Contents

Contents ....................................................................................................................... 0

Argument ...................................................................................................................... 1

Chapter 1. Introduction: A Brief History of the Feminist Movement .......................... 5

Chapter 2. Affinities and Differences between Emma Bovary and Hester Prynne ... 21

2.1. Emma's Struggle for Cultural and Social Rights ......................................................... 25

2.2. A Brief Fore-Conclusion ............................................................................................. 37

Chapter 3. Hester's Success as an Independent Woman ........................................... 38

3.1. Nathaniel Hawthorne: Biographical Data ................................................................... 38

3.2. The Scarlett Letter - a Feminist Close Reading ......................................................... 40

3.3. A Brief Fore-Conclusion ............................................................................................. 58

Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 62

Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 67

1

Argument

Women’s rights are a somewhat delicate and unsettled subject we still continue

debating today. Since early times woman was considered secondary, man being the

first. Along many decades she kept quiet just because this was the way she was

supposed to be for her family, children, or community. Woman kept a low profile

and barely spoke with regard to social, intellectual, or economical aspects.

There came a moment when some intellectuals decided that it is the moment to

action, to help the women, to make them be aware of their own situation and that

they could have a better life if they struggle for their own rights.

Feminists were the ones who laid the bases of the social movement meant to

give women a chance to an independent life and their own decision-making

opportunity. Feminism means “the belief that women purely and simply because they

are women are treated inequitably within a society which is organized to prioritize

male viewpoints and concerns. Within this patriarchal paradigm women become

everything men are not (or do not want to be seen to be). When men are regarded as

strong, women are weak, where men are rational, they are emotional, where men are

active, they are passive, and the binary opposition could go on. Under this rationale,

which aligns them everyone with negativity women are denied equal access to the

world of public concerns as well as of cultural representation. Put simply, feminism

seeks to change this situation.” (Gamble, The Routledge Companion to Feminism

and Postfeminism, p. VII)

I have chosen this topic because I am interested in women’s rights, and

especially in women’s intellectual and social development. I agree with the idea that

a woman could ‘build’ a career, in some cases maybe better than a man would.

Although women were fated to accept the traditional, patriarchal lifestyle being

reduced and confined to the housewife role, women faced and managed to go on

independently. A woman could feel entirely fulfilled only if independent. Being

dependent on someone means constantly doing the other decides. Women can be

2

economically, socially, and intellectually independent. They do not need someone

else to rule their lives; they know how to manage themselves.

A clear gender distinction was made beginning with the Biblical story of

creation – with Adam and Eve. Whereas in mythology gender is a somewhat flexible

concept (as world mythology mentions hermaphrodites besides the two genders we

know), in religion (with the exception of angels and other genderless supernatural

beings) and in our everyday life we do not seem to accept and operate but with the

two genders: female and male. After his creation, given the option of free will, Adam

proves a coward blaming Eve for the original sin. In Ancient Greece, philosopher

Plato was the one who tried to ‘settle’ equality between men and women in his Laws.

The first historical example of a woman’s fulfilment and independence is the

Egyptian Queen Cleopatra. Even though she was a woman she succeeded to become

the leader of a nation.

The main impact of modern feminism started with the First American Feminist

Wave, with the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. This was a convention on the

social, civil, and religious rights of women. The discrimination based on sex was a

significant aspect. Further on there were other two feminist waves. The “struggles”

were accompanied by important books written by intellectuals (philosophers, writers,

psychologists). Simone de Beauvoir was a French philosopher who focused on

feminist issues. She became well known through her work The Second Sex (1956).

Novels were also written gravitating around this theme. I chose to focus on two

novels from different cultural backgrounds (French and American), both ‘discussing’

with the same problem: a woman’s rights and her struggle with fate, social

environment (and implicitly marginalisation or judgement).

Madame Bovary, by French novelist Gustave Flaubert, was published in 1857

and reveals the female protagonist’s fate. Emma – Flaubert’s fictional character, was

built around a feminist core so as to reveal the author’s outlook on women’s role and

position in the nineteenth century French society. Emma used to read books since

childhood; she used to cultivate her intellectual capacity, so this aspect could not be

changed after her marriage. Emma knew the world from books, because the

patriarchal system limited her a lot. She was an orphan so she was more protected

from the unkind environment when she took refuge in reading fiction. She grew up

3

and got married, but she kept on dreaming about the wonderful lives she had read

about in books. In fact, according to the epoch’s cliché standards, she was supposed

to have a traditional domestic life and not hope for more. She did not resist too much

leading this kind of life. She deserved more; she wanted a higher social position, she

expected to be involved in activities that would make her feel alive. Flaubert’s

female protagonist found daily routine both boring and upsetting. Emma wanted

someone with whom she could talk, somehow practice and share her intellectual

knowledge, she wanted to know, read and discuss more. She could not get

accustomed with the idea of remaining at the same stage; she wanted to evolve, to

grow, being a better person. But any such fight includes taking risks. She committed

adultery. She could have escaped, but she could not choose the good way and do the

things that were in her favour.

The sin is one aspect that ties the two novels I have chosen to illustrate a

woman’s position and limitations in a patriarchal society. Despite being fictional

works of two authors, the fictional characters of Emma Bovary and Hester Prynne

illustrate vividly and faithfully the actual condition of women in the French and

American societies of the nineteenth century. This is why I have decided to refer to

the fictional characters as to real persons and not just ‘paper beings’ as Roland

Barthes calls literary characters (Barthes, Image, Music, Text, p. 111).

The two novels have been analysed in the present thesis through a close

reading process and from a comparative/contrastive approach with the aid of feminist

views/theories on the female character, as well as actual women’s condition in the

nineteenth century society. From this perspective, both chosen novels - Madame

Bovary and The Scarlet Letter - contain and illustrate in various contexts (social,

religious, economical, intellectual, moral) and cultures (French and American) the

same feminist concern – women’s position, limitations, condition, and social roles as

these are outlined by a patriarchal context.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne was published in 1850. The novel

is built around the concept of sin and from this perspective the female protagonist is

presented struggling to recuperate her social dignity and the respect of her

community. Sin got Hester onto the wrong way, but also her loneliness; adding to

these her husband disappeared. In Emma's case her husband was physically present

4

at her side, but he was not there with the intellectual conscience. Hester Prynne is a

model of real fulfilment. Even though she was severely punished she managed to go

on. She took care of her baby she did not abandon her like others would have done.

Hester went through cruel moments but she found her strength to face the community

and admitted her guilt; she did not even try to escape her punishment by running

away. Hester proves that a woman can manage only by herself. She did not accept

any external help. She was economically and intellectually independent. Hester

earned money by making fancy handcrafted works and selling them, meanwhile

creating princess clothes for her own daughter. Her own image was neglected but her

daughter was loved and cared most. The character’s perseverance and strength are

notable. She is clearly a model for an independent woman’s fulfilment despite a bad

decision and its harsh consequences.

5

Chapter 1. Introduction: A Brief History of the Feminist

Movement

Even from the first moments of life, woman was viewed as a secondary

person because she was created after Adam's creation. Although she was not the first

Biblical creature we could not blame her for this position, contrariwise to give her

the same opportunities as man already had in society and daily life. Greek

Aristotelian philosophy deems that woman is inferior to men because of her posterior

creation, he says about women: “The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of

qualities” (Bailey, Cuomo, The Feminist Philosophy Reader, p. 83). But taking a

quick look through history until now, we become aware that Bailey is not right.

Women have advanced in all type of domains, at work, in private life, in society.

Even though women lived for ages in patriarchal societies this could not also be true

nowadays. Of course there are exceptions who live according to the same mentality

in the twenty-first century. The traditional role of the woman in a family in society

was to get married since early age, to take care of the house and children. Everything

stopped here, nothing after this border line, no intellectual development, they had no

right to speak in a lot of situations, no right of taking decisions.

The feminist wave transformed society and women's place in society. But what

is feminism?

A general definition...is that the belief that women purely

and simply because they are women are treated inequitably

within a society which is organized to prioritize male

viewpoints and concerns. Within this patriarchal paradigm

women become everything men are not(or do not want to be

seen to be). When men are regarded as strong, women are

weak, where men are rational, they are emotional, where men

are active, they are passive, and the binary opposition could

go on. Under this rationale, which aligns them everyone with

6

negativity women are denied equal access to the world of

public concerns as well as of cultural representation. Put

simply, feminism seeks to change this situation. (Gamble,

The Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism, p.

VII)

The feminists are struggling to break down the assumptions that women are weak,

emotional or passive. In a personal opinion feminism struggles to put women in the

right place. Everyone deserves to have the same rights, dismissive to their gender,

race, social statue, distinction, behaviour, way of thinking, every briefly aspect which

defines a person. For me being a woman does not signify a secondary position

relative to a man.

This struggle of women to break free surprisingly began in Ancient Greece,

when women had no independence in front of the law; Plato proposed in his Laws

that women have the same rights as men. They could choose the same education as

men have, women would have access to law courts, the right to own property, the

claim to live and work in the same way as men, to compete in athletics as the men

did. Unfortunately, Plato's Laws had no echo at that time. Ancient Mesopotamia had

a clear, exact, strict role of the woman. Woman was meant to be “the daughter of her

father or the wife of her husband” (no author, “The Role of Woman”, web). Since

early childhood the girls were taught to accomplish these roles: of being wife, being

mother and being a housekeeper. The fact that their marriages were arranged seemed

to complicate more their destiny.

Unexpectedly, Ancient Egyptian women seemed to have the same legal and

economic rights. This is what their inscriptions prove, and this is what queen

Cleopatra embodied. The amount of freedom that Egyptian women had is

impressive, she could manage her property according to her good will, she could own

slaves and even draft her own testament. Their property usually is received as gift or

inheritance, the Egyptian woman seem to have an important statute in the life of

others(husband, father, relatives, society); she was blessed to receive presents and

had power to manage her own goods. I think that she was appreciated, venerated as

goddesses were. But finally she occupies the same role; she was entrusted to the

home and family. An interesting aspect of the Egyptian woman is that she was free to

7

go in public, whereas this was not permitted in other civilizations. The woman in

Roman Society had the same poor rights or none at all, her role was to raise children

and take care of the house, eventually she would also work the land.

Queen Cleopatra was the one that broke through this standard role. She was

considered the most beautiful woman in the world, but the main fact is that she had

power, real power in her hands, she managed an empire, she was destined to become

queen, descendant from a royal family, she had access to a large culture. She

attended a particular education, she spoke several languages, and these contributed to

her intelligence. She was no Egyptian blood, but she knew how to make the people

listen to her. A catch for becoming more dominant over her nation was to invent

Goddess roots. To have education makes one open-minded, a person which really

thinks, meditates, considers strategies and solves problems for her own interest. One

can easily see how much education can change a human's conception, in our case

Cleopatra's. If she had not had the opportunity to have an education, do you think

that she would have been the same bright, powerful woman? I think she most

probably couldn't. Education gives you as human the opportunity to develop your

own rationality, broaden your horizon and have different view on things.

The feminists wave dethroned the patriarchal society because the women's

duties were 'destroyed', compromised her intellectual development. She lived limited,

restricted by what traditional rules said, by what her role as daughter or as wife said.

Patriarchy assumes that the father or the husband or the elder man in the family has

absolute authority over the family, especially over the women. Patriarchy is like a

social “disease” for any nation. But men simply do not talk about this, do not seem to

understand the meaning of this word, they never think about its significance. It is

possible that some of them know that this word has ban with women liberalization

and that is all. They do not realize that they are the problem in these concepts, they

are defeating women's lives, wishes, possible carriers. In the patriarchal social

system, men behave with ignorance. Many persons perceive this terminology in the

wrong way, they associate it with religion, which is a huge mistake to confound such

different aspects. Of course in the Bible it is said that man was first created and the

woman, who should help him to perform:

8

But from here till the fact that woman be subdued to man

power these is a long way. The real definition of patriarchy

is “ a political-social system that insists that males are

inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone

deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right

to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that

dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism

and violence. (no author, Understanding Patriarchy, web)

A man is not more powerful than a woman, he has no right to dominate or to

underestimate her, contrariwise she is the one who gives birth to man, she has

multiple duties to do, she has more pursuits than man, she is mother and wife, she

does the usual the traditional jobs which claim these statues, and furthermore she is

capable to have a paid job, even to have career at her work place. There are lots of

women who are involved nowadays in cultural activities; this aspect gave freedom to

women to develop their intellectual synonym part. Women are capable to manage a

business as men do, or even better sometimes. Women are able to focus on the

family, which means having a private life; at work, she could work as well as nurse,

doctor, teacher, engineer, judge, she could have from the most modest of job to the

highest. It is difficult to get involved in such a variety of domains, man would choose

only one of them; but a woman tries, does her best, even forces to manage at every

stage, in every domain, because she is the real 'head' of the family. Even though not

every woman has a sparking career, she does everything possible to have a happy

family, a good job and a social relationship with the ones around her. Since early

times woman managed to do every work that she had to fulfil, of course the

traditional mentality and the social problems drew her back many times.

This evidences that the matriarchal society is the best choice:

Goettner-Abendroth identifies the deep structure of

matriarchies using four markers: 1) economic: these societies

usually practice small scale agriculture and achieve relative

economic equality through gift-giving as a social custom: 2)

social: these societies are egalitarian, matrilineal, and

matrilocal with land being held in the maternal clan and both

9

men and women remaining in their maternal clan; 3)

political: these societies are egalitarian and have well-

developed democratic systems of consensus; 4) culture,

spirituality: these societies tend to view Earth as a Great and

Giving Mother. Most importantly and permeating

everything, these societies honour principles of care, love,

and generosity which they associate with motherhood, and

believe both women and men can and should practice.

(Christ, “Patriarchy as a System of Male Dominance Created

at the Intersection of the Control of Women”, web)

Goettner-Abendroth states clearly that the woman is good at everything, from the

economical, social, political and cultural, spiritual point of view. Matriarchy beats

the patriarchal system. An interesting aspect is that a man could not raise a child,

nowadays he could because of the global development, but not as well as the woman

does.

