Tuesday, April 13, 2010

THE SCARLET LETTER SYMBOLS: Womanhood/Femininity

Post your symbol comments here.

5 comments:

  1. her life had turned, in a great measure, from passion and feeling to thought. Standing alone in the world-alone, as to any dependence on society, and with little Pearl to be guided and protected-alone, and hopeless of retrieving her position, even had she not scored to consider it desirable-she cast away the fragments of a broken chain. The world's law was no law for her mind. It was an age in which the human intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a more active and a wider range than for many centuries before. Men bolder than these had overthrown and rearranged-not actually, but within the sphere of theory, which was their most real abode-the whole system of ancient prejudice, wherewith was linked much of ancient principle."p.159

    This quotes demonstrates how femininity is a growing process at this age. Hester is given the option to take off the scarlet letter but refuses. Also she could leave town and put this all behind her. This symbol of femininity represents the rise of women in American culture that will start the transition for women. The greater message that this book presents is that women are able to think and feel for themselves. Hawthorne is trying to portray to us that women are making a movement in society and they will be a factor in the days to come. The end of the novel represent the way women were treated in the older days of America. She was left alone. The opposite symbol to femininity is manhood. Since the dawn of time men have been the dominant sex of the world until recently. Hawthorne is trying to say that women are as important as men and that they should be treated as equals.

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  2. "With these words she advanced to the margin of the brook, took up the scarlet letter, and fastened it again into her bosom. Hopefully, but a moment ago, as Hester had spoken of drowning it in the deep sea, there was a sense of inevitable doom upon her as she thus received back this deadly symbol from the hand of fate. She had flung it into infinite space! she had drawn an hour's free breath! and here again was the scarlet misery glittering on the old spot! So it ever is, whether thus typified or no, that an evil deed invests itself with the character of doom. Hester next gathered up the heavy tresses of her hair and confined them beneath her cap. As if there were a withering spell in the sad letter, her beauty, the warmth and richness of her womanhood, departed like fading sunshine, and a gray shadow seemed to fall across her." chapter 19

    This passage represents how womanhood and femininity is portrayed through beauty. The greater message in the book is with age, women grow more beauty, therefore being more womenly. I believe that Hawthorne wants to prove to the readers that to this day, women are still represented on beauty.The end of the novel represents that since Pearl grew up, she got married and also had kids herslelf; she became beautiful and womenly. The opposite symbol of femininity is manlyhood and domination. Just like the scene where the book states the 'only woman in the church'. Hawthorne contridictingly states that with elder age, do women tend to lose thier womenhood and femininity. Just like where Pearl has grown up and moved on, while Hester is an "old maidien" living in an old house by herslef.

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  3. "Hester Prynne," said he, leaning over the balcony, and looking down steadfastly into her eyes, "thou hearest what this good man says, and seest the accountability under which I labor. If thou feelest it to be for thy soul's peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer! Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life. What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him--yea, compel him, as it were--to add hypocrisy to sin? Heaven hath granted thee an open ignominy, that thereby thou mayest work out an open triumph over the evil within thee, and the sorrow without. Take heed how thou deniest to him--who, perchance, hath not the courage to grasp it for himself--the bitter, but wholesome, cup that is now presented to thy lips!"

    Dimmesdale is speaking to Hester telling her to reveal the man she committed adultery with, however she doesnt. She is standing on the scaffold holding her child refusing to reveal the man.

    This passage shows how strong Hester is. Being in this time period, she is not considered to be strong but weak and useless, however she faithfully keeps her secret from the town. She protects the man she committed her sin with because she truly loves him and she could easily demand help from him and tell everyone the truth, however she is strong and suffers the punishment by herself.

    In the end, Hester is still strong and does not end up telling Dimmesdale's secret. She still wears the scarlet letter, even though she does not have to, because she is strong and faces her punishment up front and does not deny it.

    Hester is stonger then the two men in this novel. Dimmesdale and Chillingworth keep their secrets to them self because they cannot face the punishment the town would give them. This shows how weak the men are.

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  4. Women, more especially,--in the continually recurring trials of wounded, wasted, wronged, misplaced, or erring and sinful passion,--or with the dreary burden of a heart unyielded, because unvalued and unsought,--came to Hester's cottage, demanding why they were so wretched, and what the remedy! Hester comforted and counselled them, as best she might. She assured them, too, of her firm belief, that, at some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for it, in Heaven's own time, a new truth would be revealed, in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness.


    Many women in the town would run to Hester in times of suffering. They all seemed to be disheartened because their femininity got them little or no respect. Hester comforts them and assures them that there will come a time when women are equal, if not better, than men.
    This represents Hester's faith in femininity and the great possibility of the rise of women in the future.
    The book's overall message delivers a sense of the corrupt world we live in; the fact that women were looked down upon was yet another corruption of the world that the book discusses. Hawthorne is trying to show that there is no need for there to be a social separation in gender; we are all equal. Hester's death at the end of the novel showed women that they too could make it through life on a good note; Hester did it with the scarlet letter "A" on her chest for the most prominent portion of her life. There really seems to be no countering symbol, but there are many other places in the book that discuss a sense of feminism. Hawthorne uses the symbol of feminism and womanhood as another way of showing that profiling is wrong. By seeing women as lower beings, we loose a sense of humanity that unites us all and without it, we cannot coexist.

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  5. Brent Reaves said...
    Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman's frailty and sinful passion. Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast,—at her, the child of honorable parents,—at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman, —at her, who had once been innocent, —as the figure, the body, the reality of sin. And over her grave, the infamy that she must carry thither would be her only monument. (p.71-72)
    This passage shows how the women of the community view Hester. They view her as an example to all the other girls who are young and pure of what sin does to you, and how sin affects you. Hester symbolizes “frailty and sinful passion” to the younger girls and how you can come from respectable families, but you can still turn out to be just like Hester, an outcast and basically an untouchable.
    This passage also shows how Hester is thought of throughout the whole book, as less than a woman for her actions. The townspeople look at her with a disgust and with less sincerity for knowing that they to undergo the same sort of temptations as Hester has faced. As you can see from the ending everyone does. Even the preacher is not bound to these limitations but being a woman in this puritan society makes it even worse.

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