Feminist Semiotics in The Scarlet Letter

Abstract

The Scarlet Letter is a novel by 19th-century American Romantic author Nathaniel Hawthorne. It tells a tragic love story set in 17th-century Puritan New England. As a woman of independent thought and rebellious spirit, Hester Prynne undergoes a personal transformation through her resistance to societal judgment and fate. Aims: This study explores the independent spirit of Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter by examining the origins of Hawthorne’s feminist thought, the novel’s symbolic representations, and the gendered perspectives in its Chinese translations. It also investigates how translators’ gender influences the interpretation of feminist elements, contributing to the discourse on feminist translation theory within the Chinese academic context. Study Design: The research adopts a feminist literary approach, integrating historical and symbolic analysis with comparative translation studies focused on gender. Methodology: A comparative textual analysis of Chinese translations by male and female translators, assessed through linguistic, structural, and stylistic lenses.