More handpicked essays just for you.
Gender and roles of women in literature
A 6 to 9 paragraph feminist analysis essay
Gender and roles of women in literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In both The Scarlet Letter and Young Goodman Brown, were there symbols marked upon women. For Georgiana, it was her birthmark, the fairy-like hand placed upon her cheek. As for Hester, it was the scarlet letter “A” embroidered on her breast. In Hester’s beginning, she couldn’t bear the weight of glare of others, but for Georgiana, she never thought much about her mark. Soon Georgiana submitted to the views of her husband, and the birthmark was the “one defect” that grew “more and more intolerable with every moment of their united lives.” (2) She was subservient to her husband’s will at playing god, who was so keen on removing such an “imperfection.” It became her downfall, and led to her ultimate death. Unlike Georgiana, Hester never let her scarlet letter consume her whole being. Her letter became a symbol of ability, something she wasn’t afraid to wear, …show more content…
and something she didn’t want to hide. Both women handled their symbols differently, Hester for the better, and Georgiana for the worst. Also clear in both stories there was the idea of inner beauty versus outer beauty. Their marks were a distraction for the beauty they had inside, and only Hester succeeded in showing that her mark didn’t define her. Similarly, both Georgiana’s birthmark and Hester’s letter were the color red, a color that could be linked to corruption. Hawthorne used common colors to evoke different feelings in his works. Mentioned throughout The Birthmark, The Scarlet Letter, and Young Goodman Brown was the color red. It was visible in the letter which Hester bore, the birthmark on Georgiana’s cheek, and the forest’s hellish fire that captured Goodman Brown. All provoked a negative feeling, one like that of sin. The scarlet letter was a visible image of the evil that Hester had committed, and for Georgiana the red represented her only impurity. Very literally in Young Goodman Brown, red was involved with Satanism, and the fires of hell. Hawthorne also contrasted the harsh tint of red with the delicacy of pink. Georgiana’s complexion was a pale pink, radiant of her beauty, yet interrupted by the harsh red of the hand on her cheek. Like Georgiana, the pink ribbons on Faith’s cap remained the only vibrancy in her story, linked with her innocence and purity. The color black- too- stood out in Young Goodman Brown. The mysteriousness of the forest, and the ‘lesser black’ sky, the darkness brought out a sense of evil. Although the forest made an appearance in The Scarlet Letter, it was a place of safety for Hester. She was faced with a lot of judgement from the Puritan community, even from those who committed a sin like hers. Religious zeal was outward in each of two works, and yet hypocrisy was visible in all of three.
In Young Goodman Brown and The Scarlet Letter, Puritanism played a key role. A man of high stature, Reverend Dimmesdale, was the one to preach the cleansing of one’s own body though god. He was the image of the ideal man to the people of the colony. Dimmesdale spoke of being free of sin, yet he kept his own sin inside, until it destroyed him. His story related to Young Goodman Brown, who was also a religious man. Goodman Brown was planning on attending a satanic ritual, but questioning his faith, he deferred his meeting in the woods. He did continue, and lost his trust in everyone. In The Birthmark, Aylmer was heavily dedicated to science, as if it was his own religion. He devoted himself to removing the birthmark from Georgiana’s face in “her favor.” Yet it was his own greed and thirst for perfection that drove him. This striving for perfection, when he did not care for Georgiana’s thought, ended in her demise. The Birthmark, The Scarlet Letter, and Young Goodman Brown all show the negative effects of such
hypocrisy. Multiple connections can be made amongst the works of Hawthorne.
Three gossips present at Hester’s public shaming moan at Hester’s “merciful” punishment, one even going as far as declaring “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die.” (Hawthorne 36). As time passes, however, and Hester dutifully lives out her penance, the people start to see the piety of her everyday actions. After seven years, they go from crying for her death to exclaiming “None so ready as she to give of her little substance to every demand of poverty…None so self-devoted as Hester, when pestilence stalked through the town.” (Hawthorne 110). They also declared her “a self-ordained Sister of Mercy…Such helpfulness was found in her,—so much power to do, and power to sympathize,—that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able.” (111). When the people of Hester’s town managed to stop gawking at Hester, they easily saw her true nature and changed their ideas to
Through the use of numerous symbols, Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter serves as an allegory for the story of Adam and Eve and its relation to sin, knowledge, and the human condition that is present in human society. Curious for the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, which resulted in the revelation of their “humanness” and expulsion from the “divine garden” as they then suffered the pain and joy of being humans. Just as Adam and Eve were expelled from their society and suffered in their own being, so were Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter. Hester was out casted and shunned, while Dimmesdale suffered under his own guilt. After knowledge of her affair is made known, Hester is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her chest to symbolize her crime of adultery, and is separated from the Puritan society. Another “A” appears in the story, and is not embroidered, but instead scarred on Dimmesdale’s chest as a symbol of guilt and suffering. Hester’s symbol of guilt comes in the form of her daughter, Pearl, who is the manifestation of her adultery, and also the living version of her scarlet letter. Each of these symbols come together to represent that with sin comes personal growth and advancement of oneself in society as the sinner endures the good and bad consequences.
Hester Prynne, the heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, exhibits considerable character growth both over the course of her life and during the events of the novel. Her view of herself and her perspective on the role of women in the world evolve as she learns from new experiences. She moves through the stages of self-centered happiness in her childhood, deep despair and depression as an adult, and a later more hopeful and selfless existence.
