An Analysis of Feminism in The Scarlet Letter分析《红字》中(14)

分析《红字》中的女权主义

there would be a question in their mind: what kind of fate would be waiting for the woman and the baby? Can Hester sustain such cruel punishment from the powerful Puritan society? From that moment, the reader's attention is seized by a deep sympathy with the mother and the baby who suffer their public punishment. At the same time, readers are obsessed with another question: Is it fair to treat the two victims this way? As the story moves on, readers' concern about Hester's ability to handle the intolerable agony is to be reduced to agreement with her interpretation of the letter “A” as a symbol of her living value instead of a sign of adultery. She accomplishes the transformation by her thought as well as her behaviors.

Tracing Hawthorne's train of thought to enter the labyrinth of his story, we can examine his feminist consciousness implied in his deception of the heroine. When closing the book and stepping out of the imaginary world Hawthorne creates, readers may ask: what impression retains in their minds?

In “The Custom-House”, Hawthorne claims that he creates a world that exists as “a neutral territory, somewhere between the real world and fairy-land, where the actual and the imaginary may meet, and each imbue itself with the nature of the other” (Hawthorne, 1997:32). In such a world, characters, who are only partly imitative of real life, behaving in ways somewhat removed from the ordinary, seem natural. Thus, Hawthorne, as an artist, speaks in allegory and lets the concrete always serve as a clue to the intangible yet more intense reality of what lay behind it when he creates such a world. To discover the core of the world, we must remove all the symbols and dross in order to reveal Hawthorne's real intentions in creating the world. In The Scarlet Letter, again and again Hawthorne deliberately declares that the actualities of his tale are or may be taken as signs and he uses repeatedly such words are “type” “emblem” “token” or “hieroglyph”. All these words seem to remind readers that the true meaning lies in the sign. Using the sign as a mirror, Hawthorne displays different aspects of human nature to readers, and lets them discern what he valorizes and what he condemns.

Obviously, the theme of the novel is clear; not the study of sin; not the effect of sin; but the efficacy of the punishment of sin. The punishment has done its office in

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