The Scarlett Letter and Their Eyes Were Watching God compare and contrast

The first 200 words of this essay...

Jonathan Youdeem

Mrs. Holmes

English 1HL, Period 1

25 January 2008

Comparing and Contrasting the Use of Symbols to Embrace Thematic Ideals of Female Oppression in The Scarlet Letter and Their Eyes Were Watching God

English novelist, Virginia Woolf once said "The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself. Within Hawthorne's The Scarlett Letter and Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Woolf's statement is truly evident. As a whole, both novels have a central focus of the oppression of women in society. Both novels contain the central theme of female oppression manifested throughout the whole novel. Throughout Hurston's, Their Eyes Were Watching God and Hawthorne's, The Scarlet Letter, both authors employ the use of symbols to embrace the thematic ideal of female oppression.

In the two novels, hair, and the confinement of that hair effectively acts as symbols of female oppression. At the beginning of the novel as Hester descends down the path of judgmental woman, the author makes an observation about the "dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam.