试析《红字》中霍桑的女性意识

A Tentative Analysis of Hawthorne’s Feminist Consciousness in The Scarlet Letter

[Abstract] Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the outstanding writers in the American literary history. The Scarlet Letter is one of his representatives, which has been said that it represents the height of Hawthorne’s literary genus. In this book, Hawthorne not only tells a love story, but he pays attention to create a vivid and influential female image----Hester Prynne. The heroin gradually grows to be independent and strong to fight for her rights under the oppression of Puritan society. Therefore, she is regarded as the representative of feminist in many people’s minds. Throughout the portrayal of Hester’s character, Hawthorne implicitly expresses his attitude toward feminist consciousness. Based on the feminist theories, this paper aims to explore the heroine’s main character and her feminist consciousness, and have a better understanding to Hawthorne’s attitude toward feminist consciousness.

[Key words] Hawthorne; Hester; character; feminist consciousness

1. Introduction

The Scarlet Letter is one of the typical classics and also a work with a long-standing reputation. Different readers have different perspectives and have different research methods to understand it. The Scarlet Letter began in the seventeenth century in Boston which was dominated by Puritan. The heroine, Hester Prynne, is an attractive and beautiful woman who has married with an elderly scholar, Chillingworth. After sending Hester leaving for America, Chillingwoth fails to reunite with her. While waiting for her husband, Hester has an affair with Dimmesdale and bears a child, so Hester is convicted of adultery. Therefore, the people living the community humiliate her for the guilt of adultery. However, Hester bravely endures all insults and humiliation and nurtures her child alone. She struggles to start her new life of repentance and dignity, so people gradually change their view on Hester.

2. Feminist consciousness and Hawthorne’s Feminist consciousness

2.1 Feminist consciousness

The liberal emphasis on the individual stresses the importance of the individual and individual autonomy which are protected by guaranteed rights, economic justice and equality of opportunity (Madsen, 2006:35). Liberal feminists hope to abolish sexual discrimination and to erode oppressive gender roles. However, because under legal and educational barriers to equality,

there do exist these deeper structural obstacles to gender equality.

In the nineteenth century a woman in America was unable to vote, and after marriage had no control of her property (in some states the law compelled employers to pay a women’s wage directly to her husband) or her children, nor could she make a will, sign a contract instigate legal proceeding without her husband’s content(Madsen, 2006:3). Women’s status was similar to that of a slave. It relates to the institution of slavery that the organized movement for women’s right and its origin, when the American abolitionist movement deprive women of rights to participate. Therefore, a number of women then determined to rise up to fight for their own freedom.

The so-called first wave of American feminism began in the 1840s and is commonly marked by the first Women’s Rights Convention, held in Seneca Falls in 1848(Madsen, 2006:3). They quest for peace, equality, mutual cooperation and harmonious social life management rules. The tone of the Seneca Falls Convention had been set by the efforts of Margaret Fuller, who is described as one of “possessed more influence upon the thought of American women than any woman previous to her time.”(Dickenson, 1994:10) Fuller believe that any women are considering within themselves, what they need and what they can have, if they find they need it, what women need is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unapplied(Fuller, 1994:20).

Therefore, lots of writers including Hawthorne and a group of women were deeply influenced by Fuller’ feminist consciousness.

2.2 Hawthorne’s Feminist consciousness

2.2.1 The writing background of The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter occurs under a background of the New England which ruled by Puritan in the seventeenth century. Therefore, the Puritan dominated the facets of life and work. “The Puritan fled to America out of the desire to live in a place where they would not need to hide their religious affiliations or fear the other’s persecution. But in this new world, they simply seemed to have re-built the old order.”(JIA&Martin, 2003:135) Puritans established a world which was full of orders and they governed the domination with their creeds. Consequently, during the period human nature has long suppressed, especially the status of women. In the colonial American, the hierarchical view of the Puritan colonists entirely determined the status of women. Since men were obedient to God, so women should defer to men. Puritans believed that the inferiority of women was a symbol of original sin showing in physical weakness, humble

social status, and intellectual limitations and a tendency to depend upon emotions rather than the intellect (Madsen, 2006:2). Therefore, there is no denying that women are confined to the domestic sphere. Their responsibility is to forester children, to keep the household and to serve their husband.

However, a number of women refused to compromise such a miserable and unfair fate, and they began to launch a series of powerful women’s liberation movement. Hawthorne happened to live through the period of revolutions, so he did not escaped some influence. Many of us can see his suspicion of puritanical doctrines from his works. The portrayal of the female character, Hester, can be understood as a crucial part of Hawthorne’s feminist consciousness.

