AnalysisofFeminisminTheScarletLetter

分析红字中的女权主义Analysis of Feminism in The Scarlet LetterContentsAbstract.1Key words.1I. Introduction.2II. Literature Review.22.1 About the Author.22.2 The features of Nathaniel Hawthornes novel.32.3 Social backgrounds.3III. The history and development of the Feminism.53.1 Introduce the beginning and the history of Feminism.53.2 Introduce several Feminists during the period.6IV. Analysis of characters in The Scarlet Letter.74.1 Analysis the relationship between the characters.74.2 Analysis the characters personalities.9V. A look at the Feminism in The Scarlet Letter.125.1 Extract from sections in The Scarlet Letter related to Feminism.125.1.1 Extract from sections from: XIII. Another View of Hester125.1.2 Comments on extract sections in The Scarlet Letter.13VI.Analysis of Hawthornes attitude towards Feminism146.1 The development of Feminism in Hawthornes time.146.2 Hawthornes attitude towards Feminism.15VII.Conclusion.16References.17Analysis of Feminism in The Scarlet Letter摘 要: 从红字诞生之日起，对它的各种批评，包括女权主义批评、弗洛伊德心理分析方法、新历史主义批评、新文化批评等研究都甚为活跃，也为红字研究提供了不同参照。但红字的主题又远非利用某种批评方法就可以穷尽的。在这部作品的种种不确定性背后，我们唯一可以确定的是这样一种寓意：人类经历和面临的种种悲剧，很多是与我们对自然、历史及人类自身的不了解引起的。红字中的女权主义便是其中之一。在那样的时代背景下像海丝特这样的女权主义“先驱”在作者霍桑的眼中又是怎样的呢，值得我们深深的细细的体味一番。名著中的语言，就像它其中蕴含的人类梦想一样，散发着钻石般弥久的光芒。我想，在这部名著诞生150年之后，在读完了这篇早期的女权主义著之后，人类对于150年后的今天女权主义的发展会产生出一些新的认识和想法。关键词: 女权主义批评; 心理分析法; 先驱Abstract： Just from the day of the naissance of The Scarlet Letter, various of criticism which includes Feminism criticize, the method of psychiatric therapy originated by Sigmund Freud, the new historicism and the new culture criticize are very active. At the same time it provides references for the research on The Scarlet Letter. However, the theme of The Scarlet Letter could not be illustrate thoroughly only through those several methods. Behind this allegory, it is contains various indefinite factors, but we can only fix on one implied meaning: a lot of tragedies are caused by the misunderstandings to the natural and its history. Feminism is one of them. The protagonist Hester Prynner under the background of that time is a precursor of Feminism. The attitude of Hawthorne towards Feminism will be a kind of interesting thing for us to analyse. The language in chefdoeuvre is just like peoples dreams that always give off gloriously radiancy for a long time like diamonds. After reading this Feminism novel which written in 150 years ago, people would forms some new recognitions and thoughts on the development of Feminism in 150 years later. Key Words: Feminism criticize; Psychiatric therapy; precursorI. IntroductionThe Scarlet Letter was considered as a critical and popular success. The illicit love affair of Hester Prynne with the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale and the birth of their child Pearl, took place before the book published. In Puritan New England, Hester, the mother of an illegitimate child, wears the scarlet A for years rather than reveals her lover, was the saintly young village minister. Her husband, Roger Chillingworth, intend to torment the guilt man, Dimmesdale, who confesses his adultery before dying in Hesters arms. Hester plans to take her daughter Pearl to Europe to begin a new life. Toward the end of the dark romance Hawthorne wrote: Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred! - Hester Prynne has been considered as a pioneer feminist in the line from Anne Hutchinson to Margaret Fuller, a sexually autonomous woman, and an American equivalent of Anna Karenina. All of them were thought the author of The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne, had already possessed notions that related with Feminism. And it is very necessary for us to analyze the attitudes of Hawthorne that treat with Feminism.This thesis attempts to analyze the characters and the symbolism of Pearl and Hester, then talking about the relationship between The Scarlet Letter and Transcendentalism. A look at the spirit of Feminism from Hester Prynner is the next part of this thesis.Chapter I is the main introduction of Nathaniel Hawthorne mainframe of The Scarlet Letter and analysis of characters in The Scarlet Letter. Chapter II will display the history of Feminism, especially the development of Feminism in Hawthornes period. Chapter will analyze the attitude of Nathaniel Hawthorne towards Feminism and followed by a conclusion bringing the thesis to an end.II. Literature review2.1 About the authorNathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) is an American novelist and short story writer. He is most famous for his novel The Scarlet LetterHe was born at Salem, Mass., on July 4th, 1804, son of a sea captain. He led there a shy and rather over protected life. Hawthorne turned to writing after his graduation from Bowdoin College. He wrote several successful short stories which