On Hester Prynne's Rebellion And Tragedy

Representing the height of Hawthorne's literary genius and ranking with American canonical literature, The Scarlet Letter still stimulates criticism, lending itself like his other novels and short stories to different religious, psychological, and historical interpretations. Insisting on reading the novel as a social and political issue rather than a moral allegory, this thesis intends to explore Hester Prynne's rebellion and tragedy and Hawthorne's ambivalent view towards Hester, by employing Kate Millett's feminist critical theory in her Sexual Politics and by other critics of the New Historicism. This paper believes that Hester rebels to fight for her place and independence in the Puritan patriarchal society, that her tragedy lies not in her unpardonable sin of adultery but in her persistent pursuit of individual freedom, her rightful place which the patriarchal society tries to deprive her of, and that though Hawthorne extols Hester's rebellion and sympathizes with her sufferings, he could not but be conservative and ambivalent towards Hester and women in general, because he himself also lived in a patriarchal culture. The whole paper falls into three chapters. Chapter one deals with the cause of women's inferiority and subordinate position in the Puritan community and relates it to Hester's rebellion. Chapter two examines Hester's feminist philosophy; chapter three analyzes the failure of Hester's final revolt and the causes of her tragedy, identifying the internal and the external factors that contribute to Hester's tragedy.