2.2.2 The formation of Hawthorne’s feminism consciousness

Hawthorne was born on the fourth of July, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, into a prominent puritan family. When Hawthorne was the age of four, his father had died of yellow fever in Suriname leaving a widow and three children in genteel poverty at Salem. After his father’s death, Hawthorne, his mother and two sisters moved in with maternal relatives the Manning where they lived ten years. Hawthorne spent his childhood in the female-headed family. His mother, Elizabeth Manning Hawthorne and his sisters Elizabeth and Louisa encouraged him in his aspiration to be a writer. Her grandmother and aunts in Salem supported his early education. Consequently, he could experience women’s suppressed social status. Besides, his formation of feminist consciousness was influenced by his wife, Sophia. They enjoyed a long and happy marriage. When Hawthorne was in the state of poverty-stricken, Sophia earned their live by needlework and supported their family. It is her intellect and ability that Hawthorne admired her and rethought the status of women in that society. Furthermore, because of his wife, Hawthorne became much familiar to her sister Elizabeth and to their friends, Margaret Fuller, which make him aware of the coming of age when women began taking active part in women liberation movement to strive for their status. In many his literary work, Hawthorne’s description of the character of women become increasingly complex, because he understood women’ situation and was apprehensive of the “dark questions” that this generation of women was querying their roles in the society.

Therefore, although Hawthorne dose not directly express his attitude toward feminist consciousness in this book, we can understand his thought throughout Hester. His description about the heroine’ main character and rebellious minds is the best poof of that.

3. The analysis of Hester’s character

3.1 Kind-hearted and tolerant

Hester is not only beautiful and attractive, but ingenious. Hester is skilled in needlework and makes a living at it. In spite of hard life, she often donates most of her extra money in charity to help the poor and the sick.

“None so ready as she to give off her little substance to every demand of poverty, even

though the bitter hearted pauper threw back a gibe in requital of the food brought regularly

to his door, or the garments wrought for him by the fingers that could have embroidered a

monarch’s robe. None so self-devoted as Hester, when pestilence stalked through the town.

In all seasons of calamity, indeed, whether general or of individuals, the outcast of society

at once found her place. She came, not as a guest, but as a rightful inmate, into the

household that was darkened by trouble, as if its gloomy twilight were a medium in which

she was entitled to hold intercourse with her fellow-creatures.” (Hawthorne, 2009:123)

Hester is so kind-hearted that she often helps others without any desire for repayment. Although Hester often gets great humiliation from many people, she always tells herself to be strong and insists on her principle. She presents to be tolerated and continue to do all she could do to give them a further hand. Even a few of person beg from her, Hester still takes a kind of modest and humble attitude. Hester hardly greet or smile on others, or raise her head to answer their greeting. She just works hard silently and did much for others.

Therefore, Hester gradually improves reputation and is accepted by the town people. “…That many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification, they said that it meant Able, so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength.” (Hawthorne, 2009:124)

3. 2 Brave as a mother

To some extent, Pearl is a living scarlet letter. Moreover, she is also the embodiment of an ideology and morality. As we know, Peal is the fruit of the sin; her birth means the discovery of her mother’s adultery (Li Hua, 2007:57). Therefore, Pearl is the burden and pain for Hester so that Hester is not brave as a mother at first. She just treats the child by her impulse. When Hester stands in front of people, she wants to hug Pearl tightly in her chest. Suddenly, she realizes that this is not so much a hug that comes from the maternal love impulse than she is using baby to hide a mark that sewed on her cloth. But she knows that it is useless to hide a mark with the other mark that symbolizes her shame. As a result, she put her child on her arms instead. Her face flushes but she still smiles to look around people and show the scarlet letter to them.

