Maggie Welsh
AP Language and Composition, Period 4
25 October 2013
Inequality in Puritan Society
Throughout history, there has always been a group of people struggling to get more power and equality and a common controversy is the equality of men vs. women. The Scarlet Letter is a about Hester Prynne committing the sin of adultery and wearing a scarlet letter “A” to feel the shame. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays women’s place in society as inferior to men because females are confined to stereotype, are liable to cheat, and are unequal with men. Women being confined to stereotypes shows that Hawthorne wants to portray women as inferior to men. Seven years have passed since the birth of Pearl and Hester Prynne has become more active by bringing food for the poor and nursing the sick. Prynne has transformed and “Some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such he stern development, of the feminine character and person, when the women …She who has once been woman and ceased to be so might at any moment become a woman again, if there were only the magic touch to effect the transformation” (158).In this quote, Hawthorne makes a generalization about women by stating there are attributes that keeps a woman tender. Also Hawthorne claims that when women lose their tenderness they stop becoming a woman. Therefore Hawthorne claims that in Puritan society, women have two choices: stay tender and die or lose their tenderness and stop being a woman. By this generalization, it is clearly seen how Hawthorne creates a stereotype. Throughout the whole book, Hawthorne never creates any stereotypes toward men and this shows how he places women under men, and in this society they are confined because of generalizations. In addition, Hawthorne claims that “Women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle” (85). Again, Hawthorne makes another assumption about women by saying that all women love sewing. This is why most women in society do needle-work even though it is looked down upon in society. Since “every” woman sews, society requires certain women who do not enjoy sewing to sew and there is nothing they can do about it. When Hawthorne says that it is incomprehensible to men, it displays that men think of it like a useless task and they look down upon the women who sew since they do not understand how anyone can enjoy it. Furthermore, this shows how women are inferior to men because their work is not only predetermined, but also viewed as unnecessary. The two stereotypes of sewing and being tender show how Hawthorne displays women as inferior to men. Since women are liable to cheat, women are considered inferior to men. Hawthorne states, “Let men tremble to win the hand of a woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart! Else it may be their miserable fortune, as it was Roger Chillingworth’s, when some mightier touch than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached even for the calm content, the marble image of happiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality”(171). Hawthorne is trying to point out that men should win a woman’s whole heart before marrying her elsewise someone else might win her love. This is shown with Prynne, Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale because Dimmesdale won the love of a married woman, Prynne. Women are at fault because even after the struggle to win her heart, the man gets easily replaced by other men. Furthermore, this quote specifically points out that women cheat, but does not mention man’s propensity to cheat. Based on this quote, women are inferior to men because women easily sin, and in Puritan society sinners are placed in the bottom of the community. Women are placed under men in Puritan society because they are natural sinners
