留不住的是人心social status, and intellectual limitations and a tendency to depend upon emotions rather than the intellect (Madsen, 2006:2). Therefore, there is no denying that women are confined to the domestic sphere. Their responsibility is to forester children, to keep the household and to serve their husband.
However, a number of women refused to compromise such a miserable and unfair fate, and they began to launch a series of powerful women’s liberation movement. Hawthorne happened to live through the period of revolutions, so he did not escaped some influence. Many of us can see his suspicion of puritanical doctrines from his works. The portrayal of the female character, Hester, can be understood as a crucial part of Hawthorne’s feminist consciousness.
2.2.2 The formation of Hawthorne’s feminism consciousness
Hawthorne was born on the fourth of July, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, into a prominent puritan family. When Hawthorne was the age of four, his father had died of yellow fever in Suriname leaving a widow and three children in genteel poverty at Salem. After his father’s death, Hawthorne, his mother and two sisters moved in with maternal relatives the Manning where they lived ten years. Hawthorne spent his childhood in the female-headed family. His mother, Elizabeth Manning Hawthorne and his sisters Elizabeth and Louisa encouraged him in his aspiration to be a writer. Her grandmother and aunts in Salem supported his early education. Consequently, he could experience women’s suppressed social status. Besides, his formation of feminist consciousness was influenced by his wife, Sophia. They enjoyed a long and happy marriage. When Hawthorne was in the state of poverty-stricken, Sophia earned their live by needlework and supported their family. It is her intellect and ability that Hawthorne admired her and rethought the status of women in that society. Furthermore, because of his wife, Hawthorne became much familiar to her sister Elizabeth and to their friends, Margaret Fuller, which make him aware of the coming of age when women began taking active part in women liberation movement to strive for their status. In many his literary work, Hawthorne’s description of the character of women become increasingly complex, because he understood women’ situation and was apprehensive of the “dark questions” that this generation of women was querying their roles in the society.
Therefore, although Hawthorne dose not directly express his attitude toward feminist consciousness in this book, we can understand his thought throughout Hester. His description about the heroine’ main character and rebellious minds is the best poof of that.
3. The analysis of Hester’s character
3.1 Kind-hearted and tolerant
Hester is not only beautiful and attractive, but ingenious. Hester is skilled in needlework and makes a living at it. In spite of hard life, she often donates most of her extra money in charity to help the poor and the sick.
“None so ready as she to give off her little substance to every demand of poverty, even
though the bitter hearted pauper threw back a gibe in requital of the food brought regularly
to his door, or the garments wrought for him by the fingers that could have embroidered a
monarch’s robe. None so self-devoted as Hester, when pestilence stalked through the town.
In all seasons of calamity, indeed, whether general or of individuals, the outcast of society
at once found her place. She came, not as a guest, but as a rightful inmate, into the
household that was darkened by trouble, as if its gloomy twilight were a medium in which
she was entitled to hold intercourse with her fellow-creatures.” (Hawthorne, 2009:123)
Hester is so kind-hearted that she often helps others without any desire for repayment. Although Hester often gets great humiliation from many people, she always tells herself to be strong and insists on her principle. She presents to be tolerated and continue to do all she could do to give them a further hand. Even a few of person beg from her, Hester still takes a kind of modest and humble attitude. Hester hardly greet or smile on others, or raise her head to answer their greeting. She just works hard silently and did much for others.
Therefore, Hester gradually improves reputation and is accepted by the town people. “…That many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification, they said that it meant Able, so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength.” (Hawthorne, 2009:124)
3. 2 Brave as a mother
To some extent, Pearl is a living scarlet letter. Moreover, she is also the embodiment of an ideology and morality. As we know, Peal is the fruit of the sin; her birth means the discovery of her mother’s adultery (Li Hua, 2007:57). Therefore, Pearl is the burden and pain for Hester so that Hester is not brave as a mother at first. She just treats the child by her impulse. When Hester stands in front of people, she wants to hug Pearl tightly in her chest. Suddenly, she realizes that this is not so much a hug that comes from the maternal love impulse than she is using baby to hide a mark that sewed on her cloth. But she knows that it is useless to hide a mark with the other mark that symbolizes her shame. As a result, she put her child on her arms instead. Her face flushes but she still smiles to look around people and show the scarlet letter to them.