Carol P. Christ, in her article on patriarchy, affirms that man controls

everything not only the woman; and is not enough, he uses violence to achieve the

purpose “Patriarchy is not simply the domination of women by men. Patriarchy is an

integral system in which men’s control of women’s sexuality, private property,

violence, war, and the institutions of conquest, rape, slavery arise and

thrive together.”(Christ, “Patriarchy as a System of Male Dominance Created at the

Intersection of the Control of Women”, web)

Lexically, matriarchy comes from ‘matriarch’ which denotes a woman who is

the head of the family. This term, matriarchy, was avoided a long time in Old Europe

it was thought woman was the power, she ruled, she was seen as a man is in the

patriarchal system. In fact matriarchy is not a system directed only by the woman,

matriarchy is a balanced system ruled by both women and men. But we must add

here the maternal aspects of woman and the social roles. In matriarchal society, the

female is the one who appears more important, but man is not left outside, he is just a

minor barrier. Because of her statute in many concerns, it just she is granted the

proper place.

10

Early feminism exposed the restrict problem reporting to the patriarchal

system, women were considered second after men. The great philosopher Aristotle

considered that women are inferior to men because of the misunderstanding of Adam

and Eve's creation. Mary Oxlie says that:

Whilst on the one hand women wrote to advocate a better

deal within the institution for which most of them were

destined, i.e., marriage, motherhood and the attendant

domestic duties, others complained of the fact that these

duties compromised their intellectual development. (Gamble,

The Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism, p.

9)

Freud also tries to aggrieve the statute of woman by saying “women show less justice

than men, that they are less ready to submit to the great exigencies of life, that they

are more often influenced in their judgements by feelings of affliction or hostility.”

(Madsen, Feminist Theory and Literary Practice p. 100) Maybe in general they take

decisions by taking into account feelings, but because they have maternal affection, it

is not a rule that all women would do the same. Also men could make decisions

taking account of hostility.

There are three main waves of the feminism. The first wave began with Marry

Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), work which was

influenced by the French Revolution. Wollstonecraft wanted to reveal in her work

the ideal woman, getting over the idea of domestic female to creating a new woman,

an intellectual one, with education, social position. She was aware that there was the

middle-class woman who would do things as before, in the traditional way, but she

desired educated girls, who would be economically independent and have social

freedom. “Nineteenth-century feminism evolved very much as a response to the

specific difficulties individual women encountered in their lives: hence the

emergence of ‘key personalities’ “ (Gamble, The Routledge Companion to Feminism

and Postfeminism p. 15), key personality is the main fact that a woman should find

inside her, knowing how she really is, she would know what way to chose, what is

good at, what best her fits.

11

Miriam Kramnick says about Wollstonecraft's work “The ideal woman

pictured in Vindication of the Rights of Woman is active and intelligent, blending

civic and familial responsibilities, freed from drudgery and debasing frugality.”

(Kramnick as qtd. by Gamble, The Routledge Companion to Feminism and

Postfeminism, p. 15) In this first feminist wave we retrieve the concept of 'femme

covert', which refers to the status of a married woman. It supposes that after a woman

marries her husband protects her, and the husband manages of all her properties, she

could not decide her fortune anymore, her properties become his.

American feminism started with the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, a

convention about social, civil and religious rights of women. It is also named Women

Rights Convention and is was the first one. This action was quickly adopted and

advocated also in Rochester, New York and in Worcester, Massachusetts. Woman

asked for social, moral and civil rights, the same men had. The first debated idea was

the discrimination based on sex. This convention contributed to the history of woman

suffrage. After this convention, the process of balancing the girls education, began

namely of bringing girls' education closer to the standard of boys. The political gain

was the Married Women's Property Acts, which meant that, even after they married,

women had the right to manage, control, convey by her self-will the properties that

she had before her marriage or the ones obtained while she was married. In the same

year, at Buffalo, women also received the right to vote. Parents could afford to pay

for higher education for their daughters, who heaved colleges for women, the roles

were expanded, achieving their careers. In 1952 was translated and published in

United States The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, work which focuses on the

woman's treatment through out history, talking also about them as 'feminine

mistique'.

The second wave feminism continued fighting for equal rights in the early

1970s. The major book written under these circumstance was The Feminine Mystique

in 1963 by Betty Friedan, subject that names herself “the problem that has no

name”(Marsella, Handbook of international Feminism, p. 39). She focuses on

women's oppression, the old feminism of equal rights for women and radical

feminism, that considers men an oppressive group and women should be separated of

them because there would not be neutrality. She started this book by interviewing

12

unhappy house wives. Despite their having the material part, money, fortune,

properties, they do not miss anything tangible, they are married, they have children,

but they are still unhappy. At this point it becomes perceptible the lack of career

opportunity in women's life and the lack of intellectual opportunities, cultural life.

Friedan (Marsella, Handbook of International Feminism, p. 39) notices these and

concludes that this kind of woman needs to have her own rights, needs to feel secure

and educated. She discovers also that part of these women who are unaware of their

condition.

At about the same time, Women and Madness by Chesler and Sexual politics

by Miller are published, both focusing on this topic. Psychology relates to feminist

ideas and in 1969 in United States an organized feminist psychology began, which

also contributed to the struggle. There were “Some cultural feminists argue for the

development of separate spaces for women only” (Marsella, Handbook of

International Feminisms, p. 40) to eliminate the oppression of women. This meant

that they did not struggle only for gender equality, but also to create a special

condition just for women. “Cultural feminists view women's experiences as distinct

from men's and envision a transformation of society based on women's unique

strengths.”(Marsella, Handbook of International Feminisms, p. 40) This aspect

reveals that women have a certain strength, their power adding to the development of

society, women being multilateral have a larger view on things and situations.

The third wave of feminism is also named “postfeminism”. The third wave is

also represented by magazines like Bitch, Bust “self objectification, violence against

women's health issues and the intersectionality of identity are important topics of

investigation in contemporary United States feminist psychology that have been

influenced by the third wave of feminism.”(Marsella, Handbook of International

Feminism, p. 42) In popular culture we could name Spice Girls or Madonna as

postfeminist influences. The main postfeminist writers are Virginia Woolf, Dorothy

Richardson, Emily Bronte and Charlotte Bronte. Naomi Wolf's publications occur at

the same time with the contemporary women's movement “In Fire with Fire, Wolf

argue that feminism has for the most part failed to recognize, much less capitalize on,

its gains.”(Gamble, The Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism, p.

40) Germaine Greer says that the future is the female, but relating to feminism “If

13

you believe, as I do, that to be a feminist is to understand that before you are of any

race, nationality, religion, party or family, prestige and economic power of the

majority of women in the world as a direct consequence of western hegemony must

concern you.”(Greer as qtd by Gamble, The Routledge Companion to Feminism and

Postfeminism p. 42)

Faludi states about “Postfeminism” that it is the backlash “Faludi attempts to

unmask postfeminism as a wolf in a sheep's clothing.” (Faludi as qtd by Gamble, The

Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism, p. 38). Faludi expresses how

vulnerable a woman can be. The patriarchal system had bad effects on so many

females that they got to commit suicide. To live under these circumstances is not at

all easy, and there is a moment when the psychic gives in, especially in the case of

delicate women, and they get to this crucial moment when the chance of escaping

their oppressed condition is suicide.

But one of the Indian feminist leaders, Madhu Kishar “proposes several ways

of reducing a woman's vulnerability, such ensuring that a daughter is not excluded

from her father's property, and family investing in the education and careers of

daughters as well as sons, so that women will have the means to walk out of a

difficult marriage and lead independent lives.” (Gamble, The Routledge Companion

to Feminism and Postfeminism, p. 60) In traditional India a woman is dependant on

the father or husband. The women of any Indian house are always trimly, well

dressed (as well as they would be at a special event) because they should be always

beautiful for their husbands and for the pride of their family. It is said that women are

also vulnerable to communication technology, and men are identified with culture

and science, whereas women with nature and intuition. But I do not agree with Judy

Wajcman, when she says women could be better at intuition and be persons who are

closer to nature, but as well women could be passionate about science and could have

performance in this domain. Onwards she says that “ 'men give birth' to science and

weapons to compensate for their lack of the 'magic power' of giving birth to babies'.”

(Gamble, The Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism p. 67) And this

quotation might have its own reality, because naturally men could not give birth but

they make, create something else, something more pragmatic or materialistic.

14

Literature was regnant of male authors, but the wave of American and English

women writers began with important authors like George Eliot, Jane Austen, Emily

Brontë, Charlotte Brontë and Virginia Woolf. “Many feminist critics argued that, in

canonical texts, women were usually represented as a port of a crude sexual binary:

they were virgins or whores. By and large, the whores came to miserable ends, and

the virgins got married.”(Gamble, The Routledge Companion to Feminism and

Postfeminism, p. 103) But also the virgins could get whores if they assert

vulnerability, or get to be whores only because the society blames them as happens

with Hester Prynne, or after they got had married as virgins, had a family life with

children, betrayed their husbands and, of course firstly society is the one who blames

and calls them 'whores' - two such examples from fiction works are Emma Bovary,

Anna Karenina. As an example from French literature, we have the famous work

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1856, 1994), “French feminism is concerned

with the 'feminine' as a category of discourse, a definition constructed in language,

philosophy, psychoanalysis and elsewhere.”(L. Madsen, Feminist Theory and

Literary Practice, p. 18) French feminism exists in every possible domain. It does

not stop at the word feminism, it incorporates in literature, psychoanalysis and

others, it simply passes over the limit of being a social wave.

“Women need to fulfil their personal and national destinies, but they also need

to fulfil the spiritual destiny of humanity and it is men who have historically placed

obstacles in their way...” (L. Madsen, Feminist Theory and Literary Practice, p. 5)

Madsen reveals since the beginning that the patriarchal system was an oppression for

women, a culture about which we could sincerely state that it manipulated women

“because men control the economic structure of life, women must please men in

order to survive. There is no realistic alternative for them, save madness and death.”

(Madsen, Feminist Theory and Literary Practice, p. 42). Being dependant of

someone, especially economically, is like a tragedy; it is like a road full of clogs.

Women were so busy in their daily life that they had no time to speak with someone

about their problems, (whether social or cultural) “The shortage of staff in the

traditionally female-dominated professions such as nursing and teaching was critical,

while a women pursued the idea image of the American suburban housewife: 'freed

by science and labour-saving appliances from the drudgery, the dangers of childbirth

15

and the illness of her grandmother. She was healthy, beautiful, educated, concerned

only about her husband, her children, her home. She had found true feminine

fulfilment'.” (Madsen, Feminist Theory and Literary Practice, p. 44-45) With every

step that had made the feminists they tried to allocate the status of independent

women. “Feminist criticism...must be revolutionary” (Madsen, Feminist Theory and

Literary Practice, p. 73) to win the battle, to achieve their purpose, the creation of

'new woman'.

French philosopher and feminist, Simone de Beauvoir expresses in The Second

Sex her idea about woman, her condition, her role

Woman is well placed to describe society, the world, the

epoch to which she belongs, but only up to a certain point.

Truly great works are those that put the world entirely in

question. Now that woman doesn’t do. She will critique, she

will contest in detail; but to put the world completely into

question one must feel oneself to be profoundly responsible

for the world. Now she isn’t to the extent that it’s a world of

men; she doesn’t take charge in the way the great artist does.

She doesn’t radically contest the world, and this is why in the

history of humanity there isn’t a woman who has created a

great religious or philosophical system, or even a truly great

ideology; for that, what’s necessary is in some sense to do

away with everything that’s given [faire table rase de tout le

donné]—as Descartes did away with all knowledge—and to

start afresh. Well, woman, by reason of her condition, isn’t in

a position to do that.” (Bauer, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 46)

Simone de Beauvoir analyses women's condition, treatment, status through out

history, she investigated womanhood, but she recognized that the idea of writing The

Second Sex came to her lately. The Second Sex was published in France in 1949

meanwhile the second wave feminism had already started. One of the book's roots

was the fact that French women gained the right to vote in 1944, and the work was

published five years later. Simone de Beauvoir began to work on The Second Sex

while French women were pressured by society, by the ambient and patriarchal

16

system to become wives and mothers. In these times contraception and abortion were

illegal. The contraception finally became legal in France in 1967 for the calmness of

many women and abortion became legal in 1974. There were some factors which

delayed the granting of votes for women. Here is the exact time delimited by de

Beauvoir “during the German occupation of France during the Second World War

the provisional French government ... introduced stringent measures that further

circumscribed woman's autonomy...” (Tidd, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 50)

But she confesses that the idea of writing this study came to her lately and she

realized that she could not begin to write without bearing on herself. She asked

herself the question “what is a woman?” and to her the answer was 'I am', so she had

to have a parallel between herself and the rest of women. “The idea of The Second

Sex came to me very late. Men or women, I thought that each could handle their own

problems by them- selves; I wasn’t aware that femininity is a situation. I wrote three

novels, some essays, without worrying myself about my condition as a woman. One

day, I had a desire to explain myself to myself. I began to reflect and I became aware

with a sort of surprise that the first thing I had to say was this: I am a woman.”

(Beauvoir as qtd. by Bauer, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 42-43) Anyway she did not call

herself feminist, only late after her publication, in the late 1960's.

Beauvoir analyses the women's situation in two different ways, in different

situations, using specific concepts. One is the woman as the “absolute other”, and the

other alternative explains that “feminity is constructed”. The Second Sex is structured

in two volumes, the first one named Facts and Myth. As the title suggests, Beauvoir

started from myths about woman and true facts that changed women's destiny. The

second volume is named Woman's Life Today. She started her work from the early

times of women and finishes in her contemporary time frame. Beauvoir clearly

points out that a woman in most cases, is like the man wants. Here is obvious

women's subjugation “Women are still, for the most part, in a state of subjection. It

follows that woman sees herself and chooses herself not insofar as she exists for

herself [pour soi] but as man defines her. So we must first describe her as men dream

her, since her being-for-men is one of the essential factors of her concrete condition.”

(Bauer, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 200) She focused on aspects as how feminity was

conceptualized and how women 'became' relative beings in patriarchal society, as

17

woman would be hanged by the father, husband or brother. She also develops the

idea that woman has a marginalized position in society, that womanhood is

absolutely representative of this isolation, far away from reality, culture and law.

Simone de Beauvoir encouraged intellectual, cultural and economical

ascending of the woman. No one has a good explanation why woman in those times

was named the Other “I deny that they establish for her [woman] a fixed and

inevitable destiny. They are insufficient for setting up a hierarchy of the sexes; they

fail to explain why woman is the Other; they do not condemn her to remain in this

subordinate role forever.” (Bauer, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 202), but she explains this

Other “as not fully human” (Bauer, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 44). That era considered

the woman as weaker, with lower capacities and so on. From the biological point of

view she is considered to be primacy, because she is capable to gave birth to the

children, as our author says further on “woman are biologically destined for the

repetition of Life” (Bauer, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 203), having almost the same idea,

the woman's capacity to give birth.

