分析《红字》中的女权主义
Hawthorne lived. Influenced by his living background and the ideological revolution of his time, Hawthorne's feminist consciousness has come into existence. It is due to the feminist consciousness in the mind of Hawthorne that he creates Hester as a brave feminist defender. Hawthorne made Hester play the role of a criminal of adultery in the novel, with the development of the story, he demonstrates that Hester has been put in “marginal” position in Puritan society and also points out the influence of the patriarchal system on people. Furthermore, he shows his sympathy for the victims and expresses his hatred against the cruel patriarchal system through the rebellious behaviors of Hester. In order to reverse the traditional convention that women are secondary to men in patriarchal system, Hawthorne endows Hester with subjective status by portraying her as a protagonist in the novel. Besides, Hawthorne exhibits his appreciation for Hester by elaborately delineating her self-reliance, which constitutes an important part of Hester's femininity. All in all, Hawthorne is enabled to relieve his potential feminist consciousness through the feminist figure Hester of The Scarlet Letter.
The thesis is divided into three parts. In the first part, Hawthorne’s varied background and a brief introduction to the novel will be given. From his background, we can find that his creation of the novel has great relationship with his living experience. In the second part, feminist theories and methodology will be introduced. .Some of feminist theories and approaches will be adopted to help analyze Hawthorne feminist consciousness in the story. Part three is the most important part. In this part, through the analysis of the text the writer will explore Hawthorne’s feminist consciousness from different aspects. Through analyzing the characterization of the protagonist Hester, it can be seen that Hawthorne is aware of women’s subordinate position in the patriarchal society and holds a positive attitude towards women’s self consciousness and their value.
A. Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804 in a declining aristocratic family in Salem, Massachusetts, which has been the dominant place for Puritan forces.
