NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE’S
‘THE SCARLET LETTER’ - THE INDIAN PERSPECTIVE
Dr. T. Vasantha Lakshmi
The novel is the main stream through which the
dominant images of women, their experiences in any culture have been most
widely elaborated until recently. Only a few novelists have begun to explore
the different ways in which women have lived or wanted to live. Woman has not
been defined as a subject in her own right but merely as an entity that
concerns man either in his real life or in his fantasy life.
Hester Prynne, the woman protagonist, in The
Scarlet Letter is seen as a prototype of what today we call the New Woman
in a feminist perspective. Though the heroine in the novel appears to be
adulterous and is termed by the society so, the work sets out to prove the
heroine not guilty of adultery but a victim of male chauvinism. Hester is
presented as the revolutionary woman character against the patriarchal society
where females are only at the periphery.
Hester comes from a poor family. She is given
in marriage at a very early age to the old and deformed man, Roger
Chillingworth. Love has no place in the relationship of Hester and her husband
Roger. She prefers to stand on the scaffold amidst so many people rather than
live with her husband Roger.
The minister Dimmesdale knowingly and
deliberately jeopardized her happiness and moral security. He shrank from
assuming his place beside her because his perilous pride in his reputation for
sanctity was dearer to him than truth. Like Roger Chillingworth, he wronged Hester
and left her to bear the punishment alone. She is a social outcast, he a pillar
of society. Her deed is expressed and his is hidden.
As a result of the selfish ends of these two
men, Hester, the woman, suffers on account of the laws of the society. The
greatness of Hester Prynne lies in her courage to trust herself to believe in
the possibility of a new morality in the New World. She achieved spiritual
greatness inspite of her human weakness, and the prejudices of her puritan society.
The novel challenged society’s right to
restrict the freedom of individual passion. Many people refused to interpret
the Scarlet letter ‘A’ by its original signification. They said that it meant
‘Able’, so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength. (p)
For the readers in any part of the world, The
Scarlet Letter brings out the image of the woman in her own culture and
community. The issues that dominate
the novel are universal in nature - the issues such as the
demand of the male-dominated society; the anguish of the woman because of the
duplicity in the nature of men, the demand for chastity in woman whereas a man
can live happily or without it. A woman might be mean, despicable, harsh, cold
but if she was virginal or chaste she was counted a ‘good woman. If she was
generous, kind, tender but not chaste, she was counted a ‘bad’ woman.
How does an Indian woman react after reading
‘The Scarlet Letter? No doubt, she finds a true image of herself in Hester in
the issues of loveless marriages, in the suffering and in the patriarchal
society wherein the man rules everyone and everything.
In India, a girl is being instilled the values
of purity, patience and loyalty by being narrated the stories from the Ramayana and the
Mahabharata. In our mythology,
a woman was truly given many rights like education or the choice in marriage
that the woman of today is fighting for. But, unfortunately, today, the woman
in India is facing the same kind of situations which Hester faced in the novel
regarding the choice in marriage. Her loyalty to her love, her sincerity and
truth, her sacrifice, her unwillingness to be hypocritical, her moral courage
to face the society for the sake of these values of eternal lire give her an
aura of greatness, purity and mobility that transcends the man-made institution
of marriage. Her character inspires in the reader a spontaneous admiration
rather than disapproval that an adulteress gets. The reaction of the Indian
mind need be no exception to the same spontaneous sentiment mentioned above.
Though the Indians acknowledge the high status of a woman as a representative
of Shakti, the Divine Mother Herself, women were not given the same honour and
respect. To a certain extent, this change can be attributed to the influence of
Western culture.
Women have not been allowed to express their feelings, certainly not their hostile,
angry feelings. Despite the movements which fight for the equal rights of women
in social, economic and political field, an average woman of today still feels
uncertain about identity as a social being. A woman is still identified by her
husband’s status. If she defies her husband who makes her suffer and makes an
effort to maintain her individuality and self-respect, she alone suffers from
isolation like Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter.
It is taken for granted that a woman was born
to suffer and to sacrifice. She should understand the value of courage to
express her independence of thought and action. Finally, I conclude with a
sloka from the Hindu Sanskrit scripture which says:
“Where women are honoured, there the Gods are
pleased.”