Emasculation In Toni Morrison And The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne's Beloved

The emasculation of a man can, and most likely will, result in the deterioration of either his physical or his mental state of being. Not only is it damaging to the self-confidence of the man, but it’s also eradicating a belief that’s been taught since childhood, which is that men are suppose to be strong and phlegmatic, meaning they should always be calm and collected. There are various ways of ridding a man of his masculinity, whether it be his partner finding another man to satisfy certain needs or his body overpowering his mind, even when he knows what he’s doing isn’t right. These various ways can be found and explored in both Beloved, written by Toni Morrison, and The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Both books portray their male characters reacting to various situations, such as temptation and anger, in different ways; and in the end the characters all result with some form of emasculation. In Beloved, Toni Morrison was quick to portray the main character as unstable when it came to commitment and temptation. When Paul D. first arrived to Sethe’s house, he had no plans of building a future with Sethe. He had no plans of settling down or making any commitments because of how …show more content…
The man she had an affair with wasn’t tough enough to speak of his sin out loud, and her husband was in no shape to take care of a child that was the product of that affair. When the mayor was threatening to take Pearl away from Hester, Hester was extremely unhappy seeing as though Pearl was her only company. “‘God gave her into my keeping,’ repeated Hester Prynne, raising her voice almost to a shriek. ‘I will not give her up!’” (Hawthorne 169). Even though Hester was not fond of little Pearl at first, she did grow to admire her and enjoy her company. She became strong, and she learned to love her only