The second volume opens with the phrase “One is not born, but rather

becomes, a woman” (Beauvoir as qtd by Bauer, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 51), which

alludes to gender identity.

“Patriarchal society traditionally value woman's reproductive capacity more

than her intellectual development or autonomy.” (Tidd, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 52)

This happens because people around them not believe that women were capable of

something more, they grew with the conception that women should give birth to the

children, be part of what they called generically 'womanhood' and just that. Beauvoir

admits that there are some differences between women and men, but they are few

and insignificant. But she continues claiming equal freedom between women and

men. Her study proves that society has been organized in favour of male's projects

and aspirations. Every new concept, job, idea has nearby a male person. The

requirements are tending to define men as the perfect candidates or the close one for

doing that job. This means that women were obliged to adapt to the patriarchal

society by the circumstances. What some women tried to do, or what they should

have done was to pursue economic independence trough independent work. This

would have solved the status of being dependent on someone.

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In the chapter entitled Facts and Myths, Beauvoir states that “They [women]

have no past, no history, no religion of their own...” (Tidd, Simone de Beauvoir, p.

54). She got to this conclusion after many observations that she makes on women.

Women were viewed by men just as simple 'instruments of exchange'. Nowadays we

would feel more than offended on hearing this; but even back then from my point of

view, it was an insult addressed to women by some men. Men could only afraid on

someone's dignity for getting higher. It is a universal subject that woman still “the

Other” for the men, just because she is considered to have no past, no history and no

religion. Men considered them only simple objects that surrounded them. Beauvoir

focuses on biology to demonstrate that women are not so weak as they are believed

to be, because time shows that women were like slaves for their species.

If we get the life story from the beginning girls and boys were treated the same

they behaved in the same way as the gender permitted, but the problem appeared

later. “There is no difference in attitudes of girls and boys during the first three or

four years. Both try to perpetuate the happy condition that preceded weaning...”

(Bauer, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 212) The gender discrimination appears in childhood,

because of the parents who accept and of the girls who involuntarily create the

problem themselves. Girls are more privileged than boys, and further boys become

independent of adult, while girls continue to use tricks and cheat to obtain what they

want(while boys do not).

In a speech made by Simone de Beauvoir, we find out she ascertained that

“woman is well placed to describe society, the world, the epoch to which she

belongs, but only up to a certain point.” (as qtd. By Bauer, Simone de Beauvoir, p.

65) But why impose limits on her? Why not let her demonstrate that she is capable of

doing more? And she demonstrated this centuries on. At the end of her work, the

author takes the opportunity to also show us the ‘blueprint’ of today woman, the

independent woman “the independent woman of today is torn between the

professional interests and the problems of her sexual life; it is difficult for her to

strike a balance between two; if she does, it is at the price of concession and

sacrifices which require her to be in a constant state of tension.” (Tidd, Simone de

Beauvoir, p. 68). Which also means that trying to be you is like a permanent struggle,

being under uncertainty, as fighting between good and evil. Beauvoir also gives us

19

the solution to the femininity problem “women must strive to become economically

independent and work together to gain political analysis of their situation so they can

challenge it.” (Tidd, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 68); which means women joining forces

because more persons are more powerful than a few, as she said that being united

and persevering we would manage to do it.

“Simone de Beauvoir was indeed one of the first women in this century to

remind us of the extent of women's exploitation, and to encourage every women who

had the good fortune to come across her book to feel less isolated and more certain

about not being oppressed or letting herself be taken in.” (Bauer, Simone de

Beauvoir, p. 13-14) She focuses on analyzing women problems, behaviour and

context but she also gave them support by finding solutions.

Another well-known great feminist is Hélène Cixous, she emerged in France

during the Second Wave Feminism. Cixous was interested and focused on the sexual

differences. In 1975 she published The Newly Born Woman, work which debates the

problem by binary oppositions, the good qualities being attached to men and the bad

ones to women, such as: active/passive, logos/pathos, and civilization/nature. All of

these create the way to “écriture féminine”. This collocation is translated in English

by “feminine writing” or “writing the body”. This type of writing is expressed by

ambiguities, gaps and so on. To sum up, the “écriture féminine” is an experimental

type of writing practiced by both women and men. This type of work is marked by a

sense of pleasure, excess. The “écriture féminine” has captivated the attention of

certain authors who 'experimented' with this type of writing, as Cixous, Virginia

Woolf, James Joyce or Jean Ganet.

“Virginia Woolf argues that women have struggled with formidable

educational, financial and social obstacles which have prevented from creating great

works of literature” (Tidd, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 95) Woolf revealed that women

were kept isolated from writing because of the social system and people's traditional

beliefs. Virginia Woolf also said that women would not be gifted to begin writing till

they solved the problem of privacy and freedom, they needed space of their own to

be able to work, named A Room of One's Own published in 1929, and 500 years - the

period women needed for writing. Woolf's opinion was that women were suited for

writing fiction. A Room of One's Own revealed the disadvantages that women had to

20

confront, unlike men, the material disadvantages, and simply the female experience

of writing. Virginia Woolf had another great work on the feminist subject, named

Profession for Women, essay in which she spoke about women writers and her own

career.

The 'new feminism' wave also had at its centre also Maggie Humm, who wrote

about the status of being a woman. Her work is entitled Feminisms and was

published in 1992. The feminist Kate Millet analyses males' images of women in the

context of history, society, and literature. She focuses on gender and sex in her work

Sexual Politics. Returning to the second feminist wave, in the 1960s, 1970s, the

current of Marxist feminism, we find out that it ignored much of women's experience

and activity. Marxism concentrated on gender and production terms. The second

term defined womanhood as working in a factory. The French feminism has

influenced by psychoanalysis. French feminism was marked by Kristeva, Cixous and

Irigaray. For example Kristeva explained women's situation by using the opposite

terms 'closed' and 'open'. “Closed” is the state in which women lived, they were

limited by patriarchal society and so on, and “open” - because they needed to start a

new way of life, open minded, with a large view on everything.

“Feminists have shown that the theoretical and practical exclusion of women

from the universalist public is no mere accident or aberration. The ideal of the civic

public unity, and necessitates the exclusion of aspects of human existence that

threaten to disperse the brotherly unity of straight and upright forms, especially the

exclusion of women.” (Benhabib, Young, Feminism as Critique, p. 59)

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Chapter 2. Affinities and Differences between Emma Bovary

and Hester Prynne

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and The Scarlet Letter by

Nathaniel Hawthorne both tangentially touch the feminist point of view with the idea

of evolving, progressing. The main theme they have in common is the sinful and

condemnable dimension of adultery. The concept of adultery is a universally known

one, but it can bee seen as the result of women’s oppression. Any woman is born to

grow in diversity and she wants to get to a certain aim, a personally set goal in her

life. A woman is as creative as a man can be, doing nothing and getting bored is not a

life ‘occupation’, because there could appear some unpleasant things, in our case the

temptation to sin. A woman is born with maternal feelings and she also needs to have

someone near her soul, to understand and encourage her, someone to give her the

appropriate advice when she needs it, or simply to be there, next to her. We are

human beings, and everyone needs emotional attachment. Female literary characters

Emma (the protagonist of Flaubert’s novel) and Hester (the female protagonist of

Hawthorne’s novel) were feeling lonely; although Emma had her husband near

physically, he wasn’t there for her in other respects. Whereas Hester thought that her

husband was dead, she knew that she was a widow.

In a patriarchal society men could be said to destroy women's lives,

character, way of living, mind, behaviour, voluntarily or involuntarily. They

misunderstand women’s problems and feelings, or they just do not think of them as

human beings, just as simply womanhood or simple work entities. Initially women

were complacent with their situation, nowadays there can also be found cases of

women not struggling for their own welfare because they got used to the idea of

being managed by men, society, others, just not by themselves; in our case-study

Hester and Emma did not get used to the idea of being under men’s control, under

society’s ‘word’. They wanted to rise by firstly proving themselves and also that they

could live an independent life intellectually and economically, without any outside

help. Hawthore’s character, Hester, bravely demonstrated that she could manage

22

without a man’s help, she earned her own money by crafting fancy objects and

raising her daughter, Pearl, in an appropriate way.

Whereas Emma wanted her intellectual independence more than anything,

she did not take so much care of her daughter. Flaubert’s female protagonist firstly

wanted to have a gallant position in the high society of that time, and to a certain

extent she tried to experiment in her own life everything she had read in the books

she used to read. She was an avid reader, but she was extremely sad that she had no

one to share with everything she read. Maybe she could have made some money out

of this habit is she had seriously begun writing. She had a passion for reading since

early age when she used to read secretly well known novels at that time. We could

tell that she was feeding by reading, she was feeding her mind and her soul by

keeping reading. Emma wanted to have the same access in the society as men do,

they wanted do. She wanted to take part to the cultural life, cultural events, festivals,

and the biggest wish of her was to take part to the balls regularly. She tasted from

this type of life, from the aristocracy, she knew that she could have it forever, but she

did not follow the appropriate way. The little bourgeoisie seemed to annoy her, the

mediocrity in which she had to be complacent was grievous, and hard to support it.

She wanted to be up to the ropes with every social and cultural movement that would

follow in that little town, in that area. Emma liked to be surrounded by people and to

socialize. Whereas, fortunately or unfortunately, Emma had a double life, she also

lived in her own world, she kept dreaming. There everything was possible, as in the

books that she read. At a certain moment she tried to do the things as in the book

happened, but there was not the same, there was not happy and so on, there were just

problems and again problems. Emma felt extremely the absence of someone to

socialize. Here inverts Leon and Rodolphe.

The sin is imminent and the truth found out at any second. In the beginning

Emma will hide her relationship with the other man, now the life from books she

reads has become her reality; she secretly meets her 'lover/s'. But in Hester’s case,

the truth surfaces from the very start. The only thing that she does not ever confess is

the name of the man who is also guilty of their shared sin.

Whereas we have the capacity for logical reasoning, we are actually humans

prone to make mistakes; it is in our nature to be wrong about something at a certain

23

moment, but there are many kinds of mistakes: small, inoffensive ones and big ones.

Unfortunately, in these cases, our heroines committed one of the most serious sins -

that of adultery. Then the correction follows, each character receives her punishment

depending on the personal environment created by the author in each novel. The

punishment for their sins are placed by the two authors in the social environment

they were placed, the other characters surrounding and interacting with them, the

time-span of the happened facts, their destiny and their luck. in the luck factor is

important because it is found in our stories (as in almost every story), and nowadays

also one should have a little luck to manage doing something.

The restrictive religious beliefs are more obvious in the punishment context

as all the written laws are applied, maybe more harshly than before. Emma's case

could be seen as a self punishment because it was too difficult for her to live after she

consciously saw what she had done. Nothing is worse than taking a retrospective

look and seeing how wrong you had acted, what damage you had caused, and the

suffering you had produced to others, including yourself. Unfortunately Emma does

not find her courage to dare bravely the future. Facing the reality she was a weak

person. Her soul was weak, she did not find the necessary powers to pull herself

together and go on. After years of suffering, because she had a limited a cultural and

social life, she eventually gave in and committed suicide, in a terrifying way:

poisoning. She died a slow, agonising death probably thinking that she would finally

escape all the problems she had had. But there remained a child that needed the care

of a mother.

Emma was not punished by the others as Hester had been, but by herself.

Hawthorne’s character, Hester, was punished by the Puritan society - a strict,

unforgiving and cruel organization. Puritans did not agree under any circumstance to

having in the sect sinners or unpunished persons. They were not declined the

punishing rigour of their strict laws. But their ways of punishing were too cruel, they

also used to kill the guilty person. She had to choose between running away, which

was not a good option of escaping, or staying and conforming with the punishment.

For these kinds of problems feminists struggled and fought throughout the years. She

went to prison although pregnant, then she was symbolically exiled by the people

from her community, she therefore lived isolated, at the margin of the town, and

24

when she encountered people in her way, not even was not treated respectfully, but

gibed.

The child came as a salvation. They only had to know how to manage this

singular important opportunity. The destiny gave them the chance to recognize that

they were sorry and they wanted to be forgiven. But for Emma, as for a philosopher

or artist, creation and the cultural life were more important. Yes, she also deserved

admiration as she wanted women to be involved in cultural events. She struggled as

hard as she could to surpass her moral and social condition – not to be just a

representative of womanhood and only that. She dreamed to become an aristocrat

because this way she thought she would have access to everything. But the Flaubert’s

novel did not include the same end in her case, too; the books that she used to read

were a secondary world for her, and she wanted that to be the main, real world.

Despite her daily struggles, she did not manage to transform her life as she wanted.

Men gave her hopes believing that everything was possible with them, but they

ended abandoning her. Emma clung onto a false hope, the lover had promised her the

moon and the stars, not her baby who bring get her comfort, sunny days, and the

happiness of motherhood. She chose the option she believed would bring her the

desired happiness. Emma thought that running was the best solution, running away

with her lover and beginning a new life somewhere else at his side, but it was not

like she had planned. Every step was carefully established, but when the target-

moment arrived, the lover disappeared and so did Leon, and the same happened in

the case of Rodolphe. Because a single attempt was not enough, she repeated the

experience with another so called ‘lover’ to prove herself that she could never escape

the limited space in which she lived.

Hester Prynne gathered all her forces and managed to go on, although she

was considered the symbol of the sin in that community. She had a daughter, whom

she did not love from the beginning. Hawthorne’s female protagonist got angry many

times because of Pearl, who was considered the child of the sin, but the mother

finally got used to her and began to love her. She could not abandon the child,

although she had the option. Hester felt that this wouldn't be good, she listened to her

heart and it proved to be a good choice.

25

The reverse case can be found in Flaubert’s character, Emma, she listened

and followed her heart and she lost. Emma seemed to hate her daughter, her maternal

feelings did not manifest even after giving birth to little Pearl. She had rather given

her baby to someone else to raise her. In fact, she was not prepared to assume the

role of a mother, she was too young and still affected by the intellectual situations

she encountered and never actually managed to solve. Hester was envied more by the

others when she was seen with the impertinence she was manifesting when in the

community, having an active daily life and managing to be a so called trader. She

had something coming from within which gave her power to do everything necessary

in order to manage. Finally, she received some respect from the community. She was

brave in everything she had done and so she earned everything, even the respect she

deserved.