were collected in Twice-Told Tales (1837).Insufficient earnings as a writer forced Hawthorne to take a job in the Salem Custom House. By 1842, he was able to earn enough to marry Sophia Peabody and move to Concord, which was then the center of the Transcendental movement.Hawthorne returned to Salem in 1845 and in 1850, his most famous novel, The Scarlet Letter was published. His next novel was The House of the Seven Gables (1851) He also wrote two classic works for children A Wonder Book (1852) and Tanglewood Tales (1853) He wrote another novel The Marble Faun in 1860 and an account of a journey to England Our Old Home in 1863.Nathaniel Hawthorne died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, on May 18th, 18642.2 The features of Nathaniel Hawthornes novelAccording to Stanley Bank, Hawthorne may stand as the symbol of the 19th century. Hawthorne struggled with the problem of relevance of the artist to the world and the meaning of art to America. The American Romanticists created a form that, at first glance, seems ancient and traditional; they borrowed from classical romance, adapted pastoral themes, and incorporated Gothic elements: 1.Separated lovers who remain true to each other, while the womans chastity is preserved; 2. An intricate plot, including stories within stories; 3.Exciting and unexpected chance events; 4. Travel to faraway settings; 5. Hidden and mistaken identity; 6. Written in an elaborate and elegant style. American romance brings the reader closer to truth, not further from it. Few of the characters are strictly outside the urban society to which they provide contrast. It is clearly related to Hawthornes creation of a theater, a little removed from the highway of ordinary travel, where the creatures of his brain may play their phantasmagoric antics, without exposing them to too close a comparison with the actual events of real lives, and to his calling for a license with regard to everyday probability. Many gothicisms have been incorporated into American romances. Typical are the castle, the crime, religion, deformity, ghosts, magic, blood, etc. 2.3 Social backgroundIt was a brash, bustling, energetic country in which Hawthorne grew up, and carved out his writing career. Nathaniel Hawthornes novel, The Scarlet Letter, focuses on the Puritan society. The Puritan society molded itself and created a government based upon the Bible and implemented it with force. The crime of adultery committed by Hester generated rage, and was qualified for serious punishment according to Puritan beliefs. Ultimately the town of Boston became intensely involved with Hesters life and her crime of adultery, and saw to it that she be publicly punished and tortured. Based upon the religious, governmental, and social design of the Puritan society, Hesters entire existence revolved around her sin and the Puritan perception. Therefore it is evident within The Scarlet Letter that the Puritan community to some degree has constructed Hesters character. In the novel The Scarlet Letter it is evident that the base of their social framework was that of the Church. The Church and beliefs of Protestantism became all encompassing within the town of Boston; meaning that the Church would be directly involved in the running of the community and its regime. The Enforcing of laws were established by scripture read from the Bible, as the Puritans considered the Bible as the true law of God that provided guidelines for church and government. Those who disagreed or committed crimes against the government, were not only criminals but also sinners, and they were sought to be punished severely. The Puritans stressed grace, devotion, prayer, and self-examination to achieve religious virtue while including a basic knowledge of unacceptable actions of the time; this was expected to secure order and peace within the Puritan community. The Puritan culture is one that recognizes Protestantism, a sect of Christianity. Hawthorne was gazing intelligently off in another direction. Most of his generation looked expectantly toward the future. Hawthorne kept his eyes on the past.He was an introvert, almost a recluse, lived in Salem, Massachusetts. After graduating from Bowdoin College, he spent close to twelve years at home in his room, reading and learning his writers craft. For subject matter, he turned not to life but to books and to his own family history. When he was a boy, his Puritan ancestors had haunted in his imagination. And now, he read voraciously about early New England history, Fleshing out his childhood dreams.Perhaps Hawthorne read so much about the Puritan that their concerns became his subject matters. Hawthorne thought about sin. He thought about guilt. He thought about the dark side of soul. He pondered questions that few other men of his time thought or cared about- questions like: What happens