The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne is set in Puritan Boston in the 1600s. It tells the story of Hester Prynne, a woman who suffers public ignominy, forced to wear a scarlet letter for her sin of adultery . The Scarlet Letter provides insight into the strict laws and ideology of a strongly patriarchal, puritanical society. The Scarlet Letter has the connotations of a proto-feminist novel, but although it addresses the danger of a purely patriarchal society, it does not meet 21st-century feminist standards due to Hawthorne's prejudice against intellectual women . Say no to plagiarism. . Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay In the novel, Hawthorne implies that the idea of ​​women as intellectual equals could not survive in practice while removing responsibility from men. In chapter thirteen, Hester comes to “discern that so hopeless a task awaits her”: establishing equality for women in her society (114). Hester sees no practical way to change the ideology surrounding gender roles. She believes that men's entire belief system would have to be demolished before there would be equality, and even then, women would have to change themselves to be able to occupy a "just and proper position" in society (114 ). Later in the passage, Hawthorne removes all responsibility from men by citing their genetic inclination to dominate society. This suggests that it is not men's fault that they suppress women, because it is something natural and deeply ingrained in their genetics. By this logic, it also seems that women have a similar “long hereditary habit” of being meek and submissive (114). This passage raises the question of why man's natural nature should be altered. Hawthorne also discredits women as intellectuals, late in the novel when he observes that Hester is incapable of being the "prophetess" of a new era of women's equality because the burden of her sin was insurmountable (180). Hester believes that “the angel and apostle of the coming revelation must be a woman, indeed, but noble, pure and beautiful; and wise, moreover, not by dark sorrow, but by the ethereal means of joy” (180). The idea that Hester is not "pure" enough to be the apostle implies that her sin of adultery is as wicked as she is led to believe. which contradicts the idea that Hester is simply caught within the ideological framework of the Boston Puritan and is not actually committing a sin outside of his strict standards. This portrait negates Hester's radical ideas about gender equality and her doctrine of free love. Hawthorne views intellect as a masculine attribute and believes that women must give up their femininity to have the intellect of a man. As the novel unfolds and Hester has more time to think about gender roles in society and contemplate her own philosophy of love, she begins to lose her feminine beauty. Hawthorne attributes this loss to the idea that "an attribute had disappeared from her, the permanence of which had been essential to her remaining a woman" (112). The author argues that women do not have an inherent intellect and that to gain one they must lose something of themselves and become androgynous figures because their status as women is incompatible with intellect. Hester regains her beauty when she throws away her scarlet letter, suggesting that Hester's sin and the guilt she bears for it, symbolized by the scarlet letter, and her new intellectualism are linked. She can't keep one while.