Summary of The Scarlet Letter:
The novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne revolves around the life of Hester Prynne, a woman who was committed of adultery and forced to wear a scarlet A on her chest for not revealing who the father of her daughter Pearl was. Wearing the scarlet letter on her chest is a sign of her punishment for her sin and secrecy, and this makes Hester feel as if she does not belong in her society since most people do not show her any respect. However, due to the fact that women were to remain silent in their society, Hester did not want to go against tradition and never took the initiative to reveal the truth to anyone. While it is somewhat easy for Hester to remain silent at first, many events that take place start to make her see that keeping secrets is not going to be as simple a plan as she once thought it would be.
Reflection of using the Feminist Critical Lens:
When I was first informed that for this project I needed to chose to read the novel through a critical lens of my choice, I at first was not sure which lens would be perfect to use for The Scarlet Letter since I knew very little about the book. However, once I read the plot summary of the book and started to better understand the book, I felt that reading through the feminist lens would be the most appropriate for the novel. When I actually began reading the book, I noticed that using the feminist lens would better help me understand how men and women differed from each other during the time period of Puritan New England and get to see how their gender roles had a major impact on their society. Reading through the feminist lens allowed me to understand that during the time the book takes place, the power of silence for women was an important part of their everyday lives and men were the only ones allowed to speak up and state what was on their minds. While I was already aware that women have not been treated as equally as men for years including nowadays, I never realized that they were forced to remain silent and basically had no purpose in the world. I have always been aware that women have never been treated as equally as men and have a very limited amount of rights, but hearing that they had to remain silent no matter the circumstances seems very unfair to me since women deserve to be given the rights and freedom they deserve considering the fact that they are as much a human being as men are. The feminist lens allowed me to better understand how silence played an important part of everyday lives for women and also how men had total control over women and had the absolute right to force women to do as they were told, even if this meant going against their beliefs.
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