When reading feminist novels and a lot about the feminist waves in the entire

world, we can find previous strugglers on this ‘battlefield’ as Marry Wollstonecraft,

then theoreticians as Kate Millett, Shulamith Firestone, Naomi Woolf, or French

critics like Simone de Beauvoir, Helene Cixous, or Raman Selden. I have stopped

and lingered on my favourite novels on this theme, Madame Bovary by Gustave

Flaubert (2001) and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1999). So far, I

think these are my favourite novels because they are the first volumes that I read on

this topic.

2.1. Emma's Struggle for Cultural and Social Rights

Madame Bovary was published in 1857 and was the debut novel of Gustave

Flaubert, it was and still is considered a great work of the nineteenth century. The

novel was written between 1851 and 1856 with painstaking, and it became Flaubert's

hallmark. In his work Flaubert was inspired by the French Revolution of 1789 and

the reign of Napoleon, when the collapse of aristocracy makes way for a new middle

class, the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie was made of merchants and capitalists.

Flaubert was part of the educated elite of that time, and here he finds the lack of style

26

and taste, a sort of moral conservatism. He was not delighted by these aspects and so

he attacked the merchant class in the novel Madame Bovary and also in Sentimental

Education (1869). He not only criticized the middle class, but also manifested

against romanticism. The realist wave was the new style which replaced the romantic

idealism. Realism focused on the harsh and unforgiving realities of life. Other French

realist writers were Stendhal and Honoré de Balzac, and English writers as Thomas

Hardy and George Eliot. But romanticism is also present in Madame Bovary, but the

author treats it with irony.

When the first series appeared in La Revue de Paris, the novel was

attacked for obscenity, for offending the decency of society and of the public. When

it was published in a single volume in 1857 and after Flaubert was discharged,

Madame Bovary became a bestseller, and nowadays it is still considered a

masterpiece of French literary realism. The word ‘adultery’ which defines Emma

Bovary is used also inside the lines, being a realist subject, it is also found in Russian

novelist Lev Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, but, paradoxically enough, we do not find it

in Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, where readers can easily grasp the subject

but it is not explicitly specified.

In Madame Bovary, Flaubert took a commonplace of story of

adultery and made of it a book that has continued to be read

because of its profound humanity. Emma Bovary is a bored and

unhappy middle-class wife whose general dissatisfaction with

life leads her to act out her romantic fantasies and embark on an

ultimately disastrous love affair. She destroys her life by

embracing abstractions - passion, happiness - as concrete

realities. She ignores material reality itself, as symbolized by

money and is inexorably drawn to financial ruin and suicide.

(Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, p. 710)

Flaubert publicly admits that 'Madame Bovary c'est moi' (which, in a literal

translation means ‘Madame Bovary is me’), that is to say his representation, a part of

him behaves like her. But we also find out that his father’s personality is transcribed

in that of doctor Larivier.

27

After Flaubert’s heroine tastes from the best life can give her, she wants it

for ever. It is also cruel for a woman who reads to stay and limit forever. She knows

that she could have the best so she does everything to have it, just not do it in the

proper way. Unfortunately for her, she is supposed to have a standard conservative

life ruled by the man of the house, at the beginning the father, then the husband.

Because she has an important status in the society of those times, being the doctor's

wife, she has to behave accordingly. Maybe this kind of status contributed to her

destruction, not only her harsh life.

The name of Flaubert’s heroine, Emma, means an individual woman with a

certain, distinct history, that she is not like any other woman, she is different. But the

word ‘Madame’, a married person’s appellation is the name bestowed to woman who

entered the institution of marriage in those times. Emma is not the ‘perfect’ or the

standard type of character, but she is worthy of admiration because she has the

courage to evolve, and she does not know correctly how because of the patriarchal

system which destroyed many destinies.

Emma grew up in an abbey of women and the only pleasure she could afford

was to secretly read novels; therefore after getting married she mostly lived in the

fictional world the books provided for her, and not in her own reality

And Emma tried to find out what one meant exactly in life by

the words felicity, passion, rapture, that had seemed to her so

beautiful in books. (Madame Bovary, p. 27, emphases mine)

She lived daydreaming, she was not able to see the reality, or maybe she just would

not accept it. She married young a man much older than her, and she escaped from a

glass bell and entered another. She lived calmly for a while after her marriage,

continuing to read her novels and being the woman in the house, but she did nothing

because she was Madame,

Accustomed to calm aspect of life, she turned, on the contrary, to

those of excitement. She loved the sea only for the sake of its

storms, and the green fields only when broken up by ruins. She

wanted to get some personal profit out of things, and she rejected

as useless all that did not contribute to the immediate desires of

her heart, being of a temperament more sentimental than artistic,

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looking for emotions, not for landscapes. (Madame Bovary, p.

28)

Since the episode of the ball, where she met many important persons, and she loved

this type of glamorous life, so she wanted to keep it forever hosting special parties,

being well dressed in fashionable clothes and so on “The memory of this ball, then,

became an occupation for Emma.” (Madame Bovary, p. 43). She kept dreaming of

the ball night, and hoped that soon she would have a new opportunity to participate

at a ball. She created scenes of how it would be if she went to another event of such

importance, imagining who would be present, where the event would be held, how it

would unfold, about what participants would be discussing and so on. “...thinking

that perhaps the marquis d'Andervilliers would give another ball at Vaubyessard”

(Madame Bovary, p. 48). She places all her wishes/hopes in him. The only improper

fact in her situation is that she gave up music. Music was another of her passions,

playing the piano. Because of the sadness, she became ill of intellectual and cultural

isolation. In this instance appears the weak part of a woman encountered in the

feminist waves; i.e., women were considered weak because they used to be guided

by feelings in making decisions. In fact, Emma’s illness is a psychological one, cruel

sadness, but it transforms into a biological weakness. This first step in the giving up

process I consider to be an anti-model. In this situation she represents the

powerlessness of woman.

She took up in La Corbeille, a lady journal, and the Sylphe des

Salons... She knew the latest fashions, the addresses of the best

tailors, the days of the Bois and the Opera. In Eugene Sue she

studies descriptions of furniture; she read Balzac and George

Sand in them imaginary satisfaction for her own desires.

(Madame Bovary, p. 44-45)

Here is the perfect example of the woman who wants to escape the lacks and

limitations patriarchy forces her to obey. The intellectual ascending of which Simone

de Beauvoir spoke prove to be a preoccupation the Flaubert’s heroine as she

encourages and pursues this intensely; unfortunately we do not find Emma’s desire

of economic independence. She does not stop reading a cooking book, or at all, she

turns reading into her passion.

29

Emma nourishes, feeds her mind and soul by reading good books, good

authors, such as Balzac and George Sand, and she does not renounce this satisfaction

even if people around her try to convince her to abandon it. the character has to fight

that time’s outlook on reading - considered a waste of time or foolishness. Emma's

huge disappointment was that there was no person with whom she could discuss

about her reading experience. At the end of the day when her husband came home

she would be so enthusiastic if she had talked to him about what she had been read

during the day. Reading and not debating, fructifying, sharing with the supposedly

loved one, makes her sad. Such a piece of information she accumulated when reading

needed to be shared with someone so as to feel completely fulfilled. She needed

someone, a partner, with whom she could discuss her reading experience.

Emma is compared by Jessica Martino with the “Eternal feminine” of

Simone de Beauvoir, feminine in look, feminine in behaviour and also in

intelligence. She is a womb, as Beauvoir states (The Second Sex, p. 47), the ‘woman

is a womb’, Emma is a womb, but one of culture. Moreover, Flaubert’s heroine is not

born a woman, but she becomes one, according to Beauvoir (The Second Sex, 195).

Women need to have access to the same activities as men do, she feels the need to be

treated similarly. She does not want to be excluded from many social aspects, such as

the “annual agricultural reunion” or any social problem discussion. As a reaction to

such types of isolation, especially because she no longer attended balls, she did not

get out of her own house, not even in the garden

Emma was growing difficile, capricious. She ordered dishes for

herself, then she did not touch them; one day drank only pure

milk, and the next cups of tea by dozen. Often she persisted in

not going out, then, stifling, threw open the windows and put on

light dresses. After she had well scolded her servant she gave

her presents or sent her out to see the neighbours, just as she

sometimes threw beggars all the silver in her purse, although

she was by no means tender-hearted or easily accessible to the

feelings of others, like most country-bread people, who always

retain in their souls something of the horny of the paternal

hands. (Madame Bovary, p. 51, emphasis mine)

30

And the result of this isolation was a cruel one, she was too sensitive to problems,

“She grew pale and suffered from palpitation of the heart.” (Madame Bovary, p. 51)

Her husband believed she was seriously ill, he thought she had an illness which

developed in that area, he was not able to see beyond the ‘symptoms’ she manifested,

he could not see that the real problem of his wife was simply cultural isolation. She

was an intelligent woman and she would have liked to be treated as such, to have

access to what aristocracy meant, not to get stuck in what bourgeoisie meant back in

those times. Emma’s husband, Charles, thought that “change of air was needed”

(Madame Bovary, p. 52), and that was all. Here we can see how blind a man is, he

thinks only with the mind and not with his soul, too. The man who blames women

that they are sentimental and emotional can not ‘read’ a person and especially see

what is in the soul of the next person.

Emma waits vainly that her amorous and financial problems would be solved.

When Emma is encouraged by her lovers to do what she really feels, she interprets

this in a wrong way, by allowing herself total freedom and going the wrong way.

They have the power to change her life for better or worse, but the second aspect is

the one who gains terrain, a power that she lacks. She was used to be dependent on

someone, and this dependence was total. She grew up in this type of climate and it

was extremely hard for her to rid herself of life-long habits.

Because the character does not respect moral life, she ends up failing. Trying

to outdo herself, she gets lost in a cruel game deceiving herself firstly, but this is not

an aspect we should focus on in our analysis. Her unhappy marriage is obvious at

each step. She looks for the possibility of escaping from this gloomy contract by

looking out the window; no matter if she followed someone or she expected

something, she disregarded the real scenery and imagined freedom, a freedom she

never felt, and indeed she would never have. For Emma, the windows are the means

of looking into the past, remembering her unhappy life and running off into

daydreaming in order to escape from her way of living.

Emma grew thinner, her cheeks paler, her face longer, with her

black hair, her large eyes, her aquiline nose, her bird- like nose,

her bird-like walk, and always silent now, did she not seem to

be passing through life scarcely touching it, and to bear on her

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brow the vague impress of some divine destiny? She was so sad

and so calm, at once so gentle and so reserved, that near her one

felt oneself seized by an icy charm, as we shudder in churches

at the perfume of the flowers mingling with the cold of the

marble. The others even did not escape from this seduction...

The housewives admired her economy, the patients, her

politeness, the poor her charity. (Madame Bovary, p. 81-82)

This description was made when she was in love with Leon. “What exasperated her

was that Charles did not seem to notice her anguish. His conviction that he was

making her happy seemed to her an imbecile insult, and his sureness on this point

ingratitude. For whose sake, then, was she virtuous? Was it not for him, the obstacle

to all felicity, the cause of all misery, and, as it were, the sharp clasp of that complex

strap that buckled her in on all sides?" (Madame Bovary, p. 83) She was angry that

Charles behaved as if he were blind, he did not see that Emma was completely

unhappy. They did not behave as a happy couple, and he was sure Emma was happy,

the fact which most annoyed her. They live in completely different worlds; although

they are husband and wife, they do not actually know each other, their pleasures,

thoughts, perception, what they like or dislike, what upsets them or what makes them

glad. They have wrong beliefs about each other. They live in a house as a married

couple, but in fact they do not know each other’s true character. Everyone has wrong

opinions about the other. Emma considers him an obstacle in her way to fulfil her

felicity. She considers him a barricade in her destiny. How is it possible for that the

man living close to you for years not to actually know you. How could a man make

you suffer in this way, as Emma says, for what all this she feels pushed by

everything around her to keep silent and try to do by herself.

Her own gentleness to herself made her rebel against him.

Domestic mediocrity drove her to lewd fancies, marriage

tenderness to adulterous desires. She would have liked Charles

to beat her, that she might have a better right to hate him, to

revenge herself upon him. She was surprised sometimes at the

atrocious conjunctures that came into her thoughts, and she had

to go on smiling, to hear repeated to her at all hours that she

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was happy, to pretend to be happy, to let it be believed.

(Madame Bovary, p. 83)

Her kindness, innocence, and clean soul transformed into the opposite, but she still

acted as if happy. The mediocrity in which she lived brought her to the stage in

which she fell into sin. Rodolphe knew pretty much about women and he figured out

rather quickly Emma's life story. He manages to render an interesting portrait of

Emma, also imagining her future in a different place, surrounded by different

activities:

She is very pretty, he said to himself; she is very pretty, this

doctor's wife. Fine teeth, black eyes, a dainty foot, a figure like

a Parisenne's. Where the devil does she come from? Wherever

did this fat fellow pick up?... I think he(Charles) is very stupid.

She is tired of him, no doubt. He has dirty nails, and hasn't

shaved for three days. While he is trotting after his patients, she

sits there darning socks. And she gets bored! She would like to

live in town and dance polkas every evening. Poor little

woman! She is gaping after love like a carp on a kitchen-table

after water. With three words of gallantry she'd adore one, I'm

sure of it. She'd be tender, charming! (Madame Bovary, p. 99)

Rodolphe seemed to know much more about Emma than her husband. He knew

exactly what she liked and disliked, what her actual situation was and how she would

have wanted to be. Rodolphe also feels a little pity for her, but what he most likes

about her is her appearance, she was a beautiful woman not deserving this fate.

“She would have liked to live in some old manor-house, like those long-

waited chatelains who, in the shade of pointed arches, spent their days leaning on

stone parapets, chin in hand, watching a cavalier with white plume galloping on his

black horse from distant fields.” (Madame Bovary, p.99) This kind of life was what

Emma dreamed of after reading Walter Scott, then she fell in love with historical

events. But after reading another genre she was amazed of something else. She

behaved like a child who kept dreaming and did not want to see reality.

Emma was used to a certain kind of life in the years she lived with her father,

and after she got married with Bovary she moved to his place; there she found

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disorder, rubbish “Then, opening on the yard... a mass of dusty things whose use it

was impossible to guess.” (Madame Bovary, p. 25). It could be easily noticed that

there lived a single man with no one to help wit daily household chores, but, in my

opinion, the description of the place was terrifying for her. Initially she says nothing,

she just takes care of the house and garden doing the cleaning and redecorating the

house. Her main worry after seeing those things was what would happen if she were

to die, especially with her bridal flowers.

