Passionlessness
After finishing The Scarlet Letter and this week’s selection of readings, like Colby, I noticed the similarity between Hester Prynne’s situation and the argument Nancy F. Cott makes in “Passionlessness: An Interpretation of Victorian Sexual Ideology 1790-1850.” Plus, from last class, the fact that The Scarlet Letter is a story about Puritans through a Victorian lens helped everything click together and explain this similarity. Since I was beat to posting about this topic first (ha!), I suppose my post can be seen as extended comment to Colby’s post, including some different and additional interpretations of Cott’s piece and Hester’s situation.
From three phases of British opinion (the middles class’s idea that sexual restraint was a high virtue, the higher classes’ idea that women’s modesty was a sexual ploy and women served men’s purposes, and the Evangelical’s synthesized idea of women having moral agency to be sexually restrained for God’s purposes), Cott concludes that the moral endowment of women, which included being sexually passive, shifted from women’s sexual power over men in terms of power and focus of female character (Peiss 133-135). It was interesting to read that Colby interpreted this as an example of Foucault’s use of reverse discourse, in which women utilized the passionlessness discourse created by the patriarchal society and church for their own resistance and to gain more control in the sexual arena. However, when I first read Cott’s piece, I interpreted that both men and women simultaneously created this ideology, which is how I interpreted Howard Gadlin’s quote that “Men wanted to desexualize relationships to maintain domination; women wanted to desexualize relationships to limit male domination” (qtd. in Peiss 140). The passionlessness discourse was not only created by men to serve their own purposes. Cott pointed out that during the 18th century, the church’s congregation was predominantly female and I figured they probably actively influenced the ideology that women were sexually passive as part of their natural virtue (Peiss 135). In addition, Cott made a point that women were becoming more vulnerable and were in higher risk of being sexually exploited when sexual patterns and sex ratios changed in the last 18th century (Peiss 136-137). By being/ appearing passionless/ sexually passive, women had some control in an era where women had much more to lose in a “disadvantageous marriage market” (Peiss 139). In my mind, I tagged this as another example of Foucault’s statement that there is no true dominant-subordinate relationship in terms of power.
As for Hester Prynne, I also believe she is an example of the shift from the passionate and threatening to purity woman to the passionless and embodiment of virtue woman. In the chapter, “The Marketplace,” there is the very first description of Hester. She is described as being very beautiful and feminine and one of the matrons even describes her as a “brazen hussy” (Hawthorne 49). This image contrasts greatly with the eventual appearance and lifestyle Hester adopts as evident in the chapter, “Hester at Her Needle.” She always hid her hair under a cap and dressed in coarse, somber-colored, and modest clothing while in contrast and even as a foil, her daughter, Pearl, is dressed in the brightest and fanciest clothing (and from class discussion, Pearl can be said to be dressed as a prostitute or eroticized child). While Hester does earn a living as a seamstress, she also partakes in a lot of charity such as making clothes for the poor. From the chapter, “Another View of Hester,” seven years later, the townspeople begin to acknowledge and even favor Hester. She becomes the town’s “self-ordained … Sister of Mercy,” who is “’so kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so comfortable to the afflicted’” (Hawthorne 150-151). However, it is acknowledged that Hester was marble cold and her life changed “from passion and feeling, to thought” (Hawthorne 152). In a previous post, I mentioned that Hester had more power in being able to earn her own living and support her child by herself. In several instances, the scarlet letter becomes “her passport into regions where other women dared not tread” such as Hester being able to physically wander around the land or associate with characters like seamen without the scrutiny of society (Hawthorne 188).
Tags: Cott, Discourse, Hester Prynne, Power, The Scarlet Letter
