Impotence and Omnipotence

Impotence is defined as " lacking bodily strength" or "unable to do something." Chillingworth is the figure of an impotent man because he's an older man who sends his younger, beautiful wife away by herself for years and is not physically in her life to the point where they assume he is killed by the "savage" Native Americans.
Johnson makes Chillingworth look sympathetic and caring for Hester as he confesses that he is why this has happened to Hester. He feels if he wasn't absent in her life he would've atleast saved her from the humilation knowing fully well that he may not have fathered a child for himself at his age.
Omnipotence is defined as having a dfine power, like God. Johnson portrays Chillingworth as omnipotent because he taking the herbs and roots as a form of his strength and knowledge. Although Chillingworth was in "captivation" he was taking in stories and beliefs of the Native American remedies.

Yes I know its late, but hey, better late than never...
Its always the small details that struck me about a work and The Scarlet Letter is no different. When Hester approaches the gate to give the embroidered gloves to the governor, the bond-servant at the gate sees her wearing a scarlet letter and has no clue what it is or of its significance. He just assumes from her determination on entering the mansion that she is of some importance and high status. I can only imagine that this is just one of many subtle hints Hawthorne placed into the story to show the meaninglessness of the badge. This can correlate to what we discussed about semiotics that the bond-servant thought the badge meant the total opposite of what it was meant to convey.

The Scarlet Letter

I've always loved this book so I didn't mind reading it again, but now I was able to keep the theories of the feminist we have studied in mind while I was reading. The text seems to be very misogynistic in the way that a woman has to wear a big red letter A because she committed adultery and the whole town scrutinizes her and her child. Reading it now I see that it is a feminist novel in the way it shows that men have strong emotions and shows Dimmesdale as a weak character and Hester as the one who remains strong. Usually the woman is portrayed as the weaker sex and the men must save them in some way. However in the novel Hester is the one who is basically saving her adulterous lover who is not man enough to confess his sin and share some of the consequence with Hester. Instead he tries to lean on her and winds up making himself sick with guilt. It was a nice change to see a strong female character who did wrong and lived with the reprecussions and cared for her daughter as a single mother.

The Scarlet Letter

The story takes place many years ago when we can not relate to the beliefs and customs of the people at that time. Yet we sympathize with Hester, Dimmsdale and Pearl. They appear to be the most innocent, pure and kind people in the colony unlike Roger, the Reverend, Master Bellingham and the rest of the townspeople. Also the physical description of a character go along with the personality of him or her. For example, Hester is beautiful, young so her personality is kind and giving. Roger Chillingworth is old, ugly and he is the person who seeks to destroy Dimmsdale. The thing that was astonishing was that Hester returns to the town and resumes to wear the Scarlet letter after so many years.

Scarlet Letter

As of reading The Scarlet Letter for the first time, it is an obvious that the text is written in a misogynistic style. Not that I am saying Nathaniel Hawthorne is a misogynist, but the main character (Hester) goes through a lot of triumph and tribulation. Hester is punished for committing adultery. She has to wear an "A" which stands for adultery. She is used as an example to the Boston society. She is imprisoned. During this time period people aren't peanolized for adultery. I think that Nathaniel Hawthorne is a feminist. The way he displays Hester whom is able to be strong and fight through the societal views and hatred that is shot towards her.

Scarlet Letter

I had just read this last summer, and looking at it from the vantage of what topics that we have been reading lately, one of the first things I noticed at the beginning of the story was mentioning of Queen Elizabeth. The way that Hawthorne says she is "man-like" and that the women of the town resemble such remarks in their attitude and body. Yet, he tells how later generation of females would become lighter of body and not as open in their thinking. Hester, even in being an outcast, does not lose her strength of self.

The Scarlet Letter

I found this story interesting because of the way Hawthorne approached the details in the Scarlet Letter.
Everytime I read a story about a young individual who gets tortured for some thing they couldn't control, I can't help but think about reality. There are so many children in the world whose parents make the mistakes and they have to deal with the consequences. In this case Hester is proud of Pearl and sees her as a "blessing" and a reason to go on with her life. The townspeople talk about how she isnt human because of the question about who her father is. To instigate this theory she goes about saying her father is the Devil. Once Pearl knows that Dimmesdale is her father she feels whole for once.
Although Hester was humiliated completely by being outcasted by wearing this A where ever she went, it was also a way to show that she could cross these boundaries where everyone else was scared to go. Rebellion shows bravery and strength but has consequences for the actions.
This novel was full of seperation issues within characters as well as the individual mind.