Emma went upstairs. The first room was not furnished, but in

the second, which was their bedroom, was a mahogany

bedstead in an alcove with red drapery. A shell-box adorned the

chest of drawers, and on the secretary near the window a

bouquet of orange-blossoms tied with white satin ribbons stood

in a bottle. It was a bride's bouquet; it was the other one's. She

looked at it. Charles noticed it; he took it and carried it up to the

attic, while Emma seated in an armchair (they were putting her

things down around her) thought of her bridal flowers packed

up in a bandbox, and wondered, dreaming, what would be done

with them is she were to die. During the first days she occupied

herself in thinking about changes in the house. She took the

shades of the candlesticks, had new wall-paper put up, the

staircase repainted, and seats made in the garden round the

sundial; she even inquired how she could get a basin with

jetting fountain and fishes. Finally her husband, knowing that

she liked to drive out, picked up a second-hand dogcart, which,

with new lamps and a splash board in striped leather, looked

almost like a tilbury. (Madame Bovary, p. 25)

After all these happened Charles was elated, he had never dreamed that this kind of

moment would ever be part of his life. But here they are, the blazes of happiness

which do not change Emma the least. She believed in love, she thought happiness

would come little by little, but it wasn't like that; now she believed she had made a

huge mistake by marrying Charles. In these moments the only thing she wanted to do

was to find out the real meaning of felicity, passion, and rapture - words she found so

34

beautiful, charming, and real, but these were real only inside the books, not outside

in her life, so she wanted words to be ‘available’ in her life also.

“But the uneasiness of her new position, or perhaps the disturbance caused

by the presence of this man, had sufficed to make her believe that she at last felt that

wondrous passion which, till then, like a great bird with rose-coloured wings, hung in

the splendour of the skies of poesy; and now she could not think that the calm in

which she lived was the happiness she had dreamed.” (Madame Bovary, p. 30-31)

She hoped that becoming married would turn out to make her the happiest person in

the world, as the read books predicted. But her social status brought her only worries

and a lot of time to get bored. Her life was ensuing too calmly, with nothing to make

her heart beat alertly or to have enthusiastic sensations, feelings that would certainly

give her the confirmation she was actually happy.

“She thought sometimes that, after all, this was the happiest time of her life -

the honeymoon, as people called it. To taste the full sweetness of it, it would have

been necessary doubtless to fly those lands with sonorous names where the days after

marriage are full of laziness most suave. In post-chaises behind blue silken curtains

to ride slowly up steep roads listening to the song of the postilion re-echoed by the

mountains, along with the bells of the goats and the muffled sound of waterfall; at

the sunset on the shores of gulfs to breathe in the perfume of lemon trees; then in the

evening on the villa terraces above, hand in hand to look at the stars, making plans

for the future. It seemed to her that certain places on earth must bring happiness , as a

plant to the soil, that cannot thrive elsewhere. Why could not she lean over balconies

in Swiss chalets, or enshrine her melancholy in a Scotch cottage, with a husband

dressed in a black velvet coat with long tails, and thin shoes, a pointed hat and frills?

(Madame Bovary, p. 31)

Emma reaches a point when she thinks the happiest moments of her life were

those of her honeymoon. She remembers that then she found out how it was to be

happy, she tasted that feeling once. The moments when you enjoy the landscapes and

every moment of the day have something special. She misses those times when they

looked at the stars and made future plans, those moments which would never come

back. Now she is the classic womanhood who obeys domestic rules. But these do not

35

make her happy, she needs that certain something else, some activities to make her

feel alive.

When Emma finds out that she is pregnant things gradually changing “Emma

at first felt a great astonishment; then was anxious to be delivered that she might

know what it was to be a mother. But no able to spend as much as she would have

liked, to have a swing-bassinette with rose silk curtains, and embroidered caps, in a

fit of bitterness she gave up at looking after the trousseau, and ordered the whole of it

from a village needlewoman, without choosing or discussing anything. Thus she did

not amuse herself with those preparation that stimulate tenderness of mothers, and so

her affection was from the very outset, perhaps, to some extent attenuated.”(Madame

Bovary, p. 67) Firstly she seems to change her mind and be amazed, but when she

thinks that she has no money for everything she wanted to offer her child, she made

the preparation quietly, ordering the trousseau from a needlewoman. But she did not

choose anything special, colourful as she wanted, she just ordered them because she

would need them.

“A good housewife does not trouble about her appearance. Then she relapsed

into silence. It was the same on the following days; her talk, her manners, everything

changed. She took interest in the housework, went to church regularly, and looked

after her servant with more severity. She took Berthe from nurse. When visitors

called, Felicity brought her in, and Madame Bovary undressed her to show off her

limbs. She declared she adored children; this was her consolation, her joy, her

passion, and she accompanied her caresses with lyrical outbursts which would have

reminded anyone but the Yonville people of Sachette in Notre-Dame de Paris.”

(Madame Bovary, p. 81) She seemed to have changed; she retook the role of the

woman in the house and especially the role of mother. She tried to act as if

everything was fine and normal hoping that this way she would accept her child, that

she would grow to love Berthe and 'happily' fit into family life.

With this repeated tinkling the thoughts of the young woman

lost themselves in old memories of her youth and schooldays.

She remembered the great candlesticks that rose above the

vases full of flowers on the altar, and the tabernacle with its

small columns. She would have liked to be once more lost in

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the long line of white veils, marked off here and there by the

stiff black hoods of the god sisters bending over their prie-

Dieus. Ay mass on Sundays, when she looked up she saw the

gentle face of the Virgin amid the blue smoke of the rising

incense. Then she was moved; she felt herself weak and quite

deserted, like the down of a bird whirled by the tempest, and it

was unconsciously that she went towards the church, inclined to

no matter what devotions, so that her soul was absorbed and all

existence lost in it. (Madame Bovary, p. 84)

Emma remembered the days when she was at the convent, and she missed those days

and wished they would repeat, she missed everything that had happened back then,

each stage of the day, especially Sunday's phases.

“The next day was a dreary one for Emma. Everything seemed to her

enveloped in a black atmosphere floating confusedly over the exterior of things, and

sorrow was engulfed within her soul with soft shrieks such as the winter winds

makes in ruined castles. It was that reverie which we indulge in over things that will

not return, the lassitude that seized you after everything done; that pain, in fine, that

the interruption of every wonted movement, the sudden cessation of any prolonged

vibration, brings on.” (Madame Bovary, p. 94) She felt sorrow for the past moments,

not only for the ball, but for the early age, for her childhood, for her father. She knew

that all of these could not be repeated or re-lived ever again. But her sadness had not

stopped here “Sometimes she felt faint. One day she even spat blood...” (Madame

Bovary, p. 96)

Emma liked to be involved in every show or event of the local community, as

well in agricultural shows. Although she knew nothing about agriculture, she had the

desire to know, to learn more and more; because of this she loved to read and liked to

participate in different types of events. She wanted women to have the same

opportunities men had the chance to have. At this event she was quiet, paying

attention to everything happening around her, she behaved like an apprentice.

Unfortunately she was accompanied by Rodolphe, not by her husband. But

surprisingly enough Rodolphe (her usual lover) creates so beautiful portraits of her

in which she is defined as a goddess.

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2.2. A Brief Fore-Conclusion

Flaubert’s fictional character Emma Bovary violates her society's norms

regarding so-called ‘proper female behaviour’ because she is dissatisfied living a

middle-class, provincial, married-woman and mother life whose entire universe is

reduced solely to her home, husband, and child. Emma is created by feminist novelist

Flaubert in order to express women’s will to power to accomplish more with their

lives; but accomplishing more implicitly means that women will have to violate the

traditional roles of wife and mother cut out for women in a patriarchal society. As

Emma violates these roles and eventually realizes that she will never attain

happiness, she finds that she is unable to function in that society. She therefore

suffers from emotional distress that is mirrored by her behaviour.

Resorting to social construction theory and feminism, one may conclude that

Emma is not solely at fault for her unhappiness. Her society helps her to construct

ideas and notions regarding her sense of self and others that ultimately impede her

ability to function in life.

Emma is a victim of patriarchal society in which women's place is rigidly

confined and virtues of women are reduced to being a good wife and mother, and

these female characters find it difficult to fit themselves into those traditional female

roles, and yet their societies do not allow them to explore other possibilities. But at

the same time their self-destructiveness is also partly due to their own personality.

Thus, in spite of their struggle for self-realization, they all fail to attain their goal

constructively. This B.A. thesis examines why the struggle for self-realization of

these heroines is eventually turned into self-destruction and what literary devices

each author uses in order to accomplish the effect in terms of characterization, plot,

imagery, symbols, and narrative themes?

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Chapter 3. Hester's Success as an Independent Woman

3.1. Nathaniel Hawthorne: Biographical Data

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804 in Salem, Mass. U.S. He was an

American novelist and short-story writer. His great works are The Scarlet Letter

(1850) and The House of Seven Gambles(1851). An interesting aspect that we find is

that his original name wrote without ‘w’, Hathorne, only when he begin to write and

publish he change a little bit his name into Hawthorne.

His ancestor William Hathorne was a magistrate who was a real defender of

Puritan orthodoxy. Here are the roots of inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne. His

entire work focuses on Puritan problems. There is a moment in Hawthorne life when

he wonders about his family decline, while other Salem families are growing pretty

well. He was grown by his mother because his father died when he was a child. He

grew up and he did not consider himself a young man, but he spent years reading and

focused on writing fiction. His gift had been exploited in college when he decided

that his destiny is to become a writer. Around this period had written an amateurish

novel and after graduation he had published some stories, as The Hollow of the Three

Hills and An Old Woman’s Tale. He did not want to depend of his uncles so he get a

job, even after he sign the contract for the publishing of the first novel, he continue to

have another job because the income was not enough.

By 1842 things began to improve, Hawthorne had sufficient income so he get

married with Sophia Peabody. They rented a mansion about he would speak later in

the essay The Old Manse. In 1845 they returned to Salem because the debts growth.

There he get a job of the Custom House but three years later lost it because of the

political movements. After a few month he focused on creating his masterpiece The

Scarlet Letter. This book brought Hawthorne fame and entitled him one of the best

American novelists. Because he lost his job Hawthorne moved to Lenox where he

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began to work on The House of the Seven Gables. The House of the Seven Gables is

about a study of a hereditary sin that affected Hawthorne's family by a woman

condemned to death. At Lenox he get friend with Herman Melville.

Then in 1851 Hawthorne and his family moved in West Newton where he

started working on The Blithedale Romance. This book did not produce the income

that they guessed, create a little disappointment. He get a consular job that might

stabilize the family income. In 1857 when he ended up his job, decided to spend

some time in Italy. Here he get the idea of writing another romance. He returned in

England and produced The Marble Faun. This novel talks about some American arts

students that were expatriated in Italy that become involved in the murder of a man.

Returned in Wayside in 1860 he devoted entirely to writing but there was nothing

successful. There were just a lot of drafts. He died in sleep when was on a trip

searching for health, in May 19, 1864 Plymouth.

The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850 by Nathaniel Hathorne, the 'w' in

the writer's last name being added put only when he began writing, Hawthorne. He

was descendent of a Puritan family; he focused to go back in history till William

Hathorne, and John Hathorne, important figures in this field. He made up this great

work from tales and sketches written much earlier, thirteen years before he started

working to this novel. The theme of Puritans is a frequently encountered one in his

works, but, in Scarlet Letter it is expressed at its best. The American's Puritan were a

religious sect who arrived in Massachusetts in the 1630s under the leadership of John

Winthrop, and was well known for the intolerance of opposing to the ideas and

lifestyle. Puritanism was a very strict sect. In 1837 Hawthorne published Endicott

and the Red Cross, where he realizes a brief portrait of Puritan New England. But

there was found another paper, some entry, in which he contemplates about how it

would be the life for a woman in the olds colony, who is forced to wear the letter A,

as the sign of the sin, by having committed adultery.

“It is in his use of symbols in The Scarlett Letter that Hawthorne has made

one of his most distinctive and significant contributions to the growth of American

fiction. Indeed, this book is usually regarded as the first symbolic novel to be written

in the United States.” (Carey, The Scarlet Letter, Notes, p. 50)

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3.2. The Scarlett Letter - a Feminist Close Reading

The Scarlet Letter envisages Puritan society and the past-present

relationship:

By the mid-nineteenth century, American writers were beginning to

explore the erotic and its moral implications. Nathaniel Hawthorne's

The Scarlet Letter was an instant success because in handled

spiritual and moral issues from a uniquely American point of view.

Lewis notes that the novel was originally charge with 'perpetrating

bad morals', even though Hawthorne 'could not have handled the

material more carefully', reiterating the sentiment that sexual urges

lead to immortality and moral decay. However, because Hawthorne

was well established in the New England literary community, his

potentially risqué novel was not censored and passed into the realm

of appropriate texts. (Womack, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of

New American Reading, p. 341)

Hawthorne describes the protagonist of his novel (The Scarlet Letter) as a “young

woman, with no mean share of beauty, whose doom it was to wear the letter A on the

breast of her grown, in the eyes of all the world and her own children. And even her

own children knew what the initial signified. Sporting with her infamy, the lost and

desperate creature had embroidered the fatal token in scarlet cloth, with golden

thread and the nicest art of needlework; so that the capital A might have been thought

to mean Admirable, or anything rather than Adulteress.” (Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter,

p. VIII) This young woman that he describes here looks like Hester Prynne a lot.

Because she herself wears the capital A as if in honour, scarlet embroidered by her

own hands.

The novel is set in a village in Puritan New England. The

main character is Hester Prynne, a young woman who has

borne an illegitimate child. Hester believes herself a widow,

but her husband, Roger Chillingworth returns to New

England very much alive and conceals his identity. He finds

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his wife forced to wear the Scarlet Letter A on her dress as a

punishment for her adultery. Chillingworth becomes obsessed

with finding the identity of his wife's former lover. When he

learns that the father of Heater's child is Arthur Dimmesdale,

a saintly young minister who is the leader of these exhorting

her to name the child's father, Chillingworth proceeds to

torment the guilt - stricken young man. In the end

Chillingworth is morally degraded by his monomaniacal

pursuit of revenge; Dimmesdale is broken by his own sense

of guilt, and he publicly confesses his adultery before dying

in Hester's arms. Only Hester can face the future bravely, as

she plans to take her daughter Pearl to Europe to begin a new

life.” (Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, p.

