FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES IN NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE'S NOVEL THE SCARLET LETTER

This paper tends to study the feminist perspectives in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel entitled The Scarlet Letter. Before delving deep into the textual analysis, it is essential to have fair understanding of the concept of feminism for a fruitful and objective discussion of the novel. The Feminist criticism, one of the invigorating modern approaches to literature, was inaugurated in 1960. It is primarily concerned with the projection and presentation of women in literature. The study of feminist critical theory can broadly be classified into two dimensions. First, woman presented in literature by male writers from male point of view, and second, woman presented by female writers from their viewpoints. The former gives rise to a feminist theory known as phallocentrism; the latter promotes a kind of criticism called gynocentricism.