공화국의 경계에 선 여성들: '호보목'과'주홍글자'의 비교 연구

Abstract

This study aims to reassess Hobomok and The Scarlet Letter as the products of the historical consciousness of their writers, who envision the 17th century Puritan New England as the prototype, and also the origin, of the problems of their 19th century antebellum America. Centering upon the transgressions of the heroines and the processes of their ensuing compromises with their society, these two works criticize the bigotry of the American society toward women and minorities, emotion, nature, and the arts in favor of men, reason, civilization and the practicality. Their way of probing the demarcations of the social, political, and cultural identity of American society reveals both their concern about the narrow-mindedness of their contemporary society and their sympathy for the repressed and excluded spheres mentioned above.However, these two works diverge significantly concerning the reconciliation of the society and the individual. Child's heroine Mary is passively accepted by the forgiving and generous male-world through her marriage to Charles, while Hester, more independent and less penitent, lives a life of isolation and renunciation, though her sacrificial service to the community makes her a respected and dependable asset of the community. These differences, we can conclude, may reflect their authors' difference in the confidence in the potential of change of society and in the viewpoints toward the women's rights issue. More progressive and activistic, Child sees the solution to this problem in the tolerance of society, while the more sceptic and conservative Hawthorne has his heroine acquiesce to her society.