to people who nurse a secret sin throughout their lives? Or, is it true that the evil taint of a crime lingers forever on the soul? And how the female should be treated in the puritan society? Hawthorne made other attempts to put himself in touch with the currents of his time. At the age of 35, Hawthorne went to work in the Salem Custom House, where his nose was really rubbed in the grimy details of trade.There was a good reason for the particular choice, Hawthorne had met his future wife, Sophia Peabody, and he needed money to marry on. He was never a best-selling author, and a lack of funds was a problem he would wrestle with all his life.The question of money would rear its ugly head again in 1846 when Hawthorne, now a husband and a father, returned to the Salem Custom House as Surveyor. Hawthorne was bitter at such High-handed treatment. But his dismissal from the Custom House proved a blessing in disguise. He was free to write again. Indeed. he had to write in order to keep a roof over his head. He set immediately to work and produced The Scarlet letter, published in 1850.Perhaps the novel served as a kind of creation, for the famous works now followed quickly, one on the heels and another: The House of the Seven Gables in 1851, and The Blithedale Romance in 1852.III. The history and development of the Feminism3.1 Introduction to the beginning and the history of FeminismGenerally, feminism means the advocacy of womens rights to full citizenship-that is, political, economic, and social equality with men. Feminism encompasses some widely differing views, however, including those which advocate female separatism. Modern feminism, which was born with the great democratic revolutions of the 18th century (American and French), differed from its precursors in applying the democratic implications of the rights of man and the citizen to women as a group. Abigail ADAMS asked her husband, John, to remember the ladies in framing the Constitution; Mary WOLLSTONECRAFT, inspired by the French Revolution, wrote the premier feminist treatise, A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792). Beginning with the Seneca Falls Convention (1848), U.S. women schooled in reform struggles began a serious fight for womens right to control their persons, property, and earnings and for the right to vote (see Suffrage, Womens). Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries the womens movement primarily reflected white middle-class values. The goals of black and working-class women remained inseparable from their racial and class oppression. The goals of middle-class women centered on obtaining the opportunities available to the men of their own class, such as education or reforming society as a whole. Thus some women sought to improve the position of women through temperance, social reform, and protective legislation for working women. Most feminists seek equal economic rights; support reproductive rights, including the right to abortion; criticize traditional definitions of gender roles; and favor raising children of both genders for similar public achievements and domestic responsibilities. Many wish to reform language so that it does not equate man with humanity. Many also campaign vigorously against violence against women (wife battering, rape) and against the denigration of women in the media.3.2 Introduce several Feminists during that periodHow did our 19th century foremothers get the vision and courage to demand a better life when they were surrounded by voices telling them the stifling existence they led was the only one possible? Woman was created to be subordinate to man, the church thundered, and science nodded its approval that Gods way was natures way as well. Common law based itself upon church law, and the two shall become one and the one is the man of Christianity became the non-existence of married women under the law. Women could not vote, own property, control their own wages, or have any say over their bodies or the children they birthed. Unmarried women were unnatural since they were not under the control of a husband, and fared no better under their fathers authority. The assertion that women have always been physically inferior to men, and consequently have always been held in a subject condition, has been universally believed, Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote. This view has furnished the opponents to womans emancipation their chief arguments for holding her in bondage . . . With this universal view of women in place, one might wonder how Stanton and other early feminists were inspired to imagine the possibility of a more equal society. That inspiration came from contemporary women who in fact lived very different lives from theirs, the women of the six Iroqois nations-Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk and Tuscarora-the