Fryer on Hawthorne

In Judith Fryer’s essay, The Faces of Eve” Women in the 19th Century Novel, she puts forth her positions on The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The reader can gather that she believed that the book was written as a feminist novel as Hawthorne created the ambiguous female character, Hester Prynne. Fryer raises valid points about the novel by explaining how Hester came about because of Hawthorne’s personal conflicts in his society as he was alienated from a masculine society. She also stated how Hester was the most self- reliant character in the novel, making her stand out from the rest of society. Finally, Hawthorne described the male characters in the novel as being much weaker than Hester.

Hawthorne’s own insecurities led to the development of the character, Hester Prynne. Fryer believed that because Hawthorne was an artist, society did not seem to accept him as a man. In her critique, she addressed how Hawthorne felt alienated from the masculine world as she states, “But as an alienated artist, he felt estranged from that community which defined ‘masculinity’ in terms of the success in the commercial world.” (Fryer 72) In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne was able to personify himself through Hester Prynne. Hester committed a crime of adultery and as a result, the rest of the community treated her as an outcast. Traditionally, adultery was a worse crime for a woman than a man and living in a Puritan society. Hester was forced to stand on the scaffold in the center of town to be publicly denounced and wear a scarlet letter “A” on her chest as evidence of her sin. Hester was permanently an outsider to her Puritan society. While Hester took the blame for her sin, her lover, Dimmesdale, did not get punished at all, since men we...

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...mesdale died, Chillingsworth no longer had any strength and energy left in him, displaying his own vulnerability. These two men are portrayed as weak, in comparison to Hester who was representative of a strong female.

Although there still is some uncertainty to as whether Hawthorne wrote the novel with feminist intentions, it is clear from Fryer’s novel that she believed that The Scarlet Letter was a feminist novel. Hester was portrayed as the strongest character of the novel even though she was a female and the male characters were portrayed as the weak links in the story. Also, Hawthorne was able to embody his own characteristics into Hester to expose the inequalities of men and women in a Puritan society. Fryer’s ultimate goal of convincing the reader that this is a feminist work was achieved, as she makes it almost impossible for the reader to think otherwise.