The scarlet letter is more than just an “A” that Hester Prynne wears as punishment. The “A” on Hester’s clothing is a symbol for adultery, but under the hand stitched “A” it is much more. The “A” tells a story of how one mistake can make a big impact on life. Throughout the book there have been many scenarios that the “A” has affected different characters, in a positive and negative way. This little letter has many meanings to many people, some people that did not know it would even affect them. The simple letter is much more powerful than what anybody thought.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “ The Scarlet Letter’’ is a classical story about sin, punishment and revenge. It all began with a young woman named Hester Prynne who has committed adultery, and gave birth to a child in a Puritan society. Through the eyes of the puritans Hester has gone against their religious ways. Hester must now wear the symbol of the letter “A” on her clothing for the rest of her life as act of shame. Hester Prynne faces a long journey ahead and her strength enables her to continue on.
When Hester Prynne becomes pregnant without her husband, she is severely punished by having to endure public humiliation and shame for her adulterous actions. Hester is forced to wear a scarlet “A”on her breast for the rest of her life. (1.) She lives as an outcast. At first, Hester displays a defiant attitude by boldly march from prison towards the pillory. However, as time goes on, the public humiliation of her sin weighs heavily upon her soul. “An accustomed eye had likewise it’s own aguish to inflict. It’s cool stare of familiarity was intolerable. From first to last, in short, Hester Prynne had always th...
Symbolism is using a character or object to represent an idea. Hawthorne displayed much of it in his novel, The Scarlet Letter. He displays it in his characters and objects in the novel. He even symbolizes the book by calling it, “A tale of human frailty and sorrow.” Other displays of symbolism in The Scarlet Letter, are like, the rosebush, the scaffold, and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Symbolism can sometimes be hard to understand, or difficult to figure out what a character or object is symbolizing.
Writing under the influence of his Puritan background, Hawthorne's attention was on individuals and their relationships within their community. Theocratic Puritans punished sinners as deviants of society and used the punishments to restate the boundaries within the group. The five tenets of Puritanism reveal the curious nature of a religion that promoted goodness as a constant goal of each individual, but provided only negative reward of no punishment for good behavior and actions. The tenet of Unconditional Election made predestination clear. No matter how hard one tried to be good, only those elected were going to heaven.
Symbolism, something that figuratively represents something else, is prominent in many literary works. One piece of literature that stands out as a perfect example of symbolism is Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown." This story is completely symbolic, and provides a good example of an allegory, or a story in which concrete items or characters represent abstract ideas. Hawthorne uses both objects and people as symbols to better support the allegorical tones throughout "Young Goodman Brown."
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, symbolsim is constantly present in the actual scarlet letter “A” as it is viewed as a symbol of sin and the gradally changes its meanign, guilt is also a mejore symbol, and Pearl’s role in this novel is symbolic as well. The Scarlet Letter includes many profound and crucial symbols. these devices of symbolism are best portayed in the novel, most noticably through the letter “A” best exemplifies the changes in the symbolic meaning throughout the novel.
In the story of young Goodman brown the Author of the story, Nathaniel Hawthorne, uses symbolic characters that represent life. In the story, Young Goodman Brown goes into a journey into the cold, dark, and lonely forest. Faith, his wife is rejected by young Goodman brown when she asks him to stay with her that night and to forget about the journey. Young Goodman Brown tells her that she will be all right without him and that he has to go into that journey. This is an image of what many people do, if not all people. We do not listen to our sin or to people who only wants the best for us, for example, our family. In Young Goodman Brown, Faith does not only resemble Young Goodman Brown’s religion, but it also resembles his support and security
Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes symbolism throughout his short story Young Goodman Brown to impact and clarify the theme of good people sometimes doing bad things. Hawthorne uses a variety of light and dark imagery, names, and people to illustrate irony and different translations. Young Goodman Brown is a story about a man who comes to terms with the reality that people are imperfect and flawed and then dies a bitter death from the enlightenment of his journey through the woods. Images of darkness, symbolic representations of names and people and the journey through the woods all attribute to Hawthorne's theme of good people sometimes doing bad things.
In contrast to the typical Puritan women in Boston, Hawthorne depicts the female protagonist of The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne, as physically discrete. Hester has a perfect figure, a rich complexion, dark hair, and deep eyes. She dresses in modest clothing, but the symbol of her sin, the golden embroidered scarlet letter, remains the focus of her attire (Bloom 219). Hester’s breathtaking features and the scarlet letter give her a sense of individuality.
Young Goodman Brown was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne who was an American novelist This short story was published in the year of 1835. By utilizing symbolism and imagery, Hawthorne proves that everyone is evil within themselves and we should not hate them for their sin but hate the sins itself and we should love the sinners. Young Goodman Brown shows that he has a vigorous faith before he enters the forest and occasionally throughout his journey to the black mass. Hawthorne utilizes Goodman Brown’s wife, Faith, as a symbol of Goodman Brown’s own faith during the story. From the beginning of Faith’s descriptions, you could see Goodman Brown’s strong faith: “And Faith, as the wife aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her
The Scarlet Letter is a blend of realism, symbolism, and allegory. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses historical settings for this fictional novel and even gives historical background information for the inspiration of the story of Hester Prynne in the introduction of The Scarlet Letter, ‘The Custom-House’. The psychological exploration of the characters and the author’s use of realistic dialogue only add to the realism of the novel. The most obvious symbol of the novel is the actual scarlet letter ‘A’ that Hester wears on her chest every day, but Hawthorne also uses Hester’s daughter Pearl and their surroundings as symbols as well. Allegory is present as well in The Scarlet Letter and is created through the character types of several characters in the novel.