998-999, my emphasis)

In this case also, our heroine has a good social statute: her husband is a businessman,

so she has a financial condition, she does not care about anything from this point of

view. But although she has almost anything material, she misses her husband; she

misses someone to fill the empty spot in her sentimental life. Feminist theoreticians

also speak about this problematic, of being economically fulfilled, and not

sentimentally fulfilled. Women are not happy with half measures in these conditions.

You have to have a stone heart to live happily without taking these aspects of our

daily, usual life into account. But she recognizes her sin, admits it, she accepts the

punishment without saying a word, she dares life courageously, without taking care

of anything or anyone who tried to convince her to give up. She has power to bridge

everything coming her way maybe her daughter gives her such a force, or we do not

know exactly what, yet, but she is worthy of admiration because she gets on and goes

on.

The human condition which makes way to committing sin is the common

point of the two literary characters in focus, Emma and Hester. Their sin is the one

inherited from Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve's story is similar to the one between

Hester and Dimmesdale's experience, but also of Emma and Leon and then Emma

and Rodolphe. The sin certainly means suffering. Hester managed to be forgotten,

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but Emma was weaker and resigned. There are many differences and similarities

between the two and we will develop it further on: “Here, she said to herself, had

been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment;

and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and

work out another purity than that which she had lost: more saint-like, because the

result of martyrdom.” (Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 61)

Puritanism is another aspect feminists have struggled with and against along

time, with the strict beliefs of religion. Here, in The Scarlet Letter, Puritanism and

the harsh punishment it inflicts upon people are represented through dramatic scenes.

For example the letter ‘A’ which Hester must wear on her breast as the sign of the sin

“On the breast of the grown, in tine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate

embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A.”

(Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 39-40). It is fictionally transcribed that there can

be no argument for this 'sect' to overlook any sin and not ‘prescribe’ some harsh

punishment.

Morality and religious values are strictly followed by the Puritan partisans.

To sentence a woman to prison because she got pregnant outside marriage could be

considered more than a punishment. In fact it is Hester's problem that she is pregnant

with someone who is not her husband, not society's problem, not the Puritans'

problem if we think logically. But if you are part of such a sect you are subdued to its

every rule, and if you happen to break it, you suffer the earnest consequences.

The real destiny of a woman is not reduced to the cause and effect relation,

she must have the right to choose what she does with her life, but here is not

attended. She is supposed only to choose between running away or staying and

accepting the punishment. If this happened nowadays we would consider it a fallacy,

a disrespect of a woman's rights, but sincerely I would not be surprised if they were

also nowadays such a communities, maybe not so harsh in ruling, but almost. Yes,

she accepts she is wrong, she assumes her sin, but Hester wants to continue her life

by having the child and trying to get on the best way. Certainly the prison is not a

good home, especially for a child born there, but in the Puritans' view the prison is

the black sheep, the worst thing, “the black flower of civilized society” (Carey, The

Scarlet Letter, notes, p. 50). Nowadays, prison it is viewed as a place for retrieving

43

good behaviour. But this woman hasn't killed anyone to get there, the severity of the

Puritanical law was clearly abusive and Hawthorne emphasizes it in the construction

of the protagonist female character.

“In its initial form, as a red cloth letter standing for the sin of adultery, that

A is little more symbolic than a man's initials, but Hawthorne makes much more of it

before the books ends. The letter appears in a variety of forms and places. It is the

elaborately gold-embroidered weight on Hester's heart at which Pearl throws wild

flowers.” (Carey, The Scarlet Letter, notes, p. 51) Hester tries to adorn her life, her

condition, to show the world that she can surpass without any outside help.

Although she dresses all in black, she takes care of the stigmatizing letter to be

gorgeous, and the little girl is always perfectly dressed; Hester makes her new

dresses and new clothes all the time. She gives proof of loving her daughter and

taking care of her

“To the Puritan community is just punishment; to Hester it is a mark of

unjust humiliation; to Dimmesdale, a piercing reminder of his own guilt; to

Chillingworth, a spur to the quest for revenge; to Pearl, a bright and mysterious

curiosity.” (Carey, The Scarlet Letter, notes, p. 51) Because the Puritan expressed

their corrections in this way it was not something new, but for Hester it was a cruel

injustice, which she ended by assuming, and does not ever reveal the name of the one

with whom she has sinned. Instead, the father's child, Dimmesdale, runs of guilt, he

conceals from assuming the facts, he is afraid of the consequences and he sees in the

scarlet letter a thing that reminds him forever that it is his fault. For Hester's husband,

Chillingworth, the capital A means the desire to revenge. And for the little Pearl the

sign means curiosity. But the signification of A changes. In the twelfth chapter it

means Angel, because it appears in the night sky when Governor Winthrop died. And

in the next chapter it means Able, because Hester has won a little respect from the

Puritans.

The face Hester puts up is one of a strong woman, with independent mind,

who faces bravely and accepts defiantly the punishment. She progresses day by day

making handmade objects and being patient. “She had in her nature a rich,

voluptuous oriental characteristic - a taste for the gorgeously, beautiful, which, save

in the exquisite productions of her needle, found nothing else, in all the possibilities

44

of her life, to exercise itself upon.” (Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 63) Hester

keeps herself busy by making exquisite handmade products for the rich people. She

is financially independent, Hester does not blame this she is happy that she manages

by herself without any exterior help. She lives in a poor house with her daughter, and

she does not lament this either. Hester is confident in what she does.

“She was patient - a martyr, indeed - but she forbore to pray for enemies,

lest, in spite of her forgiving aspirations, the words of the blessing should stubbornly

twist themselves into a course.”(Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 64) She was

preventing not to get worse, she prayed to moist enemies soul. Her life ensues

calmly, she does not lose her belief in God because she prays. However, she prepares

too for the enemies' curses, Hester knows that life is harsh so she expects whatever

life could bring.

In the chapter entitled Pearl, Hawthorne narrates that God “...had given her

a lovely child, whose place was on that same dishonoured bosom... Let these

thoughts affected Hester Prynne less with hope than apprehension. She knew that her

deed had been evil.”(Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 67) She was conscious that

she was bound now with the evil, but despite this she was quiet and patient, she had

endurance that the time would bring peace in her life, not to be clamour down with

every person she met in her way. She could be entirely defined as a model. Yes she

was wrong, she fell into sin, but she knew how to go further. From this we can easily

observe how Nathaniel Hawthorne manages to highlight the positive features of the

heroine by paradoxically placing her in a negative and unflattering context.

Karen Todd says in one of her works about Hester Prynne that “Your true

character is revealed by the clarity of your convictions, the choices you make, and

the promises you keep. Hold strongly to your principles and refuse to follow currents

of convenience. What you do defines who you are, and who you are...you are

forever.” (Todd, “Feminist critique on Scarlet Letter”, 2012) Hester is defined with

the author's help with a strong, powerful character, the one who bears up at the harsh

proofs of life. She forces herself to be strong. She does her best to be a model for her

daughter in this cruel life. The adultery that she committed, is the one which

“granted” her the symbol of the sin in that community. Hester was considered more

than the black sheep of the Puritan community, the symbol of sin, but the novel ends

45

saying about Hester that she became a model for women. Also the ending lines of the

book revealed that she became a model back in those times, but she is considered a

model nowadays still.

The Scarlet Letter can be considered a feminist work on account of the story

it features. Who has ever had such power to surpass an amount of harsh? Hester had

the courage to say that women should have equal rights, she was not listened to, but

she did her best to build a better life for herself and for her daughter. Having a child

in those conditions was harsh, but she proved us that she could, and she made it. She

stayed and assumed her sin and her punishment. She didn't leave as made any other

person would have if they had been in her place. The Puritans thought about women

that were less than men, anyway Hester Prynne overcame emotional, social and

psychological obstacles in her way through life, and at the end she gained her respect

in that type of restrictive and punishing society. Hester redefined women's abilities

and the social roles a coercing type of community did impose on women rather

easily.

“So Hester Prynne, the adultress who is punished, if followed in every

almost imperceptible movement of her psychological progress: in her proud, but

desperate isolation; in her slow reconquest of society; in the renewed outbreak of

feelings through which, although years of apparent expiation have gone by, her

passion for the Reverend Dimmesdale can appear in undiminished strength; and in

the dignity which she shows when she takes up her rightful place in the world again

after minister's death.” (Cunliffe, American Literature to 1900, p. 177). The Puritan

community condemned her, but anyway she found herself a perfect road on which

she could walk. She did not isolate from people, contrariwise she did her daily

routine amongst the citizens, it was agreeable, but she had not another choice for

continuing her life there. Hester had to work to provide for her and the daughter she

had. She was knitting and embroidering special works for the richer people, and her

work was highly paid.

“Hester Prynne, nevertheless, the lonely mother of this one child ran little

risk of erring on the side of undue severity... Her mother, while Pearl was yet an

infant, grew aquainted with a certain peculiar look, that warned her when it would be

labour thrown away to insist, persuade, or plead.”(Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p.

46

69) Hester treats her daughter strictly and undue with the purpose not to get wrong

Pearl at a certain moment in her life, and maybe also because people around treat her

like this. This way she risked that her daughter become a bad person because she

treated her with severity. Hester had a certain look, as she was

“One result was his deep concern with the moral aspects of life; another

was a relentless attitude towards his characters and an emphasis upon the darker

aspects of life; still another was a democratic attitude which led him to 'see all men

as in the light of the judgment day'.“ (Stovall, Eight American Authors, p. 115)

Hawthorne analyzed the morality, the bad aspects of life and the unfair attitude

towards men compared to woman. The Puritan society was an extremely moral one,

with strict beliefs, which used to punish roughly the person which fell into sin.

“The vulgar, who, in those dreary old times, were always contributing a

grotesque horror to what interested their imaginations, had a story about the scarlet

letter which we might readily work up into a terrific legend. They averred that the

symbol was not mere scarlet cloth, tinged in an early dye-pot, but was red-hot with

infernal fire, and would be seen glowing all alight whenever Hester Prynne walked

abroad in the night-time. And we must needs say it seared Hester's bosom so deeply,

that perhaps there was more truth in the rumour than our modern incredulity may be

inclined to admit.”(Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 66) She became the character

of a terrified legend, and people were saying dreadful things about this scarlet letter,

that we imagined just as a simple cloth. They used to tell about the scarlet letter that

was the evil fire and at night time it would glow. This kind of stories upset Hester,

but in the mean time they made her stronger. These kind of stories have their roots in

reality, but they are fictionalized and mythologized. Sometimes destiny offers us

such problems just to demonstrate that we are brave and helps us enforce our

qualities and become more aware of our own power.

Hester did not make a tragedy of her situation, she did not ask anyone for

help, she did not beg for a living. Hester had a certain faith that helped her triumph.

Her faith, her conscience was bigger than anyone expected. Having a view of this

situation, everyone would think that Hester would quit. Having a realistic view on

this, we would think that Hester would not have a good fate. Most probably she

would abandon her daughter, she would commit suicide, or they would find their end

47

in misery, begging for food or something similar. But Hester has her own pride and

power and did not accept any kind of help, even from her sinful. “Lonely as was

Hester's situation, and without a friend on earth who dared to show himself, she,

however, incurred no risk of want. She possessed an art that sufficed, even in a land

that afforded comparatively little scope for its exercise, to supply food for her

thriving infant and herself. It was the art then - then, as now, almost the only one

within a woman's grasp - of needlework.”(Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 61)

Hester was open minded and she knew in her conscience that she would manage to

go on. Although her soul was destroyed, her inner ego was confronting a really hard

situation. Two souls were sharing the same story, not only she, but also her daughter.

She was an artist in knitting, she designed and made many beautiful clothes,

accessories. For this Hester became appreciated by the main personalities from the

town. She managed to gain money for her and her daughter living. She did not wait

that the help would come out of the blue, she worked hard to offer her daughter a

good fate, and surely better than the one she had.

Hester is a character who marked a wave, the feminist wave. Hawthorne's

heroine was able to demonstrate to the world that although she was a woman she

could do. In her life man is that person who brings impediments. It is said that man is

the one who never makes mistakes; he is pictured as the perfect human who is right

all the time. But let's not generalize. Women are also human beings; they also have

their opinions, their rights, and more importantly, a word to say. In our case, the

woman is the one who performs, who struggles with live and the environment, and

the people that surround her. To be lonely in the world, because we could affirm this

clearly, and to struggle by yourself for daily living is not an easy way to go through

life. She had a special gift which she used to fulfil and show her powers.

In this manner, Hester Prynne came to have a part to perform

in the world. With her native energy of character and rare

capacity, it could not entirely cast her off , although it had set

a mark upon her, more intolerable to a woman's heart than

that which branded the brow of Cain. In all her intercourse

with society, society, however, there was nothing that made

her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word,

48

and even the silence of those with whom she came in the

contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished,

and as much alone as if she inhabited another sphere, or

communicated with the common nature by other organs and

senses than the rest of the human kind. (Hawthorne, The

Scarlet Letter, p. 63)

Hester Prynne is the character who slowly becomes a model showing the world that

no woman is second to man. In Simone de Beauvoir’s words a woman is not the

“second sex”; she is a different one, a distinct individual with rights, strengths and

pursuits. The gender difference should not be an exclusion or persecution factor. In

The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne tries and manages to emphasize women's strength,

their will to power and ability to fight (and eventually overcome) harsh fate and

social stigma. The woman can be independent, from an intellectual point of view and

an economical point of view. Although she wears the mark of sin, she deserves to be

respected because of her getting through. At each step there was something that

spurred in her a kind of repulse, that no one deserved her or wanted her near or in

that town. The people humiliated her, tried to banish her, because she was considered

the devil. She did not care about the voices around, she only new that had a daughter

to raise and that she must go on and survive.

Hester Prynne's figure has a statute that offered her a certain dignity.

Although the next description is made when she gets out of prison she does not look

like a destroyed person. The prison affected her, but not to such an extent that she

cannot express femininity and that classical lady like appearance.

The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance

on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy

that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam; and a face which,

besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and

richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to

a market brow and deep black eyes. She was lady-like, too,

after the manner of the feminine gently of those days;

characterized by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the

delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace which is now

49

recognized as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne

appeared more lady-like, in the antique interpretation of the

term, than as she issued from the prison... But the point which

drew all eyes, and as it were, transfigured the wearer - so that

both men and woman who had been familiarly acquainted

with Hester Prynne were now impressed as if they beheld her

for the first time - was that Scarlet Letter, so fantastically

embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the

effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with

humanity and enclosing her in a space by herself.

(Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 40)

Hester presented an incredible grace and dignity that no one could show in

this situation. The effect of the scarlet letter was impressive, because no one thought

that the sign of shame, sin, devil would be shown in such an elaborate design.

Although this was a bad mark, Hester took care it looked in a good way. Hester was

the main figure of a lady-like character of those times.

Dimmedale's first appearance, on the other hand, seems to be a good one.

He has done great studies, gives proof of a religious nature and his behaviour was

well received by the community, a puritan community: “The directness of this appeal

drew the eyes of the whole crowd upon the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale - a young

clergyman, who had come from one of the great English universities, bringing all the

learning of the age into our forest-land. His eloquence and religious fervour had

already given the earnest of high eminence in his profession. He was a person of very

striking aspect, with a white, lofty, and impending brow, large, brown, melancholy

eyes, and a mouth which, unless when he forcibly compressed it, was apt to be

tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibility and a vast power of self-restraint.

Notwithstanding his high native gifts and scholar-like attainments, there was an air

about this young minister - an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look - as of

a being who felt himself quite astray, and a loss in the pathway of human existence,

and could only be at ease in some seclusion of his own. Therefore, so far as his duties

would permit, he trod in the shadowy by-paths, and thus kept himself simple and

childlike, coming forth, when occasion was, with a freshness, and fragrance, and

50

dewy purity of thought, which, as many people said, affected them like the speech of

an angel.” (Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 49-50) His description intensifies in

good, praising words, until it reaches an interesting comparison. His voice seems for

the people from community as that of an angel, he has a special gift, a speech of an

angel.

Dimmesdale seems to have qualms of conscience. The fact that he speaks

alone like in a monologue there seems to be a little awkard. He begins to speak about

justice, punishment, salvation. Which is the purpose of these because he is not an

honest person, he covers his sin, he does not has the honesty to admit that he is

wrong.

The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale bent his head, in silence prayer, as it

seemed, and then came forward. '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 labour. If though 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! (Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 50)

He clearly admits that the situation of Hester is a better one than his because Hester

admitted her sin, she does not hide something, she has no qualms of conscience.

Hester can walk around without regrets that she is a liar, she is not forced to hide her

look, her eyes because she is honest although there was a moment when she had

51

made a mistake. This monologue does not save him, however from the last

punishment in front of God. He seems sorrowful, but he does nothing to be even with

Hester, her child and the people around, he does nothing to try to repair his error.

Here is the issue, he is aware that he has done wrong but he does nothing. In this way

we could not take into account that he regrets, if one was actually sorry they would

try to do something in order to repair their mistake. He would not go to Heaven just

because he is a Reverend, he has to do good things, but he lacks the qualities of an

pure and honest man with fear of God. The discussion could be taken further if we

thought of a simple question, probably arising in a lay reader's mind: how could a

priest give a moralizing speech about one's sin if he himself is part of that very sinful

situation?

Hester's life focused just on the welfare of Pearl. Little Pearl, although is

the child her mother's sin, remained the centre of the universe. All day long,

wherever Hester had to go, Pearl was with her. They were not separated even for a

second. “Nothing was more remarkable than the instinct, as it seemed, with which

the child comprehended her loneliness: the destiny that had drawn an inviolable

circle round about her: the whole peculiarity, in short, of her position in respect to

other children. Never, since her release from prison, had Hester met the public gaze

without her. In all her walks about the town, Pearl too, was there: first as the babe in

arms, and afterwards as the little girl, small companion of her mother holding a

forefinger with her whole grasp, and tripping along the rate of three or four footsteps

to one of Hester's.” (Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 70) Hester was lonely from

many points of view and Pearl felt this even she was just a little child. Both of them

were inseparable, even if now Pearl is a girl, she was always near her mother. The

image of Hester and Pearl walking in the central square is like an old picture which

depicts a strong, honourable woman near her daughter. Both of them project

admiration, fulfilment, Hester could be proud of her success because she had not an

easy faith. Mother and child, not only because of the destiny, they love and respect

each other. Pearl is just a child but she understands a lot, she feels the loneliness of

her mother, she feels that her mother is often upset. They are still living together

against the bad voices around. On every walk they go for together are surrounded by

people's gaze. But this did not frighten Hester, maybe at the beginning these eyes

52

annoyed Pearl, now everyone accepted the situation and these critical eyes were

simply some eyes.

According to popular generalization, the most important in a woman's life is

her child, no matter the situation she wants to know her child close to her and that

the child is well. Hester wanted the same things. However this child was unwanted,

her daughter was perceived as the sin, shame, devil's son, after she had born also the

mother feelings had became stronger. “ 'Thou wast my pastor, and hadst charge of

my soul, and knowest me better than these men can. I will not lose the child! Speak

for me! Thou knowest - for thou hast sympathies which these men lack - thou

knowest what is in my heart, and what are a mother's rights, and how much the

stronger they are when that mother has but her child and the scarlet letter! Look thou

it! I will not loss the child! Look to it!' “ (The Scarlet Letter, p. 85) Hester had also

the possibility to abandon the little Pearl, but her heart did not let her make such a

mistake. Also the child got accustomed to her mother's scarlet letter, the symbol of

the sin. Hester proves that she is a true mother, she does not want to lose her child.

The child is blood from her own blood, and in her conscience the blood is the

strongest of human bonds so they must be close forever. Hester says that these two

things made her stronger: the fact that she had only her daughter, no other relatives

or a husband or a lover, and the scarlet letter.

The punishment she received for the huge mistake of making the pact with

the evil, getting involved in an intimate relation with Reverend Dimmesdale, forced

her in a way to become stronger because otherwise she would not make it. Such an

amount of suffering she had gone through, after that she committed the sin, helped

her realize the importance of her acts and decisions. She did not try once to blame

Dimmesdale for her situation, so she managed only by herself. Her daughter gave her

force to struggle for their own destiny, and that symbol of the sin which was seen

with shame from everywhere contributed a lot to her personal development. The fact

that she was a very good handicraft did not help her if she had no force to live and

fight. Being able to cope with these kinds of things helped her to earn her money and

survive. Hester did not take care of her appearance, but of Pearl's welfare. Pearl was

dressed like a princess, she had a lot of pretty dresses made by her mother's hands,

Hester was able to offer Pearl a good life without any outside help. Pearl was her

53

daughter so she made sure Pearl would not miss something. The fact that she values

her child proves that she really loves her baby. She would not ever permit someone

to separate them. Under these circumstances she defends her daughter like a lion

would his cub, with the price of her own life.

Reverend Dimmesdale was seen by the Puritans like a true priest, as he was

sent by God. He gave proof in the front of the community that was a true religionist,

he warmed up everyone's heart with his religious discourses, he is a great orator, he

has the gift of speaking. Not many people master the art of speaking and this fact

made popular, admired and loved. He was loved by that community because

everyone knew only good things about him, all of them knew only the things

revealed by his appearance, and not by his essence also, by his intimate, unrevealed

features. Reverend Dimmesdale reaches quickly people's hearts; in this way he gets

also into Hester's heart. She was weak, abandoned by her husband, because no one

knew something about him, she confessed to Dimmesdale, he said a good word, and

after many discussions something got them closer. As stated previously, Hester being

weak at that time ceased and gave into sin. But the people from the community knew

about him just the brightest details, that he had good studies and that he was a truly

religious man. “Mr. Dimmesdale was a true priest, a true religionist, with the

reverential sentiment largely developed, and an order of mind that impeded itself

powerfully along the track of a creed and wore its passage continually deeper with

the lapse of time.”(Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 92) contrasting with “...the

reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, like many other personages of especial sanctity, in all

ages of the Christian world, was haunted either by Satan himself, or Satan's emissary,

in the guise of old Roger Chillingworth. This diabolical agent had the Divine

permission for a season to burrow into the clergyman's intimacy and plot against his

soul. No sensible man, it was confessed, could doubt on which side the victory would

turn. The people looked, with an unshaken hope, to see the minister come forth out

of the conflict, transfigured with the glory which he unquestionable win. Meanwhile,

nevertheless, it was sad to think of the perchance mortal agony through which he

must struggle towards his triumph.” (Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 95), my

emphasis was said that because he was a Christian he is followed more than others

by Satan. Also the people nowadays, the specialists and especially the priests, state

54

that a bad person is not so “followed” by Satan because his/ her destiny is clear, it is

in Satan's hands, but the true Christians are haunted by Satan to attract them onto his

dark side. The true Christians are most tested and tempted to do evil. So in this

category, one could suppose Dimmesdale was, too. Once he got into sin. there

seemed no chance for him to come back. In this situation we consider the man a

weak person because he is not able to recognize his mistake and continues to lie. In

our case the man is not a victorious person, on the contrary he is fake, a traitor, he is

not able to recognize in front of everyone that he was the real guilty character in this

story. If he wanted sometimes to be forgiven, would have to go he will pass through

mortal agony as it is stated in the Hawthorne quotation. We, readers, do not know if

he would be able to get over this mortal agony to become triumphant because he is

not able to do minor, everyday small things. The man is not the bravest person in the

world, and not even here. Dimmesdale proves that his genre is less capable than a

woman. The woman manages to pass briefly and regains her rights, respect and all of

those in the most cruel, difficult way. The woman does not blame someone for her

destiny, she only knows that she must go away, bravely and the most important thing

without any qualms of conscience.

The lay people from the Puritan community think about Dimmesdale that he

is almost a saint, they were praising him, compared him to an angel. Indeed he had a

wonderful voice, but the people around did not know the truth, the fact that he hid

horrible things. Dimmesdale was not the perfect person, a saint as they would

imagine. He is a man like all people; he has made a tremendous mistake which could

not be forgiven if he did not admit his guilt. “It kept him down on a level with the

lowest: him, the man of ethereal attributes, whose voice the angels might have

listened to and answered! But this very burden it was that gave him sympathies so

intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind; ... The aged members of his flock,

beholding Mr. Dimmesdale's frame so feeble, while they were themselves so rugged

in their infirmity, believed that he would go heavenward before them, and enjoined it

upon their children that their old bones should be buried close to their young pastor's

holy grave. And all this perchance, when poor Mr. Dimmesdale was thinking of his

grave, he questioned with himself whether the grass would ever grow on it, because

an accursed thing must there be burried!” (Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 106-

55

107) Transferring the discussion into a common perspective, the community behaved

like a flock of sheep in front of Jesus. They think about him that he is the man with

no sin and he would go to heaven before them. In fact he is the most 'impure' of

them, but no one knows, only him and Hester. But Hester would never open her

mouth to affirm this. The Puritans also begin to think that they should make their

own graves near the one of the young pastor. Here the flock of Puritans believers

begins to exaggerate. The poor Dimmesdale only has in his mind if grass would ever

grow on his grave. Here we have a realistic thought, but this would be his destiny if

he does not change his mind and do something for his salvation, or even worse.

Despite the fact that she had gone through such austere circumstances, her

soul remained intact in front of the one who had once been her soul. Seeing Mr.

Dimmesdale in bad conditions is came over by some unexpected feelings. “In her

late singular interview with Mr. Dimmesdale, Hester Prynne was shocked at the

condition to which she found the clergyman reduced... Knowing what this poor fallen

man had once been, her whole soul was moved by the shuddering terror with which

he had appealed to her - the outcast woman - for support against his instinctively

discovered enemy. She decided, moreover, that he had a right to utmost aid.”

(Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 119) Hester was moved by terror and not just by

this, by a shuddering terror. Although she would want to not be affected by

Dimmesdale conditions, she has a soul and feelings. She was prepared to help him

because she considered he was in his right to have utmost aid. Maybe he was not so

bad looking from a physical point of view, but the sorrow and the pain destroyed him

from inside to the outside. His inner, psychological problems became physical ones.

Here I think begins the mortal agony. The fact that he did not recognize his part of

guilt amplified his pain.

Hester is a powerful and peculiar person, in her opinion these qualities were

given by the symbol of the scarlet letter she is forced to wear as a social stigma.

Sometimes you need that something bad happens in your life in order to become

stronger. “The effect of the symbol - or, rather of the position in respect to society

that was indicated by it - on the mind of Hester Prynne herself was powerful and

peculiar. All the light and graceful foliage of her character had been withered up by

this red-hot brand, and had long ago fallen away, leaving a bare and harsh outline,

56

which might have been repulsive had she possessed friends or companions to be

repelled by it. ... It was a sad transformation, too, that her rich and luxuriant hair had

either been cut off, or was so completely hidden by a cap, that not a shining lock of it

ever once gushed into the sunshine. ... If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she

survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her, or - and the outward

semblance is the same - crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself

more. The latter is perhaps the truest theory. She who has once been a woman, and

ceased to be so, might at any moment become a woman again, ...” (Hawthorne, The

Scarlet Letter, p. 122) All her grace and light were in a way darkened by the symbol

of the scarlet letter. Hester did not perceived like this, she has also courage to

transform this symbol in a pretty letter, beautifully embroidered. Of course this

symbol marked her as a stamp for all the people that surrounded she was like a dark

sheep. In this description we do not see her hair, it was cut or it was covered, but a

woman's hair is something significant. Her hair was once rich and luxuriant, but now

is missing. Hester Prynne had a kind of tenderness that not many people have, but

this was broken by the circumstances. She was a woman, now she is not because she

does not take care of herself but by her daughter, but she could became a women

again at any moment. She is like a butterfly in a metamorphoses stage, expects the

perfect moment to show up.

Hester used to show a cold image, marble coldness. This thing was just the

result of her cruel destiny, of her faith. “Much of the marble coldness of Hester's

impression was to be attributed to the circumstance that 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 scorned to consider it

desirable - she cast away the fragments of a broken chain.” (Hawthorne, The Scarlet

Letter, p. 122) The passion and feeling that she had before now are becoming

meditations, thoughts. The thing that she is alone confers her a lot of time for

thinking at everything it was, at the things are happening right now and what she

could do next. She and the little Pearl are like abandoned by the faith, Hester soul is

broken but she tries to repair it with the love/ help of Pearl.

57

Even if she is a patient woman she has her limits. Meeting from time to time

with Dimmesdale she could not see any more such a liar and continue suffering just

because of the man. Man was made after the appearance of God, this man is the one

that gave her a lot of troubles, he is the one who complicated Hester's life. “ 'Be it sin

or no,' said Hester Prynne, bitterly, as she still gazed after him, 'I hate the man!'

"(Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 131). She does not take into account if it is sin

or not to feel hate for someone. She declares that she hates the man.

