On M-F And H-N Relationship In The Scarlet Letter From The Perspective Of Ecofeminism

Ecofeminism is the product of the "third wave" of feminism and a combination of ecology and feminism. It believes women and nature have a more intimate relationship and share much more alikeness than men do. The oppression of man over woman and human over nature share a same root, which is patriarchy. We should connect feminist movements and ecological movements, achieving the goal of liberating women as well as nature from the exploitation of men. This theory was firstly applied to literature analysis in the 1990s in America and since then, many studies combining the theory with literature works sprung up.Under the guidance of this newly born theory, ecofeminism, this dissertation intends to make an interpretation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s famous work, The Scarlet Letter. According to the core principles of ecofeminism, two parallel relationships, which are the relationship between men and women as well as human and nature, in a patriarchal society were explored. These two unbalanced relationships exist not only in the Puritan society in the novel, but also in Hawthorne’s living society and it keeps going on till now. This dissertation focuses on the marginalized statues of women and nature in such patriarchal society and how to re-build these balanced parallel relationships.There are mainly two stages of analysis in this dissertation. The first one put emphasize on M-F relationship in The Scarlet Letter. This dissertation took the heroin Hester Prynne and her daughter Pearl as representatives, analyzed their relationships with Hester’s husband and lover as well as some other minor male characters from their direct or indirect contacts in the story separately. Stage two focused on H-N relationship in The Scarlet Letter. In this part, Hester Prynne, Pearl and Roger Chillingworth and their relationships with nature were discussed separately. The description of human society and nature as well as the living statues of these figures in these two different environment functioned as a significant access to comprehend H-N relationship.Through the whole research two conclusions could be drawn. Though never was Hawthorne a feminist or a transcendentalist, he still has sympathy with marginalized women and nature. Born and raised up in a rigid Puritan family, yet influenced by both feminism and transcendentalism, Hawthorn’s contradiction could also be traced when it comes to matters concerning feminist problems. And we could also catch a glimpse of his limitation and restrictions. Meanwhile, the whole research proves the ecofeminist core value, which is that the deep root of women and nature’s oppressed statues both are patriarchy. What’s more, in order to eliminate this phenomenon, we must combine ecological movements and feminist movements.