留不住的是人心There appear three scaffold scenes in The Scarlet Letter. The three scenes serve as a stage for Hester and Dimmesdale to display them. In the first scene, Hester is forced to stand there to expose her disgrace to the public and is demanded to speak out her lover. In order to protect the life and good reputation of Dimmestale, Hester is condemned to wear a scarlet letter on her bosom and suffers public shame in the scaffold because she refuses to sell her lover. By comparison, Dimmesdale dare not to confess his sin publicly and to undertake the responsibility as pearl’s father because of his strong sense of shame to his congregation. At this moment, he is struck in dilemma. On the one hand, he prefers Hester to speak out his name to make himself relieve from anguish. On the other hand, he lacks the same encourage as Hester to take up responsibility, and he does not expect Hester to expose him in order to keep his fame. In the following days, he falls into a serious self-destructive. Therefore, the undeniable fact is that he has no courage to choose the life what he wants. At the second scene, Dimmesdale stands along on the scaffold. When he hears Pearl’s laugher, he calls Hester and Pearl to stand with him, he feels “a tumultuous rush of new life, other life than his own, pouring like a torrent into his heart, and hurrying through all his veins.”(Hawthorne, 2009:154) However, at his moment, Hester is absolutely shocked to find “His nerve seemed absolutely destroyed.” Obviously, Hawthorne
intends to subvert the traditional women image of being subordinate to man. To relief Dimmesdale from his anguish, Hester determines to conceal Chillingworth’s identity to him. Shocked by the truth, Dimmesdale cries out at the next moment, “Think for me, Hester! Thou art strong, Resolve for me.”(Hawthorne, 2009:148) He allows Hester to choose life for him once again. He is such a coward that he can not support on his own. We can come to know that Hester has become the only person who can save him from his desperation. When Hester persuades him to flee to Europe to end the miserable life, he looks into Hester’s face with fear betwixt happiness and hope and a kind of horror at Hester’s boldness, because she has spoken what he does not dare to speak (Jin Hanshen, 2007:168). The dependency on Hester indicates the loss of the position of “subjectivity” which a patriarchy provides Dimmesdale as a man. In the last scene, Dimmesdale dies in Hester’s arms when he gives his final sermon and dares to speak the truth in the public. His soul gets real relief. Through these three scenes, we can come to know that the image of Hester and Dimmesdale are in sharp contrast. Hawthorne attempts to reduce male’s priority in a patriarchal hierarchy to a negative role and emphasizes women’s growing sense of liberty.
5. The analysis of Hawthorne’s attitude toward feminist consciousness
From the whole novel, we can find that Hawthorne’s attitude toward Hester is positive. He uses a great number of complimentary terms in describing her appearance and character. Therefore, it can be concluded that Hawthorne still looks the heroine as an attractive, lady-like and strong-willed woman even through in writing about her sin of adultery. Because Hester is a typical victim in that patriarchy society, there arises the issue of equality between men and women. The sensitive question does appear in Hester’s mind, which inspires her to consider the ways for the liberation of women. Therefore, we can confirm that Hawthorne has begun to think of woman’s social status.
In the final chapter of this book, Hawthorne again comes up with the issue of women’s liberation: “she assured them, too, of her firm belief, that, at some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for it, in heaven’s own time, a new truth would be revealed, in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness.” (Hawthorne, 2009:203) From the above descriptions, the readers are not difficult to catch in this bitterly persecuted woman the image of a forerunner of the modern feminists (Jin Hanshen, 2007:96). In other words, it suggests that woman should be liberated from patriarchal
society in Hawthorne’s eyes. We can draw the conclusion that Hawthorne’s dream of women’ liberation is revolutionary: he has realized that the social system and Puritan domination is the root of women’s suppressed condition. Therefore, the society should take a change to create a new type of social relations, besides, it is also essential for men to change their sexist attitude toward women. The most important for women is to change their ways of thinking, lives in reality and learn to take action.
6. Conclusion
Throughout his life Hawthorne was influenced by the various women who surrounded him. As his biographers have demonstrated, women often played crucial roles in his development. Hester is the typical figure that he explores the nature of gender relations in his day. In The Scarlet Letter, we can come to know that Hester is an extremely distinctive woman comparing with tradition one in the patriarchic society. Although she is under over-loaded discrimination from the puritan authority and society, she still holds her head and confronts to all unfair treatment. What’s more, her character to dare to love and dare to hate is most admirable and impressive. Obviously, the commendable mind of Hester is what feminist advocates. Therefore, it can be included that Hester is the best witness to typify Hawthorne’s female consciousness. Hawthorne shows his sympathy for Hester due to her plight under the severer religious doctrine and social shaming. He has realized the root of women’s suppressed social status. Therefore, Hawthorne thinks it is necessary for human to change their sexist attitude toward women. He suggests that the whole relation between manhood and womanhood should be built on a ground of mutual happiness. However, owing to the inevitable limitation of time and the religious perspective of the Hawthorne, Hester was unable to indicate the path to women liberation.
