The Scarlet Letter and Gender Difference

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December 13, 2018
The Scarlet Letter and Gender Difference
“Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to affairs.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
Introduction
The Scarlet Letter is perhaps one of the most well-known classical stories even until this day. Written by Nathaniel Hawthorne back in the 1800s, this piece of fiction features human beings’ natural inclination towards committing sin and desiring revenge against others. This microcosm of unconventional realities and the interesting plot of the story is one of the reasons why this novel has been a staple of readers’ libraries for over two centuries after it was written. While the development of the whole story captures the attention of the readers by itself, reading through this work would show that the development of its individuals' characters is also worthwhile reading. Thus, in the succeeding sections of this article, the main protagonist’s (Hester Prynne) life developments would be examined in greater detail. All in all, I believe that by looking at the character developments of the story’s main protagonist, power relations (between genders) during the time of the story’s writing could be easier understood.
Hester’s Life and Gender Relations
Hester’s life story (and transformation) reveals how society thinks of the roles between a man and woman, as well as the resistances that started to question these established ways of thinking. At the beginning of the story, Hester is portrayed as a meek, docile, and thoughtful woman who marries Chillingworth, a medical doctor based in England. Being a woman who waited for her husband faithfully for a significant amount of time, Hester represents the epitome of how society thinks a woman should think and act. However, as time passes by and news saying that Chillingworth might have already perished in the trip to America, Hester starts to have a secret affair with Dimmesdale. This affair then grew and resulted in her giving birth to Pearl. Not knowing who the father is, the townspeople then shamed her and make her walk into a scaffold, forcing her to reveal who the real father is. In light of this, it could be seen that women are viewed much harshly as compared to men in times when they commit a sin. On the one hand, these characteristics symbolize the belief that women are born with dignity and pureness. Traits which are positively revered in the society. On the other hand, however, these also relegate their position and show how the commission of a single sin, could make a woman shameful and undignified.
The days of the far-off future would toil onward, still with the same burden for her to take up, and bear along with her, but never to fling down; for the accumulating days, and added years, would pile up their misery upon the heap of shame. Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman’s frailty and sinful passion.  (79)
As stated, the beginning of Hawthorne’s story shows how Hester symbolized women&rs...