As love for her child deepens, Hester begins to dress Pearl up, making her as beautiful and unique. Hester eventually admits her daughter publicly rather than see Pearl as her sin. When

Hester knows that governors intend to deprive her of the right for fostering Pearl, she is almost crazy and hysterical. “God gave me the child!” Cried Hester. “He gave her in requital of all things else which ye had taken from me. She is my happiness----she is my torture, none the less.”(Hawthorne, 2009:86) Pearl is her spiritual longing. As the bible says, “the kingdom of heaven is like merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it .”(Holy Bible, 1998:57)

3.3 Perseverant and strong-willed

At the start of novel, Hester’ unyielding spirit can be clearly seen from her appear. She carries a three-month baby on her arms and wears the scarlet letter “A” on the chest of her dress for the rest of her life. It is the reason that she committed the sin of adultery that has made her live an isolate life. Hester has to stand in front of the people and listens to their gossip about her scandal. In the following days she has to endure much unfair treatment and is alienated from the public. “There was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, and as much along as she inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs and sense than the rest of human kind.”(Hawthorne, 2009:63)

However, facing the humiliation and insults, Hester neither flees from the community nor gives up herself. She dares to struggle against her unfortunate fate and the men-dominated world and fights for rights. Hester’ unique appearance fully reflects her strong character. Wearing a red “A” is a great suffering mentally and physically, yet people gradually find that Hester is more beautiful with the evil wearing (Ding Meifang, 2010). These actions fully show her perseverance fighting with the Puritan and social custom. Furthermore, wearing the scarlet letter “A” does not make her life degenerate. On the contrary, she bravely fights with the strong Puritan society.

4. Hester’s feminist consciousness showing on her rebellious behavior

4.1 Hester’s courage for doubt and criticism

Neither does Hester prepare to surrender to the dark society that is full of all sorts of moral standards, nor does she want to compromise her unfortunate fate. In the patriarchal society where Puritan dominated every aspect of life and work, Hester always rises up to take control of her own destiny.

At first, Hester’ marriage is destined to be a failure, since Chilingworth is unsuitable to his beautiful wife and there is no love between them. It is can be easily seen from the portrayal of

Chillingworth and Hester. She “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 complexity, had the impressiveness belonging to marked brow and deep black eyes.”(Hawthorne, 2009:42) However, Complying with her parents, Hester had to marry Chillingworth, a man “well stricken in years, a pale, thin, scholar-like visage, with eyes dim and bleared by the lamplight that had served them to pore over many pondered book…slightly deformed, with the left shoulder a trifle higher than the right.”(Hawthorne, 2009:64) From the positive commentary term to describe Hester, we can presume that Hester’s striking contrast with Chillingworth in appearance stressed her unfortunate and unequal marriage with her husband. Chillingworth sends Hester to American ahead of him as he has some personal business to be settled in Europe. While waiting for her husband, Hester meets Dimmesdale and falls love with him. Hester does not give up her pursuit of true love and happiness; she has courage to give the birth to her child----Pearl.

Hester’s rebellion against her husband is also showed by her disclosure of Chillingworth’s identity. When Hester finds that Chilligworth disguises himself as a psychiatrist and gets near to Dimmesdale with intention, she knows all what he has done is to revenge and destroy Dimmesdale. Hester has the fearless courage to criticize Chilligworth and disclose the truth. Seven years ago, Chilligworth was outraged to learn that Hester was committed adultery and put in prison, he decided to see Hester and investigate her anonymous lover. In the prison, Hester promise Chilligworth to not to expose his actual identify in order to protect her child and lover. However, it gives her great pain to look Dimmesdale driven by a sense of shame and a sense commitment to his congregation. Hester makes up her mind to come forward and prevent Chilligworth from hurting the clergymen. In the island, she answers Chilligworth:

“for the hatred that has transformed a wise and just man to a fiend！Wilt thou yet pure it out

of thee, and be once more human? If not for his sake, then doubly for thine own! Forgive,

and leave his further retribution to the power that claims it! I said, but now, that there could

be no good even for him, or thee, or me who are here wandering together in this gloomy

maze of evil, and stumbling at every step over the guilt wherewith we have strewn our path.

It is not so! There might be good for thee and thee alone, since thou hast been deeply

wronged and hast it at thy will to pardon. Wilt thou give up that only privilege? Wilt thou

reject that priceless benefit?” (Hawthorne, 2009:133)

This courageous action is more evidence that Hester has realized that cowardice and weakness is not solution to a problem. During these seven years, Hester always endures all humiliation and damage in silence. However, now she has wit and courage to give her former

husband a power strike, which strongly suggests that Hester’s feminist consciousness has become relatively mature.