Dimmesdale continues to hide his sin, including his heart. “To Hester's eye,

the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale exhibited no symptom of positive and vivacious

suffering except that, as little Pearl had remarked, he kept his hand over his

heart.”(Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 141) He was hiding his heart because it was

hiding his soul. He did not wanted to tell the truth because he knew that his faith

would not be a good one after the Puritanist community will find out. Reverend

Dimmesdale though that also him has the symbol of the scarlet letter on the heart. He

was in a way obsessed of this idea. His qualms of conscience made him imagine

things that are not.

Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale reaches a moment when he is terrified of sin. He

feels that nothing could be done for him ” 'There is no substance in it! It is cold and

dead, and can do nothing for me! Of penence, I have had enough! Of penitence, there

has been none! Else, I should long ago have shown myself to mankind as they will

see me at the judgement-seat. Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter

openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret! Thou little knowest what a relief it

is, after the torment of a seven years' cheat, to look into an eye that recognises me for

what I am! Had I one friend - or were it my worst enemy!” (Hawthorne, The Scarlet

Letter, p. 144) Now he says that it would have been better if a long time ago we had

confessed the truth and stayed in front of the judgement. He says about Hester that

she is happy because the symbol of her sin is upon her bosom, so it not affects so

much her soul and mind. But his symbol burns in secret because it was not

confessed. He is terrified after seven years since he hides this secret, this thing

destroys him from the inside. Maybe or surely if he had confessed his sin he would

have felt better but because he does not do this is like a thing that breaks him more

and more every day. His soul crushes because of this un-confessed sin.

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Dimmesdale had no courage to look into Hester’s eyes, an aspect which

bothered her. This thing reveals that he is a weak person and is not able to admit the

reality, the truth. “Hester would not set him free, lest he should look her sternly in the

face.” (Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 146). He is the one who prays to God to

forgive them, and he seems that he wants to die silently. Hester does not agree with

this. He prepares for this saying: “I freely forgive you now. May God forgive us

both! We are not, Hester, the worst sinners in the world.” (Hawthorne, The Scarlet

Letter, p. 146). But how can a priest say that he and the one with whom he

committed the sin are not the worst sinners. The sin is still a sin and has no degree of

comparison especially between the Puritans.

3.3. A Brief Fore-Conclusion

Nathaniel Hawthorne presents us in his great work Scarlet Letter a sad love

story on the background of the religious Puritan doctrine dominant during the

seventeenth century, the original sin, the struggle between sin and being right, and

human failing. Hester Prynne is a woman whose husband is gone; no one knows

anything about him. Hester flaws her marriage by engaging in a sexual relationship

with the community Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. She is tried for adultery but no

one cares that she is pregnant or that the other sinner has a part of the shared guilt for

this sin.

The Scarlet Letter is a careful measuring of the historical,

religious, literary and emotional distance that separated the Puritan

New England of the past from the transcendentalist New England

of the present, of the change from the old iron world to the world

of freedom of speculation which Hester, Hawthorne's most

remarkable fictional character, embodies. (Ruland, From

Puritanism to Postmodernism, p. 145, my emphases)

Hester is the feminist character realized by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the one who

confronted with the clear situation of struggling with the patriarchal society, creating

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a sort of upheaval, she is the one who ploughed the way from the iron world, the

Puritan New England to the world of freedom.

Hester gives proof that a woman can manage by herself. She is a perfect

example of development from a spiritual, economical, and social point of view. She

confronted things that nowadays’ people would say that are science fiction, but there

was a time when such things happened. The author used to compare Hester Prynne

with Anne Hutchinson, Puritan with liberal religious beliefs. Anne Hutchinson was

banished from Massachusetts because she disobeyed the law. The same situation it

might also have happened to Hester. She had to choose between running away to

save her ‘skin’ or staying and accepting the consequences. She was proposed to be

lynched, but she escaped this hard punishment. Hester went to prison. This ‘milder’

punishment is hard to carry out especially for a pregnant woman.

The symbol of the sin has a huge impact on the characters but also upon

readers. The letter ‘A’ receives many connotations throughout the book, but the most

important symbol is that of the sin. We find out that the one who recognizes her guilt

has lesser problems with consciousness but more with the community; whereas the

one who hides his guilt has serious problems of consciousness but he lives at peace

with the community. I do not know which option from the book would the readers

choose, but I prefer the first one (the one Hester had). Here the individuals are

fighting for their individuality or just for their freedom.

The woman, Hester Prynne, is a smart one who chooses the best way for

rising and regaining her social status. She admits that it was not good what she had

done but she is sorry and she goes on down the good path doing what is best for her

and her daughter. Hester manages to evolve by being a smart and powerful woman,

but also these are the result of her failure and weakness. Because generally maybe no

one would rise so impressively if there had been no tragedy. The fact that we are

interested is that Hester managed to advance without any external help. She had no

one in the world, no family, no friends, just faith in God and two wonderful hands

that helped her make money for a living and the love for her daughter. I think that

her daughter also gave her courage to go on.

The Patriarchal society expected every woman to keep silent irrespective of

what problem it was about. Disregarding these, Hester was exiled to the edge of the

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settlement. This marginalization offered her more freedom and helped her make the

best decisions for her daughter’s life and for her own. Hester does not allow her

daughter to be taken away from her. She treated her daughter as a princess, dressed

her like one, offered her everything fit for a good life. Hester knew how to be a

mother and father for her daughter. In traditional families the man is the one who

earns the money in house for daily living, but here Hester does this. Hester also

offers freedom to her daughter to play and to behave as a child does, she does not

punish her nor does she argue.

Hester Prynne is not disloyal. She would not speak if Mr. Dimmesdale

would not. She keeps the secret and assumes that is her own blame. She does not

discover the name of the one with whom committed the sin. It is said that the woman

speaks more and has a emotional character and could not be rational thinking, but in

our case Hester is the one who is rational thinking not the man, Dimmesadale.

Our heroine managed to emerge from a terrible situation, a bad condition by

struggling with the whole community, to be a successful woman. Lonely in this

world and representing the symbol of the sin, Hester finds power to resist, struggle

and improve. In those times it was difficult to grow by yourself unlike today, because

then there was no liberty, freedom, there were just strict rules that you had to follow.

She disobeyed these but she knew the key to go on.

A true feminist fights for her own rights and does not allow herself be

limbered by the ones surrounding her. She gave proof that she can go on, continue

her life without any external help. She worked to have money for a living, she took

care of her daughter like no one it would do, and the most important she gain the

respect of the community.

To regain the respect after committing adultery and being exiled is an

extraordinary thing. She knew to persevere without taking into account the bad

words from people around. Hester knew to walk in the square with a certain pride in

her look and not listen to the others speaking about her. Hester gives proof that a

woman could be more powerful than a man and that this gender should not be

dominated by Patriarchal society, women also have rights even when they make a

mistake there is a way to return to the good path. A woman could be independent

from any perspective; here in the Puritan community the man is the one who stops

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the woman from her intellectual, financial and social development. Hester Prynne is

an example that remained in the history of literature for her cruel destiny, power to

struggle and the pride of success.

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Conclusion

Woman was many times viewed as a secondary person mainly on account of

the ancient stories of creation, namely in the Christian context because she was

created only after Adam's creation. Although she was not the first Biblical creature

we could not blame her for this position, we should treat her like we would man

because Jesus treats us all equally, indiscriminately. Women are not inferior as some

people might say; they have advanced in all types of domains, at work, in private

life, in society. The traditional role of the woman in a family or in society was to get

married since early age, take care of the house and children. But this does not

necessarily happen nowadays, woman’s condition has evolved, improved a bit;

nevertheless there are just a few exceptions, the feminist wave transformed society

and women's place in it. The feminists have been struggling to break down the

assumptions that women are weak, emotional, or passive. Now women have careers,

they are business-women, scientists, or have any other job. They are not limited to

stay at home, or have a certain job; they have their right to chose what they want.

The struggle for women’s rights began since Antiquity. In Ancient Greece

Plato suggested in his Laws that women have the same rights as men. Plato proposed

that women could choose the same education as men; women would have access to

law courts, the right to own properties, the claim to live and work in the same way as

men, even to compete in athletic competitions as men did. These ideas were too

liberal to have an echo at that time.

Surprisingly, Ancient Egyptian women seemed to have the same legal and

economic rights men enjoyed. This fact is proved by their inscriptions. Egyptian

women had the right to manage their property according to their good will, they

could own slaves and even draft testaments. But she was entrusted to the home and

family. In Roman Society woman had poor rights or none at all; her role was to raise

children and take care of the house, eventually she would also work the land. The

first historical example of woman’s fulfilment is Egyptian Queen Cleopatra. Even

though she was a woman she succeeded to lead a nation.

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The patriarchal society compromised woman’s intellectual development. She

lived limited, restricted by what traditional rules said, by what her role as daughter or

as wife ‘said’. Patriarchy assumes that the father or the husband or the elder man in

the family has absolute authority over the family, especially over its women. Many

persons perceive this terminology in the wrong way; they associate it with religion,

but it is a huge mistake to confound aspects so different.

The modern feminist wave began with Marry Wollstonecraft's Vindication of

the Rights of Woman (1792). Wollstonecraft wanted to reveal in her work the ideal

woman, abandoning the idea of the domestic female to create a new woman, an

intellectual one, with education and social position.

American feminism started with the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, a

reunion discussing the social, civil, and religious rights of women. It is also named

Women Rights Convention and it was the first one of the kind. Women asked for

social, moral and civil rights, the same men had. The first debated idea was the

discrimination based on sex. This convention contributed to the history of women‘s

suffrage.

In 1952 was translated and published in United States The Second Sex by

French feminist and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, a work which focused on

women's treatment throughout history.

The second wave of feminism continued fighting for equal rights in the

early 1970s. The major book written under these circumstances was The Feminine

Mystique by Betty Friedan, published in 1963. She started this book by interviewing

unhappy house wives. Despite their having material security, money, they were

married, they had children, but they were still unhappy. Betty Friedan noticed the

lack of career opportunities in women's lives, the lack of intellectual opportunities,

and an active role in the cultural life.

The third wave of feminism is also named “postfeminism”. The third wave

is also represented by magazines alongside main postfeminist writers like Virginia

Woolf, Dorothy Richardson, Emily Bronte and Charlotte Bronte.

Deborah L. Madsen reveals that the patriarchal system was a form of

oppression for women, a culture about which we could sincerely state that it

manipulated women.

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Simone de Beauvoir, French feminist, analyses women's condition,

treatment, status throughout history, investigating womanhood. She began to work

on The Second Sex while French women were pressured by society, by the ambient

and patriarchal system to become only wives and mothers. Beauvoir analyses

women's situation naming them the “absolute other”. She encouraged intellectual,

cultural and economical ascension of women. The famous statement of Simone de

Beauvoir “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” (de Beauvoir as qtd by

Bauer, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 51), alludes to gender identity. Helene Cixous,

emerged in France during the Second Wave Feminism. She was interested and

focused on sexual differences. In 1975 she published The Newly Born Woman.

Woman is born to grow in diversity and she wants to reach a certain aim, to

set her own goals in life. Madame Bovary and Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter

are two women struggling with their own environment, patriarchy, social problems,

traditional rules and roles, or Puritans. Woman is creative, and having nothing to do

makes her bored, some unpleasant things could even appear, such as sin, namely that

of adultery. She is born with maternal feelings and she also needs to have someone

close to her heart, to understand, encourage, or give her the appropriate advice when

needed; or simply just to be there for her, stand by her side. Emma and Hester lack

these and this was the main source that tricked them into sin. Emma has her

husband’s physical nearness, but just this. Whereas Hester thought that her husband

was dead, she knew she was a widow. Men can voluntarily or involuntarily destroy

woman's life, character, way of living, mind, and behaviour.

Patriarchal society misunderstands women’s problems, feelings, or they just

do not think of them as human beings, just simply womanhood, work entity. Emma

wanted to have the same access to high society as men did. She wanted to take part

to the cultural life, cultural events, festivals, and her biggest wish was to attend in the

balls regularly. She tried to cope and deal with things as they happened in the books

she read, but it was not the same, there was no ‘happily ever after’ in her life, there

were just problems over and over again. Emma felt acutely the absence of someone

with whom she could socialize, share ideas or philosophies.

The punishment women have to carry out is another aspect that has been

discussed. The Puritan religious beliefs are obvious in Hester’s case. The punishment

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for having committed adultery is cruel. In Emma's case we could name it also self

punishment. It was too hard for her to live after she consciously saw what she had

done. Hester had to choose between running away, which was not a good option, and

staying and abiding by the punishment. For these kinds of problems feminists

struggled through the years. Hester went to prison although pregnant; there she was

as if exiled by the people from her community. I see in their child a sort of salvation,

but not both of them knew how to best use this opportunity. Emma thought that

running away with her lover was the best solution, but it was not like she had

planned. Hester Prynne brings together all her forces and manages to go on although

she was considered the symbol of the sin in that community. Finally she received

some respect from the community. She was brave in everything she had done and so

she gained everything, even respect, deserving it.

The significance of Emma's name also proves that she would not have a

normal, usual fate. Emma lived daydreaming, she was not able to see or deal with her

reality, or maybe she just won't. She did not respect moral life and ended by failing.

Trying to evolve she got lost. She hoped that becoming married she would be the

happiest person in the world, as the books of fiction predicted, but it was not enough.

Emma wanted power to accomplish more with her life, but to do this meant that she

would have to destroy the traditional roles of wife and mother. She is a victim of

patriarchal society.

Women should have the right to choose what they want or not. But it seems

that women were forced by the environment to do one thing or another. Hester does

not revolt, she accepts she is wrong, she assumes her sin, but Hester wants to

continue her life by having the child and trying to get on the best way. Hester proves

to be a strong woman with independent mind, who faces her future bravely and

accepts defiantly the punishment she received. She progresses day by day making

handmade objects and being patient. She does her best to be a model for her daughter

in this cruel life. Hester's life focused just on the welfare of Pearl. Hester is a

powerful and peculiar person, and in her opinion these qualities were paradoxically

given by the symbol of the stigmatising scarlet letter. The letter A receives many

connotations throughout the book, but the most important symbol is that of the sin.

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These two women tried to change their own destiny. Not both of them knew

which was the perfect way to go, which were the best options, or how to manage

their situation. Only Hester proved that a woman could have an independent life

from all points of view. Emma was more interested in social and intellectual

advancement; she tried and succeeded up to a certain point, because her end was

harsh.

67

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