Surprise! Ok, on to the post… Would the members of the Boston Female Moral Reformers perceive Hester Prynne as the victim of a licentious man? Maybe, maybe not. These members, however, would look upon Hester with disgust, because she protected the man that caused her to bear the burden of the scarlet letter. Members of […]
After this past class, in which we discussed Victorian Hawthorne writing about Puritans, I noticed new layers in The Scarlet Letter. In regards to the documents in Major Problems in the History of American Sexuality, the deployment of sexuality, and power-relations, were evident. Hawthorne’s Victorian influence is seen in “Another View of Hester.” He speculates, […]
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 […]
At the end of our discussion last week, Professor Quinby prompted us to think about how Foucault’s notion of the deployment of sexuality shows up in our readings. I want to focus primarily on this weeks essays as I found them really interesting and a good springboard for discussion about the Scarlet Letter in class. […]
