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A Feminist Perspective On The Scarlet Letter

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A Feminist Perspective On The Scarlet Letter
A Feminist Perspective on the Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter is an important piece of literature which offers a notable contribution to all literature with it's strong female main character and themes of misogyny, religious mania, and forgiveness. The summary by Mary Ellen Snodgrass in The Encyclopedia of Feminist Literature describes and summarizes this perspective. The excerpt speaks on Hester's strong character and resistance against the patriarchal oppressive religious male stronghold. Snodgrass discusses the communities' refusal to allow Hester to embroider a bride's veil, "highly revealing of the community's punitive mind­set... as though the hand of an adulteress could contaminate a virgin and soil her marriage," (Snodgrass, 1). Making modern connections, Snodgrass discusses Hester's struggle and the

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