The Theme Of Self Identity In Beloved By Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped. It may be true that, to a sensitive observer, there was something exquisitely painful in it” (Hawthorne).
In The Scarlet Letter, a main theme that can be taken from Hester Prynne’s situation is that of self-identity. Hester was meant to suffer under the eyes of the public. They branded her with that letter as a constant reminder of her sin, and they were attempting to remove her identity in place of one deemed fit by the town. A person’s name is the one true thing that belongs to them; and …show more content…
To Sethe, the only way to keep living and keep moving forward is to make sure her present life as a single mother has no correlation with her “other life.” She considers her life with Denver as her “better life,” and she wants to protect Denver from the things she experienced years prior to living where they live now. Paul D. is from “that other one,” which can be interpreted as her former life as a slave. Him entering Sethe’s life wasn’t completely positive at first, seeing as though her main struggle was to keep her two lives separate from each other, but eventually she becomes content with the idea of Paul D. taking up permanent residency in her household. Trying to balance her relationship with a man from her past life as a slave all the while still trying to shelter her daughter from said life places a huge burden on Sethe’s shoulders. Out of those two characters who both become a large part of her life, her love for Denver outweighs any feelings she has towards Paul D.; which can be seen at the end of the book, seeing as though the only strong relationship Sethe ends up with is her relationship with her …show more content…
The beginning of the book starts off with the portrayal of the dominance men have over women. Celie is describing her father raping her in her very first journal entry and how helpless she is against him. When Celie is sent off to Mr., he does nothing but mistreat her and misuse her, and she does nothing to fight back. In another section of the book, Harpo tried to show his dominance over Sofia by beating her; but Sofia explains to Celie about how she’s been beat by men all her life, and she says she’d never let her husband, the man that is suppose to love and cherish her, beat her too. Before Shug Avery comes back to town, Mr. is a mess trying to reorganize everything to impress her. Multiple times the book describes the relationship between Mr. and Shug Avery, which is the standard relationship between a man and a woman. By the end of the book, Celie has learned to stand up for herself against Mr. and his treatment towards her. They end up having civil conversations with each other, showing the growth of both of their characters. Sofia became tired of Harpo constantly trying to prove himself better than her, so she left him. Shug and Celie form a relationship that becomes stronger than what Shug’s and Mr.’s used to be. The women in the novel went through major changes, but they proved that they could handle difficult situations and that the world is,