Killing Pearl: When Hester Chooses Infanticide--Confronting Motherhood and the Redemptive Fantasy of THE SCARLET LETTER in Suzan-Lori Parks's THE RED LETTER PLAYS
Date of Award
2009
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Myhill, Nova
Keywords
Theater, Motherhood, Infanticide, The Scarlet Letter, Parks, Suzan-Lori, The Red Letter Plays
Area of Concentration
English
Abstract
Nathaniel Hawthorne's Hester Prynne enforces the faulty notion of the good mother and the redemptive fantasy when she chooses not to kill Pearl in The Scarlet Letter. Socially and culturally, infanticide invokes a highly emotional response. The media deals with this response by constructing models of the "murderous mother" to rationalize the actions of women such as Andrea Yates and Casey Anthony. These models depend on a specific model of motherhood in which only the unnatural mother kills her child. Within the slave narrative, there are examples of empathetic infanticide in which a mother kills her child due to the problems of society rather than as a rejection of motherhood. In The Red Letter Plays, Suzan-Lori Parks has created two new Hesters who are branded by their society and suffer conditions similar to the American slave plantation. In each of Parks's plays, a new Hester suffers and kills her child due to the unnatural conditions of the world. Based on my research I have concluded that Parks uses the myth of Hester Prynne as the branded woman and good mother to subvert the redemptive fantasy of The Scarlet Letter. This project includes two chapters and a production of Parks's Fucking A, which was staged in College Hall in January 2009.
Recommended Citation
Reid, Alison, "Killing Pearl: When Hester Chooses Infanticide--Confronting Motherhood and the Redemptive Fantasy of THE SCARLET LETTER in Suzan-Lori Parks's THE RED LETTER PLAYS" (2009). Theses & ETDs. 4165.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/4165