分析《红字》中的女权主义
When he was only 4 years old, his father died on a long voyage in Dutch Guiana. Among seven years of married life, Captain Hawthorne had spent little more than seven months in Salem, and had been absent from home at the births of all his children. Generally speaking, Hawthorne’s mother shouldered the responsibility of both father and mother for the growth of their children. A widow, with three children of under age, and with little property left by her husband, had to live on the support of her maternal brothers and sisters. Hawthorne shows great sympathies and gratitude for his mother, which illustrates the reason of his highly praising maternity in The Scarlet Letter. It is from his mother's living situation that leads him to begin to think about women's status in the patriarchal society. And he has found that they are excluded and marginalized by the society.
Hawthorne married Sophia Peabody in 1842; his wife is an independent and talented woman. Without her support Hawthorne probably would not have become a successful writer. His harmonious marriage life promotes him to explore imagination, intuition, love and maternity. In short, Hawthorne's family life contributes greatly to his thinking about women's living condition and partly to his redefinition of women's femininity.
In 1846, Hawthorne was to serve as a chief executive officer of the Custom-House in Salem. When the member of liberal party won the presidential election, Hawthorne himself even became the victim of the patrician games. He lost the position in the Customs when he was forty five in the prime of his life and lost a means to support his family. Therefore, Hawthorne’s political suffering in the Customs had changed the direction of his career to the writing of the novel. In other words, the Custom-House is the beginning for his creation of The Scarlet Letter. The Custom-House implied that Hawthorne projected his agony about the society on the protagonist of Hester. Gradually, Hawthorne totally feels a kind of disgust to the cruel American society which lacks security and safety; the eagle which symbolizes the America always misuses the sovereign power to get control over people, meanwhile bring a lot of mischief to her pious citizens; from that point of view, the conflict between the society and the individual is so obvious that Hawthorne devises the