Struggle and Spiritual Awakening in Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” and Nathaniel Hawtorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”
The paper is meant to find out in what way Bronte’s treatment of the woman obliged to challenge conventional social and spiritual freedom and Hawthorne’s intention to contrast Puritan morality with passion and individualism are illustrated through their women characters, Jane Eyre and Hester Prynne respectively, in one of these writers’ best creations, Jane Eyre and The Scarlet Letter. The first part of the study shapes Jane’s struggle against rage, passion, and obedience, against the British patriarchal system where men are those responsible for taking decisions, making women obey the social and political rules. The analysis will describe the heroine’s ways of facing the world beset by trials and temptation in search of grace, as well as her desire to create a world free of oppression, both gender and economic oppression. Jane Eyre possesses a sense of her self-worth and dignity, a commitment to justice and principle, a trust in God and a passionate disposition. The second part of the paper renders Hester Prynne in terms of the struggle within society, by facing the cruel judgment of the Puritans. The investigation portrays Hester as a woman who seems to have embraced the Puritan theology wholeheartedly, but who in her mind and heart is a different person, who has turned away from the Puritan’s way of life. Her remorse toward her husband versus the sympathy for her lover, her compulsion to remain in Boston, her voluptuousness as opposed to her effort to repent and conform, all these tensions are the very essence of our idea of Hester. Both Jane and Hester are winners in the battle against life. The former confronted life and its hardships without violating her own principles and nature. The latter faced her punishment and accepted the weight of her sin, thus accepting herself.
Keywords: patriarchal society, Puritanism, individualism, spiritual freedom, justice, rage, passion
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8. Ibid., p. 30
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13. Ibid.
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15. Ibid., p. 210
16. Ibid., p. 239
17. Ibid., p. 240
18. Craig, op. cit., pp. 472-473
19. Ibid., p. 475
20. Bronte, op. cit., p. 321
21. Ibid., p. 251
22. Andrew, Sanders. The Short Oxford History of English Literature, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1994, p. 420
23. Nathaniel, Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter, Ohio, Penguin Classics, 1986, p. 85
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25. Ibid., p. 141
26. Ibid., pp. 142-143
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28. Gollin, op. cit., p. 144
29. Hawthorne, op. cit., p. 184
30. Edward, Wagenknecht. Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Man, His Tales and Romances. New York, Continuum, 1989, p. 86
31. Hawthorne, op. cit., p. 163
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36. Hawthorne, op. cit., p. 180
37. Ibid., p. 111
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39. Ibid., p. 54
40. Ibid., p. 55
41. Edward, Wagenknecht. Cavalcade of the American Novel from the Birth of the Nation to the Middle of the Twentieth Century,
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42. Hawthorne, op. cit., p. 101
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44. Ibid., p. 217
45. Hawthorne, op. cit., p. 182
46. Seymour, Gross. The Scarlet Letter: An Authoritative Text, Essays in Criticism and Scholarship, New York, Norton, 1988, p. 56
47. Hawthorne, op. cit., p. 179
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