Multiple Perspectives

re is one episode, in the very beginning of The Scarlet Letter, that can be interpreted in two completely different ways, making the novel either pro-feminist or as functioning in the stereotype that Judith Butler deplores (or, if they are not mutually exclusive, both). When Hester Prynne is walking down the “Marketplace” the “goodwives” are described with very unflattering adjectives. They are ugly, coarse, man-like, “the beef and ale of their native land.” Hester, in contrast, is a beautiful “figure of perfect elegance,” dark haired and feminine.

Butler and deBeauvoir would scream out here that the stereotypes of women, the myth that is perpetuated that there is a distinct boundary between male and female, and that the female stereotype is one-sided. Why should the “villains” be portrayed as ugly and “un-feminine” while the protagonist is a gorgeous “model of femininity?” An outrage perpetuated by the male dominated society!

Yet, on the other hand, the book is clearly a criticism of the Puritan mistreatment of women in the 17^th century, and that is shown partly through these descriptions. The people who were the righteous good guys are now bad and the people who were viewed as bad guys are now the good guys. Form that perspective Hawthorne is an early feminist writer.

Of course these ideas have to evolve over time and this perhaps marks a step in that evolution; it is also written from a man’s perspective, and any feminist work written by a man will be approached from a male perspective.