Hawthorne’s Ambivalent Attitude Towards Women In The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne is considered to be one of the most influential American romantic novelists in the nineteenth century. Hawthorne’s famous moral ambiguity, his rich visual imagination, his deep exploration of the dreamscapes of individuals, communities, and the nation, and especially his "power of blackness," as Melville called it, are distinguishing features of his achievement and help explain his durability as an American classic author. Because of those remarkable features, his works keep intriguing great interests and huge passion of the critics of different times and different perspectives.The Scarlet Letter is considered to be one of his most successful works. The Scarlet Letter has never ceased to be the focus of criticism because of its ambiguous connotations, delicate representation, mystical imagination, thrilling moral implications as well as its dazzling symbolic images. Another attraction of The Scarlet Letter is Hawthorne’s ambiguous attitude towards women.Nevertheless Hawthorne’s attitude towards women also turns out to be a controversial issue among the critics. Some takes Hawthorne as a great feminist fighter, who consciously challenges and criticizes the irrational treatment to women. And for some, Hawthorne is believed to react to and repel the rising feminism movement, to defend the patriarchy social environment. And his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter is deconstruction of feminism of the nineteenth century.But as far as those studies concerned, there are two points deserving our special consideration. First of all, most of the critics still adopt the traditional dualist cognitive model. They either treat Hawthorne as a radical feminist or regard him as custodian of patriarchy. Secondly, the studies on Hawthorne’s attitude toward women have always been confined to Hawthorne’s literature works, instead of relating the studies to his personal life and social background. So even though critics of different times have always been interested in Hawthorne’s attitude toward women, they have never come to a widely acknowledged agreement.Hawthorne’s attitude toward women is rather complicated. The vagueness and complexity of his attitude can be explained by the complicated social and family background. He is clearly aware of the passion, wisdom and toughness of women, and he agrees women should be given respect, recognition and social status. Women should not be treated as men’s property and appendage. But due to his deeply rooted Puritan and Patriarchy ideas, his pro-feminist attitude towards women cannot overweight his recognition of Puritan morality and the traditional expectation for women. Hester’s eventual return proves his recognition of Puritan morality and the traditional expectation for women.In Hawthorne’s opinion, women should be the model performers of morality. Women’s right to speak and their realization of self-value should only be confined to domestic sphere. Women should not challenge the authority of men, and women’s self-fulfillment should not harm the interests of men. From this perspective, he identifies with some traditional ideas about women. Sometime he expresses his concern for the welfare of women on a patriarchy stand.In the early stage of the story, Hester can be taken as a representative of feminist spirit. She wins back respect with her struggle. But with the development of the story, the feminist qualities are disappearing, and she tends to be assimilated by the patriarchal society. This transform of Hester’s image actually reflects Hawthorne’s real attitude toward women. Hawthorne had always been guilty of his puritan family background, and witnessed the unjust social treatment for women, which made it easier to be affected by modern perspectives on women. But meanwhile, his conservative personality, his content with his family life, and the actual commotional states of social movements made feel doubtful and bewildered with his feminist belief. For one thing, he advocates women’s self-fulfillment; on the other hand, the uncertainty of his pursuit makes he feel doubtful and bewildered. Hawthorne has shown great sympathy for women’s unfavorable situation, but his anti-feminist idea makes it impossible for women to extricate themselves from the oppression of the patriarchal society. That is to say, Hawthorne holds some feminist ideas, but meanwhile he still keeps some traditional idea about women. So Hawthorne’s attitude toward women is the product of the collision and fusing of modern and traditional ideology. So his attitude toward women is rather ambivalent.Although his pro-feminist attitude towards women is ambivalent, and has limitations, he has shown deep concern about women issues. He has expressed his feminist propose in his works. He even audaciously conceives to build a new relationship pattern between men and women. From this perspective, his concern about women issue is prospective and progressive, which gives his works everlasting vitality and charm. This novel has foreshadowed the development of feminist movement and women’s liberation; what is more, Hawthorne’s feminist consciousness has furthered the development of feminist movements. And the feminist consciousness implied in the story bestows extraordinary and enduring appeal to the novel.This paper tries to probe into Hawthorne’s attitude towards women implied in The Scarlet letter from a dialectical perspective, by means of text analysis and historical analysis. The paper has four parts. The first part is a brief introduction to Hawthorne, his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter, and the research which critics at home and abroad have done on this novel. The second part analyzes Hawthorne’s pro-feminist idea implied in The Scarlet Letter, and the third part tries to interpret Hawthorne’s anti-feminist idea embodied in this works. The conclusion part summarizes Hawthorne’s ambivalent attitude toward women.