4.2 Hester’s pursuit of love and happiness

To a large extent, Hester’s feminist consciousness lies in her courage to pursue her true love and happiness. She grows in a Puritan society where the stiff male-dominated establishment and strict laws make women overwhelming and depressing. There is no denying that Hester knows very well that the adultery sinner would be subject to severe penalty. However, Hester plucks up her courage to violate the strict Puritanical rules. She falls love in Dimmesdale and gives birth to a child named Pearl, which makes her distinctive in that society. She accepts the punishment with a clear conscience so that she wears the symbol of humiliation no matter where she is. In other words, due to the authority and the community, she makes herself subdue to the Puritan creeds. However, she denies the puritan authority’ demand to refuse to sell her lover absolutely and suffers all insults and humiliation by herself, which indicates her faithfulness and loyalty to her truth lover. As matter of fact, Hester looks the letter “A” as a symbol of Arthur Dimmesdale. Her courage to break free from her unhappy marriage and to count on her strength to create new life leaves a deep impression on readers.

Due to be committed adultery sin, Hester has suffered humiliation and isolation for seven years. However, Hester never wants to give up her true love for Dimmesdale. Her unshaken love to Dimmesdale also reflects in her desire to run away with him to a whole new land. When Dimmesdale walks in the forest, he is very surprised by Hester’s presence. “They sat down again, side by side, and hand clasped in hand, on the mossy trunk of the fallen tree.” (Hawthorne, 2009:148) And Hester is unable to control her excited emotion so that “with sudden and desperate tenderness, she threw her arms around him, and pressed his head against her bosom.” (Hawthorne, 2009:149) In order to rescue their love and protect her lover from physical self-abuse, Hester suggests that they will leave for foreign shore where they will live a new life and the shame of the past will be unknown. “Is the world, then, so narrow? Doth the universe lie within the compass of yonder town? Wither leads yonder forest track? … There thou art free! So brief a journey would bring thee from a world where thou hast been most wretched, to one where thou mayest still be happy.” (Hawthorne, 2009:152) It is a pity, though, that Dimmesdale has no encourage to quit his post. Hester determines to encourage him with her own energy, and she says sincerely and firmly,

“Thou art crushed under the seven years’ weight of misery. But thou shall leave it all

behind thee... Leave this wreck and ruin here where it hath happened. Middle no more with

it! Begin all anew! Hast thou exhausted possibility in the failure of this one trial? Not so!

The future is yet full of trail and success. There is happiness to be enjoyed! There is good

to be done! Exchange this false life of thine for a true one…” (Hawthorne, 2009:154)

Dimmesdale is moved by her sincerity, so he resolves to escape with her. In order to give Dimmesdale encouragement and hope, Hester takes her scarlet letter from her bosom and throws off it without any hesitation, and she heaves a long, deep sign, in which the burden of insult and pain departs from her spirit.

Her encouragement for Dimmesdale to leave the town and to find a peaceful life shows the truth of her open penitence: she has no regrets. In fact, she believes the sex of true love is the human’s nature need. Although she gets into the public insults and social isolation, they could not destroy her love for Dimmesdale. Such a nature longing for real love between man and woman exactly presents the common willingness of human beings, which certainly arouses huge public sympathy. Hester dares to pursue her true love and to listen to her inner voice, which is the best proof of her feminism consciousness (Zhai Junqiao, 2012:38).

4.3 Hester’s bravery of undertaking her crime

There appear three scaffold scenes in The Scarlet Letter. The three scenes serve as a stage for Hester and Dimmesdale to display them. In the first scene, Hester is forced to stand there to expose her disgrace to the public and is demanded to speak out her lover. In order to protect the life and good reputation of Dimmestale, Hester is condemned to wear a scarlet letter on her bosom and suffers public shame in the scaffold because she refuses to sell her lover. By comparison, Dimmesdale dare not to confess his sin publicly and to undertake the responsibility as pearl’s father because of his strong sense of shame to his congregation. At this moment, he is struck in dilemma. On the one hand, he prefers Hester to speak out his name to make himself relieve from anguish. On the other hand, he lacks the same encourage as Hester to take up responsibility, and he does not expect Hester to expose him in order to keep his fame. In the following days, he falls into a serious self-destructive. Therefore, the undeniable fact is that he has no courage to choose the life what he wants. At the second scene, Dimmesdale stands along on the scaffold. When he hears Pearl’s laugher, he calls Hester and Pearl to stand with him, he feels “a tumultuous rush of new life, other life than his own, pouring like a torrent into his heart, and hurrying through all his veins.”(Hawthorne, 2009:154) However, at his moment, Hester is absolutely shocked to find “His nerve seemed absolutely destroyed.” Obviously, Hawthorne