The Scarlet Letter

Having read the Scarlet Letter once prior in high school, reading it today sheds a whole new light on the story. I dont remember much of the story from high school, but slowly it came back to me as I read it now. To begin, I am still completely infuriated by the punishment and public display of humiliation that is portrayed in this novel. Even though the story was written in a different time period, and the view of the people has drastically changed, it still aggrivates me to know that women were still put on "display" in this manner. Hester Prynne was ridiculed and humiliated, while the man who contributed to this crime was living care free. Although his freedom was dependent on Hester Prynne's refusal to speak, his cowardness and fear of admitting to his mistake makes me see him as less of a man. I am also intrigued by the relationship between the Minister Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth. Roger Chillingworth has to be the most deceitful, contradicting, manipulative man that exsists. He acts as a friend to Dimmesdale and confides in him, yet he is hiding this secret of adultry from the most holy man of the town. I feel like this relationship is completely superficial and will only benefit Chillingworth. It seems as though he is trying to redeem himself from his sins.
Another interesting point that i found in Chillingworth was his comparison and refrences to Satan, the same way the narrator notes these characteristics in Pearl. The two of them are so much alike, almost superfically sweet, but pure destruction inside. Pearl is this innocent child who at times is angel like, but is also able to dance on the graves of dead people. In her defense, she is a child, but the guidelines of right and wrong should be instilled upon a child. I find Pearl to be the most interesting and fun character of the whole story. It is interesting to note her reactions to physical contact, being that she has been isolated for so long. At one point she reaches out to touch the ministers hand, but she runs from Bellingham. It makes the reader wonder if she can sense a difference between "good" and "evil". I also wonder how accurate of a dipiction this is?

Hester's morals

The Scarlet Letter is a good exaple of the twisted moral structure of that time period. The morality of that time was to kill anyone who was different or "sinful". In the story Hester is a woman who has to wear an A on her clothing because she is an adulterer. In the beggining of the story three women are gossiping as to what should be done to her, and two of the women wish physical harm to come to her. One of the woman says she should die for her sins because she has shamed the entire community. They believe their moral fiber is right, when in fact Hester and Dimmesdale are the real people in the story who have the real morality.

I find Hester's actions very bold and courageous. She walks with the "A" on her chest as if with pride that she is not afraid or bothered by her community. She doesn't give up her secret even though she is pressed for it many times. She also decides to stay which I questioned. Why is she putting herself through this when she can leave and have a better life for her and Pearl? Is it because of Dimmesdale, or is it her pride that wont let her leave?

Hawthorne’s humor; Hester’s house

First, it would be easy, amid Hawthorne’s high moral seriousness and such gothic trappings as the fearsome prison gates and the pillory scaffold, to miss the flashes of restrained, subversive wit in the authorial narration. When Hester is commanded by the reverend John Wilson, the narration disarms us by revealing that Wilson’s “kind and genial spirit” is for him a source of “shame,” before “the eldest clergyman of Boston” is compared to baby Pearl: “his gray eyes, accustomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking, like those of Hester’ infant, in the unadulterated sunshine.” This solemn, law-giving patriarch, the narration implies, should stick to the cozy confines of his parsonage.

I’m also struck by the externalization of theme in the physical details of Hester’s house, the “small thatched cottage” she retreats to after prison. The cottage “stood on the shore, looking across a basin of the sea at the forest-covered hills, towards the west.” At the outset of her new existence as pariah, the only home available to Hester is this meager shelter “on the shore,” on a brink, a threshold, a continually shifting boundary, an unstable edge between the solid land of the New World and the ancient sea. The cottage gives upon a “basin of the sea” at once particular and universal; this cove on the Massachusetts coastline is also the bowl of the sea itself, the immense saline womb, a womb which is also Hester’s. This basin separates the shorefront cottage from “forest-covered hills, towards the west,” spatial data pointing us towards conquest, expansion, the ever-receding “frontier.” At Hester’s back is the awful Puritan past, in sight before her are the western hills, with all the promise and menace of the still primeval forest. The cottage itself is fringed with a “clump of scrubby trees,” probably pitch pine or scrub oak, that “did not so much conceal the cottage from view, as seem to denote that here was some object which . . . ought to be, concealed.” Here we detect a certain animism that for Hawthorne brings the landscape alive, endowing the forest and its trees with sentience. The dwarf pines conspire with Hester’s persecutors and, like the letter embroidered on her breast, announce her sin to all witnesses. Even those unacquainted with her infamy will know the single mother banished to this “little, lonely” place “ought to be concealed”; the trees will tell them.

