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Misogyny In The Scarlet Letter

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Misogyny in The Female
We all enjoy the freedoms we have as American citizens and part of it is expression of oneself. Today we are so busy with self image and politics one may forget how fortunate and privileged one might be. In the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne the society is misogynistic and women are oppressed. The sexism and misogyny within the society has pressured women to internalize the and truly believe in an unequal society. When analyzing the characters of the Handmaid's Tale and the Scarlet Letter through the feminist lense, sexism has become so internalized that women work to maintain the system through prejudice and belittling one another for not fulfilling orthodox gender roles. …show more content…

The narrator is put down by the wife of the man in the house in order to establish dominance in her role in the household. When the narrator comes to the household for the first time the wife establishes dominance. “As far as I’m concerned, this is like a business transaction. But if I get trouble, I’ll give trouble back. You understand?...As for my husband, she said, he's just that. My husband. I want that to be perfectly clear. Till death do us part. It's final.” (Attwood.63) In the social construct of the narrator’s household, the wife is the woman with the most power, she controls most of the house activities with the commander (husband) away. When the narrator first comes in there is an establishment of a hierarchy. The wife has never questioned her husband for having multiple affairs and having total control over her however she does feel the threat of the narrator and she aims her authority towards the narrator; thus contributing to the sexist system that keeps women under domination.
In the Handmaid’s Tale the society is misogynistic and there are four roles a woman can be, they can be a wife, a handmaid (a procreator), a whore, or an unwoman. The narrator is put down by a number of people however the worst of all herself putting herself down. The anti-feminist culture has become so internalized that she believes the practice and applies it to

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