Scarlet Letter and Feminism
The Superiority of Men?
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is commonly known as America’s first great novel and as America’s first feminist novel as well. Hawthorne writes The Scarlet Letter in the middle of the nineteenth century while the novel actually takes place in the mid seventeenth century puritanical Boston. Different people at different times viewed women in very different ways. In this novel alone women are viewed in two different ways. Hawthorne was a transcendentalist from the eighteen hundreds looking back on history writing a character which the Puritans would have viewed differently than him. Hawthorne’s views and opinions influenced his writing as the Puritans and transcendentalists of the eighteen hundreds viewed women in different ways.
The Puritan society was a society centered on the males. It was a common belief that men are superior to women. The thought was supported by the church, which is a big deal (because life revolved around God and pleasing him), in sermons that preached that “the soul had two parts, the immortal masculine half, and the mortal feminine side.”1 Women were not included in church or town meetings because they were expected to stay home and be a house wife. The fact that the names Patience, Silence, Fear, Prudence, Comfort, Hopestill, and Be Fruitful1 were common names for girls puts women’s place in society into perspective. Women were not supposed to leaders and active members of the community, but more of second class citizens that obeyed the real leaders, men. Their main focus was to bear children, tend to the house, and obey the man of the house. With marital sex being encouraged, the status of women was elevated. However, women were typically not trusted in the community as daughters of Eve because it was thought they were naturally greedy for power. With no trust in women, people did not doubt that some of the women in Puritan society were “witches”. During the Salem witchcraft trials the
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is commonly known as America’s first great novel and as America’s first feminist novel as well. Hawthorne writes The Scarlet Letter in the middle of the nineteenth century while the novel actually takes place in the mid seventeenth century puritanical Boston. Different people at different times viewed women in very different ways. In this novel alone women are viewed in two different ways. Hawthorne was a transcendentalist from the eighteen hundreds looking back on history writing a character which the Puritans would have viewed differently than him. Hawthorne’s views and opinions influenced his writing as the Puritans and transcendentalists of the eighteen hundreds viewed women in different ways.
The Puritan society was a society centered on the males. It was a common belief that men are superior to women. The thought was supported by the church, which is a big deal (because life revolved around God and pleasing him), in sermons that preached that “the soul had two parts, the immortal masculine half, and the mortal feminine side.”1 Women were not included in church or town meetings because they were expected to stay home and be a house wife. The fact that the names Patience, Silence, Fear, Prudence, Comfort, Hopestill, and Be Fruitful1 were common names for girls puts women’s place in society into perspective. Women were not supposed to leaders and active members of the community, but more of second class citizens that obeyed the real leaders, men. Their main focus was to bear children, tend to the house, and obey the man of the house. With marital sex being encouraged, the status of women was elevated. However, women were typically not trusted in the community as daughters of Eve because it was thought they were naturally greedy for power. With no trust in women, people did not doubt that some of the women in Puritan society were “witches”. During the Salem witchcraft trials the