intends to subvert the traditional women image of being subordinate to man. To relief Dimmesdale from his anguish, Hester determines to conceal Chillingworth’s identity to him. Shocked by the truth, Dimmesdale cries out at the next moment, “Think for me, Hester! Thou art strong, Resolve for me.”(Hawthorne, 2009:148) He allows Hester to choose life for him once again. He is such a coward that he can not support on his own. We can come to know that Hester has become the only person who can save him from his desperation. When Hester persuades him to flee to Europe to end the miserable life, he looks into Hester’s face with fear betwixt happiness and hope and a kind of horror at Hester’s boldness, because she has spoken what he does not dare to speak (Jin Hanshen, 2007:168). The dependency on Hester indicates the loss of the position of “subjectivity” which a patriarchy provides Dimmesdale as a man. In the last scene, Dimmesdale dies in Hester’s arms when he gives his final sermon and dares to speak the truth in the public. His soul gets real relief. Through these three scenes, we can come to know that the image of Hester and Dimmesdale are in sharp contrast. Hawthorne attempts to reduce male’s priority in a patriarchal hierarchy to a negative role and emphasizes women’s growing sense of liberty.

5. The analysis of Hawthorne’s attitude toward feminist consciousness

From the whole novel, we can find that Hawthorne’s attitude toward Hester is positive. He uses a great number of complimentary terms in describing her appearance and character. Therefore, it can be concluded that Hawthorne still looks the heroine as an attractive, lady-like and strong-willed woman even through in writing about her sin of adultery. Because Hester is a typical victim in that patriarchy society, there arises the issue of equality between men and women. The sensitive question does appear in Hester’s mind, which inspires her to consider the ways for the liberation of women. Therefore, we can confirm that Hawthorne has begun to think of woman’s social status.

In the final chapter of this book, Hawthorne again comes up with the issue of women’s liberation: “she assured them, too, of her firm belief, that, at some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for it, in heaven’s own time, a new truth would be revealed, in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness.” (Hawthorne, 2009:203) From the above descriptions, the readers are not difficult to catch in this bitterly persecuted woman the image of a forerunner of the modern feminists (Jin Hanshen, 2007:96). In other words, it suggests that woman should be liberated from patriarchal

society in Hawthorne’s eyes. We can draw the conclusion that Hawthorne’s dream of women’ liberation is revolutionary: he has realized that the social system and Puritan domination is the root of women’s suppressed condition. Therefore, the society should take a change to create a new type of social relations, besides, it is also essential for men to change their sexist attitude toward women. The most important for women is to change their ways of thinking, lives in reality and learn to take action.

6. Conclusion

Throughout his life Hawthorne was influenced by the various women who surrounded him. As his biographers have demonstrated, women often played crucial roles in his development. Hester is the typical figure that he explores the nature of gender relations in his day. In The Scarlet Letter, we can come to know that Hester is an extremely distinctive woman comparing with tradition one in the patriarchic society. Although she is under over-loaded discrimination from the puritan authority and society, she still holds her head and confronts to all unfair treatment. What’s more, her character to dare to love and dare to hate is most admirable and impressive. Obviously, the commendable mind of Hester is what feminist advocates. Therefore, it can be included that Hester is the best witness to typify Hawthorne’s female consciousness. Hawthorne shows his sympathy for Hester due to her plight under the severer religious doctrine and social shaming. He has realized the root of women’s suppressed social status. Therefore, Hawthorne thinks it is necessary for human to change their sexist attitude toward women. He suggests that the whole relation between manhood and womanhood should be built on a ground of mutual happiness. However, owing to the inevitable limitation of time and the religious perspective of the Hawthorne, Hester was unable to indicate the path to women liberation.

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试析《红字》中霍桑的女性意识

【摘 要】 霍桑是美国文学史上著名的作家之一。《红字》是霍桑的代表作品之一，很多人认为该作品是霍桑文学天赋的集中体现。在这部作品中，霍桑不仅仅讲述了一个爱情故事，而且创造了一个生动形象又极具影响力的女性——海斯特。女主人公在社会压迫里逐渐地变得成熟独立，并努力争取自己应有的权利。因此，海斯特成为了人们心目中女权主义者的代表人物。霍桑通过描写海斯特的性格间接地表达了他对女性意识的看法。本文试图以女性主义学说的角度来分析女主人公的主要性格特征及其女性意识，从而进一步理解霍桑对女性主义意识的态度。

【关键词】

霍桑；海斯特；性格特征；女性意识

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