Hawthorne's The Scarlet letter is an interesting and effective study in irony. The glaring message is that while Hester is ostracized and condemned by the Puritain community for her sinfulness and lack of virtue and morality, throughout the work, the reader is meant to feel tht she and Dimmesdale remain the only two characters who in truth embody the virtues of human kindness. In truth, they are the only two characters who truly retain their humanity. Their sin, so abhorred by the community, is what renders them most human, and acts as a sign of their human frailty. The Puritan community meanwhile, though considering themselves to be the height of piety and goodness, is in truth, Hawthorne implies, often cruel and unforgiving. Their rigid adherence to what is literally puritanical, comes at the cost of their humanity and basic human kindness.
It is interesting to note that Hawthorne's grandfather was in fact one of the judges at the famous Salem witch trials. Throughout his life, Hawthorne carried a burdened sense of guilt for the actions of his ancestor. His criticm of the Puritan community emerged partly as a result of this guilt. Hawthorne flips Puritan principles on their head, implying that perhaps, the rigidity of that which is seen as most pure, most righteous, can in truth be the cause of sin and cruelty towards others. Hawthorne's exploration of these issues of morality and its implications, truly make his work progressive.

I like Nathaniel Hawthorne's style of writing leave the ending to the reader because I agree that in reality there isn't always a happy ending. In addition the fact he concentrated in the individual's inner conflicts interests me. It feels like despite his "dark" writing brings "light" to the reader. The Scarlet Letter is an example. Nathaniel wrote about the issue like adultery that people rather favor to be covered and caused readers to think about it and come up with their best solution. Though I'm not done reading The Scarlet Letter, it is very interesting.

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.

The Scarlet Letter

In the first ten chapters of Nathaniel Hawthorne's, The Scarlet Letter, he discusses the troubles of a woman named Hester being punished for committing adultery. Hester has a three year old daughter named Pearl who is also being teased by the community because of her mother's mistake. The town really puts down Hester for what she did, which can be understandable, however her daughter has nothing to do with what she did. This to me showed ignorance on the town's part by teasing the little girl and threatening to take her away from her mother. It doesn't make her bad mother for what she did. People make mistakes, she shouldn't be judged on her parenting skills for that once incident, unless she was endangering her child, which she wasn't.

Second Sex

Simone De Beauvoir's "The Second Sex" raises an interesting theory that men want everything from women. They expect you to serve and enchant, but they also want you to be everything else to them, they want you provide a sense of themselves for them. Maybe in earlier times when women were greatly oppressed did this theory hold more weight, but in modern society I do not believe that this is wholly true because what the author believes about men is also true of women. In a relationship like marriage you do expect a variety of ideals from eachother. I realize that most women and men are playing out their roles that society expects, but I also believe that nowadays women and men expect the same from eachother and exist along side one another.
I also enjoyed reading about the myths about women in different societies, although they seemed quite absurd.

More Feminism...

I happen to agree with the points that de Beauvoir brings out in the excerpt from The Second Sex that women are seen as complementary to Man however there is nothing wrong with asserting that notion. It is an unarguable fact that women have been mistreated and denounced over the centuries. However, as to go as far as Brandon declares that "women are the soul supporters of men" is just a little absurd. True, women do have a different perspective of men and are able to see angles to the problem that men might overlook. Allow me to be stereotypical for a moment; men look at problems from a rational perspective, "a + b = c." Whereas women look to solve problems from an emotional perspective and might be able to detect that by adding "b" you're causing some sort of discomfort for someone else. One can not function solely on one perspective over the other, the two need to complement each other and come to some sort of compromise to work out the problems and issues that come up over the course of the lifespan.

the reason of existence

many womanists who raised the subject of the woman inferiority to men, they see it from only one side. they see woman as related to her social roles, and to her relation man-woman.but, Simone De Beauvoir emphasized the necessity of the woman `s self understanding as abstract object, as opposed to any roles or relations in any conventional system.
the women oppression is transfered through history, religion, myth, system, and before all through the man`s transcendence. that male dominance is the responsible for her inferiority, not her self as a being. what was needed was the reason of existence for the woman.

