The wave of feminism was beginning in Hawthorne’s time period, but that does not necessarily mean he himself was a feminist. One quote by Nathaniel Hawthorne sums up his feeling towards women authors pretty well saying, “America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash - and should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed” (“The Damned Mob”). This quote in itself, without explanation is very anti-feminist, though he is the creator of one of the first feminist protagonists in American literature. Also, in The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne was outcasted, had no privacy, and no rights. But feminism is the idea that women should have these rights, because they are humans. The way Nathaniel treated Hester in the novel, despite her outcome, could be deemed very
The wave of feminism was beginning in Hawthorne’s time period, but that does not necessarily mean he himself was a feminist. One quote by Nathaniel Hawthorne sums up his feeling towards women authors pretty well saying, “America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash - and should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed” (“The Damned Mob”). This quote in itself, without explanation is very anti-feminist, though he is the creator of one of the first feminist protagonists in American literature. Also, in The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne was outcasted, had no privacy, and no rights. But feminism is the idea that women should have these rights, because they are humans. The way Nathaniel treated Hester in the novel, despite her outcome, could be deemed very