Scarlet Letter Women's Rights And Self-Identity

Advocate for Women’s Rights and Self-identity

In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne reveals that women have absolute potential, strong personality and the ability to explore and transform the entire society. Nathaniel Hawthorn narrates a story about Hester Prynne; a woman who has subjected the ill treatment and discrimination for being a mother of a child whose father was unknown to the Boston settlement society. As the story unfolds in the novel, Hester Prynne is taken from the prison to the scaffold to stand judgment before the magistrate because she is accused of adultery. From the novel, Hester Prynne by being a woman is exposed to an inquiry to affirm and confess the name of the biological father of her daughter Pearl. Thus as a form of punishment, she is forced to wear a scarlet letter A, the mark which identifies her in the entire society as an adulteress (Hawthorne 51-52). Women are perceived to be the weaker sex in society, but in them, possess an ultimate

Hester in her society was determined to stand up and hold her ground. She was not in any instance ready or willing to abide to society’s prescribed gendered roles. Hester as an advocate for women’s rights and self-identity withstood the challenges imposed by society and granted the voiceless and unrepresented women of all time the opportunity to stand up against discrimination. When given the opportunity to leave the community as a way to remove “the scarlet letter A” she willingly refused for she was not going to give in to the oppression of society and loose her self-identity. Women are not fragile or weak. Women do not easily breakup, subjugate, or crumble; instead women have and will continue to stand up strong and fight against oppression, discrimination and all forms of abuse imposed on