Simone De Beauvoir writes about women being in existence only because of men. Women are considered "the other", only put in this world to aid men. Man is considered the "subject" and women are placed to be by their side and nothing more. They are "incomplete" and could never be "complete" because they are women and therefore should just deal with the role they are given.

The Secondary Sex

In "The Second Sex" women are either seen as obsticales to men of object of their lustful desires. In men a man's world woman are secondary creatures and at times we are not even that. As Simone de Beauvoir says we are seen as " Others". She even refers to how women are seen as living their lives through the dreams of men. For example greek myths that men imagined up. Men as the virile creatures, like Zeus that run everything and woman even in these stories are secondary charachters just as in life. Since men are contradictory creatures and they dream both "a life and to repose", and intern woman manifest as men's contradictory dreams.

Women's Equality

If most men think women are their pleasure, so do women think men are their pleasure too. I don’t think because of this, men started to exploit women’s rights. Think back of thousands years ago, there were countless wars happened. Losers became slaves and winners became kings. Darwin’s “Survival of the fittest” works best in the wars. Men started to consider women’s inferiority of lack of masculine power to battle. However, when the wars were less and less, the more rapidly civilization grew. Men and women’s mind underwent change because they saw the new civilization. Women gradually allowed to work outside and educated in public school because men started to think women’s ability to assist them for a better life. Woman began not to afraid to disobey men. They debated with men with rational and undeniable facts that they were exploited by men. If men were irrational, women would never get their equality. NO, women were no longer inferior to men. The fact is a woman can easily kill a man by pulling a trigger. Men also realized this. So they accept that they should accept women’s equality.

The Second Sex

Beauvoir had some concrete questions and analytical situations where she was trying to solidify the feminine aspect that the world may have. She brought up the fact that God did not even create a woman independently. God made Eve out of the same clay that Adam was made out of and none the less, Adam was created first. Many of the times women are put second due to cultural norms. But you realize many cultures practice the same thing. The unity and diversity of religion seems like a place to start this "Division of the sexes".
An interesting part of this excerpt was about virginity. Many cultures see virginity as the girl being "pure", "clean", and " untouched" but Marco Polo stated that the Tibetans denied virgins because they see it as a disadvantage that no man was aroused by it. Did the men just want some one who they thought was able to arouse them and someone to love? It seemed like men thought as women as pleasurable toys but didn't realize the torment women would go through.
Although men act tough and like they are superior to men, they do care about the opinion of a woman. I agree with Brandon when he said that women are the soul supporters of men. Although men may criticize how women react to a situation or decipher facts, they do take everything into consideration.

The Second Sex

In reading Simon De Beauvois, women are not only viewed as the secondary inhabitants below men who walk the Earth, but also as the secondary inhabitant whom somewhat has the upper hand over man. Speaking around the time period that The Second Sex was published (1949), women were viewed as to dependants to their male superior. Women are either obstacles that men have to overcome, or are submissive to a mans want, need or will. Women on the social ladder were placed below men. If you unfold the wrapping, in my opinion I think women are the soul supporters of men. Women should be placed besed to men on the social ladder. Today, women are even placed above men on the social ladder. Without women, men wouldn't have any possession of "happiness and triumph" (pg. 315). Women are the soul supporters of men. They are able to share an opinion, or give adice that's very different from a male perspective. Men tne to trust the opinion and advice from women. This is an establishment of power that women have over men, or should I say only one of their empowerments.

The Scarlet Letter

Hester's experience with the Scarlet A seems quite similar to the relationship between the main character in "The Yellow Wallpaper" and the figures she imagined were in the wallpaper. While both the Scarlet A and the wallpaper originated as symbols confinement for the characters, eventually, they were able to transform the signs into positive symbols that represented their identities. Hence, Hester did not leave Massachusetts's, instead she attempted to integrate the Scarlet A into her experiences and memories.