Isolation And Alienation In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter portrays Hester Prynne’s apparent detachment from the rest of society, which not only supports the Puritan attitude that she cannot make amends for her adultery, but also the idea of alienation in Marxist literary theory of her inability to connect with the goods she has created from her needle as she cannot personally afford them. Throughout Hawthorne’s novel, Hester undergoes isolation and alienation through the physical, social, moral, and Marxist aspects. Thus, Marxist literary theory is necessary to truly appreciate Hester’s position in society.

Marxist thought focuses on economics being the driving force of history and subsequently creating different social classes, and through these social classes’ different historical backgrounds, they clash. In Marxist literary theory it specifically emphasizes how circumstances influence separate classes and how the elite oppress those below them. In his treatise on class struggle, The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx discusses the interactions between different socioeconomic strata to illustrate the difference in goals and motivations of the population. Marx himself never wrote about employing his ideas for literary

While she labors for the upper classes and creates marvelous articles of clothing that she herself cannot don, Hester feels the alienation often found in Marxist literary theory of the disjunction between a worker and the products that she makes. Thus, she feels the Marxist form of alienation as well as the physical and social form. Yet, Hawthorne clearly indicates that Hester separates herself positively when refusing to bend to the Puritan society’s norms. This scenario clearly argues the Marxist literary theories of the alienation and disparities in how economic status plays out to help or hinder social