Haudenosaunee, as they called themselves. Lucretia Mott saw this world in practice when she and her husband visited the Seneca in the summer of 1848. She watched women who had equal responsibilities with men in all aspects of their lives - family, spiritual, government, economic. At this time the Seneca women were deeply involved in the decision of whether or not to drop their traditional clan system of government and adopt the constitutional form insisted upon by the Quakers. While the Cattaraugus Seneca finally did accept the United States model, they refused to accept the element of male dominance. They placed in their constitution that no treaty would be valid without the approval of three-fourths of the mothers of the nation. With this in mind, Mott traveled to visit friends in western New York where they planned, and held, the first womens rights convention in Seneca Falls. Beyond equal suffrage, Stanton marveled that the women were the great power among the clan, and the original nomination of the chiefs also always rested with the women. The clan mother had the authority to nominate, hold in office and remove the representative of her clan, Stanton explained. Matilda Joslyn Gage, Stantons equally brilliant contemporary, described the governmental structure in more detail. Division of power between the sexes in this Indian republic was nearly equal. Although the principal chief of the confederacy was a man, descent ran through the female line, the sister of the chief possessing the power of nominating his successor. Gage wrote that the U.S. form of government was borrowed from that of the Six Nations, and thus the modern world is indebted for its first conception of inherent rights, natural equality of condition, and the establishment of a civilized government upon this basis to the Iroquois. This model, of indigenous women living in a world in which they had status, authority, and dignity, gave our feminist foremothers a vision of how they could transform their world, along with the sure knowledge that it could be done without upsetting either nature or God. IV. Analysis of characters in The Scarlet LetterSymbolic characters are very important in most powerful novels. One classic that uses characters as symbols is The Scarlet Letter. This novel is about a woman in Puritan society, Hester, who commits adultery with her minister, Arthur Dimmesdale. She has a daughter, Pearl, and is forced to wear a scarlet letter the rest of her life. Arthur hides his sin and becomes extremely troubled. Hesters husband, Roger, takes it upon himself to judge and punish Arthur for his sin and becomes like the devil. Many characters in the novel are symbols for something.4.1 Analysis the relationship between the charactersThe story begins in seventeenth-century Boston, then a Puritan settlement. A young woman, Hester Prynne, is led from the town prison with her infant daughter, Pearl, in her arms and the scarlet letter “A” on her breast. A man in the crowd tells an elderly onlooker that Hester is being punished for adultery. Hesters husband, a scholar much older than she is, sent her ahead to America, but he never arrived in Boston. Some one said that probably he has been lost at sea. While waiting for her husband, Hester has apparently had an affair, as she has given birth to a child. She will not reveal her lovers identity, however, and the scarlet letter, along with her public shaming, is her punishment for her sin and her secrecy. On this day Hester is led to the town scaffold and blamed by the town fathers, but she again refuses to identify her childs father.In fact the elderly onlooker is Hesters missing husband, who was captured by the native American Indians, later he survival and to be free when he got Boston and he pretended practicing medicine and calling himself Roger Chillingworth. He settles in Boston, intent on his revenge. He reveals his true identity to no one but Hester, Several years passed. Hester supports herself by working as a seamstress, and Pearl grows into a willful, smart and impish child. Shunned by the community, they live in a small cottage on the outskirts of Boston. Community officials attempt to take Pearl away from Hester, but, with the help of Arthur Dimmesdale, a young and eloquent minister, the mother and daughter manage to stay together. Dimmesdale, however, suffers from a mysterious heart trouble, seemingly caused by psychological distress. Chillingworth attaches himself to the ailing minister and eventually he can provide his patient with round-the-clock care. Chillingworth also suspects that there may be a connection between the ministers torments and Hesters secret, and he begins to test Dimmesdale to see what he will discover. One afternoon, while the minister sleeps, Chillingworth discovers a mark on the mans breast, which convinces him that his su