When We Dead Awaken: Writing As Re-Vision

The essay“ When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision” written in 1971 by Adrienne Rich is composed of basic feminist ideals and beliefs. In that essay, Rich explores the theme of women’s roles in society, as she writes “ Historically, men and women have played very different parts… where women [have] been a luxury for man...but also as comforter, nurse, cook, bearer of his seed…man has played quite a different role for the female artist.” This reflects the culture of the time period in which women were placed in lower status as men, and were expected to take other forms of occupational work, such as childbearing and ultimately staying at home. The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne explores gender roles of both men and women through examples such as the goodwives, the magistrates, and Hester’s arrival to the colony. It becomes self evident that puritan societies had conservative ideologies that enforced gender roles onto men and women. An instance of societal enforcement is the scene of the goodwives. When engaged in a conversation about Hester’s punishment, the five “goodwives” begin to talk about how “the magistrates [are] being god fearing gentlemen.” additionally remarking “ this woman… ought to die...is there no law for it? Truly there is... then let the
In response to Hester arriving to his house, the governor tells her “Speak thou, the child’s own mother! Were it not for ... thy little one’s temporal and eternal welfare that she be taken out of thy charge...”(Hawthorne 75). This scene provides the reader with an instance of the puritan theocracy reinforcing gender roles by bringing Pearls welfare as a point of conflict. By doing so, Hawthorne provides a reason for Hester to be pressured to save her loved ones by conforming to another's