Dissenting Female Voices: A Comparative Reading of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Fadia Faqir’s My Name Is Salma
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1601.20Keywords:
adultery, alienation, dissent, gender, honorAbstract
The female protagonists in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850) and Fadia Faqir’s My Name Is Salma (2007) face similar themes and explore the effects of adultery on women. Despite their different temporal, geographical, and cultural contexts, the novels fight oppression and marginalization. The authors carefully and delicately place the stories in a framework of crimes, marginalization, and dissent. The researchers use feminist critical analysis of the two texts to build an innovative argument that highlights the texts’ many dissents. Hester Prynne’s and Salma Ibrahim El-Musa's internal and external battles about giving up their lives, identities, and daughters disrupt cultural and religious standards. Hester commits adultery, refuses to reveal her daughter’s biological father, and is, therefore, punished. Likewise, an illegitimate premarital affair impregnates Salma, and thus she is at risk of an honor murder. Hester and Salma resist being hushed, abused, and marginalized.
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