Hester Prynne, of Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter, and Margare

Hester Prynne, of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and Margaret Fuller, Themid-nineteenth-century Campaigner for the Rights of Women "Endowed in certain respects with the sensibility of Margaret Fuller, the great campaigner for the rights of women, Hester Prynne is as much a woman of mid-nineteenth-century American culture as she is of seventeenth-century Puritan New England." Is this an accurate assessment of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter? Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) was an author, critic, editor and teacher who "possessed more influence on the thought of American women than any woman previous to her time" [1]. She contributed significantly to the American Renaissance in literature and to mid-nineteenth century reform movements. A brilliant and highly educated member of the Transcendentalist group, she challenged Ralph Waldo Emerson both intellectually and emotionally. Women who attended her "conversations" and many men of her time found Fuller's influence life-changing. Her major work, Woman in the Nineteenth Century published in 1845, profoundly affected the women's rights movement which had its formal beginning at Seneca Falls, New York, three years later. Hester Prynne is the protagonist of Nathaniel Hawthorne's romantic novel, The Scarlet Letter, which is set in seventeenth-century Puritan New England. As a young woman, Hester married an elderly scholar, Roger Chillingworth, who sent her ahead to America to live but never followed. While waiting for him, she had an affair with a Puritan minister named Dimmesdale, after which she gave birth to Pearl. Found guilty of adultery (through the absence of her husband and the birth of Pearl), Hester is punished by being forced to wear a scarlet lette... ...on, 1996 4 The Scarlet Letter, p.263 5 Puritanism in Early America, edited by George M. Waller, p.6 6 The Scarlet Letter, p.53 7 Ibid. p.144-5 8 Ibid. p.195 9 Ibid. p.165 10 Ibid. p.86 11 Ibid. p.263 12 Charles Capper, in An American Romantic Life. p.ix. 13 The Scarlet Letter, p.165. 14 Ibid. p.263 15 Ibid. p.263 16 An American Romantic Life, p. xi 17 The Scarlet Letter, p.94 18 Ibid. p.263 19 Ibid. p.263 20 Margaret Fuller, Julia Ward Howe, 1889 21 The Scarlet Letter, p.113 22 Ibid. p.117 Bibliography Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. History of Woman Suffrage, 1881 Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter, Oxford World's Classics, 1990 The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Ninth Edition, 1996 George M. Waller, (Ed). Puritanism in Early America Charles Capper. An American Romantic Life Julia Ward Howe. Margaret Fuller. 1889