, behaviorally or physically, would ultimately destroy the woman herself, Hawthorne serves up an indictment of the patriarchal order in America that at once suggests both an unrealistic regard for human nature and an emphasis on the moralism that fully subverts the values of personage or even love. As one critic would observe of the romantic penchant for social critique, there is a complex implication to a feminist plaint composed in the middle of the 19th century, with Hester as a martyr who has been willfully transformed by the ownership of man. Such a statement would be largely...
Accordingly, one critic notes that "The Scarlet Letter addresses the anonymous toil of women under the barbarism of patriarchy, but we must go farther to undertstand its immediate and continuing power long before feminism became an unavoidable presence." (Arac, 248) the sense that Hester had been wronged by the impositions of society resonates in this text.
Hester Prynne and Christ Symbology Nathaniel Hawthorne's character of Hester Prynne in the novel The Scarlet Letter remains one of the most powerful literary figures of all time and much has been made about her critically throughout the decades. Literary critics have compared her as an early feminist leader and others have compared her to a magical superhero. This paper intends to discuss how Hawthorne actually works very hard to consistently
Hawthorne and Poe, both authors depict women who struggle and suffer at the hands of masculine stereotypes. In Hawthorne's "Rapaccini's Daughter" and The Scarlet Letter, and Poe's "Ligeia" the depiction of women characters illustrates each authors sensitivity to the plight of women in the 19th Century. Considering that Nathaniel Hawthorne lived and wrote in the radical cultural milieu of Concord, Massachusetts, alongside such women's rights luminaries like Emerson, the Alcott
Given that slavery and sexism were still pervasive realities in American society in the middle of the nineteenth century, the Scarlet Letter borders on being a radical work. Hawthorne also reveals how religion had pervaded Massachusetts Bay society to the extent that public laws reflected Christianity. The idea that Church and State should be separate did not emerge until much later in American consciousness, and by the time Hawthorne wrote
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