Desire, Patriarchy and the Difficulty of Feminism Theme Analysis

“Mama Yaya,” I said, panting. “I want this man to love me.”

She shook her head. “Men do not love. They possess. They subjugate.”

Lament for my lost child

The moonstone dropped into the water,

Into the waters of the river,

And my fingers couldn’t reach it,

Woe is me!

The moonstone has fallen.

Sitting on a rock on the riverbank,

I wept and I lamented.

Oh, softly shining stone,

Glimmering at the bottom of the water.

The hunter passed that way

With his bow and arrows.

“Why are you crying, my lovely one?”

“I’m crying because my moonstone

Lies at the bottom of the water.”

“If it is but that, my lovely,

I will help you.”

But the hunter died and was drowned.

How could their yearning and nostalgia possibly be compared to mine? What they yearned for was the sweetness of a gentler life, the life of white women who were served and waited on by attentive slaves. Even if the reverend Mr. Parris had ended up losing all his wealth and hopes, the life they had spent there was composed of luxury and voluptuousness. And what did I yearn for? The subtle joys of being a slave. The cakes made out of crumbs from the stale bread of life. The fleeting moments of forbidden games.

We did not belong to the same universe, Goodwife Parris, Betsey, and I, and all the affection in the world could not change that.

“I cannot do what your heart dares not disclose. The woman who revealed her science taught me to heal and console rather than to do evil. Once, when, like yourself, I dreamed of doing my worst, she warned: ‘Don't become like them, knowing only how to do evil.’”

[Sarah] shrugged her frail shoulders under her wretched shawl. “Knowledge must adapt itself to society. You are no longer in Barbados among our unfortunate brothers and sisters. You are among monsters who are set on destroying us.”

“What does Satan look like? Don't forget he has more than one disguise up his sleeve. That's why after all this time nobody's caught him yet. Sometimes he's a black man...”

There I interrupted her in a worried voice. “If I say that, won't they think of John Indian?”

She shrugged her shoulders irritably. Hester got irritated easily. “Don't talk to me about your wretched husband! He's no better than mine. Shouldn't he be here to share your sorrow? Life is too kind to men, whatever their color.”

That night Hester lay down beside me, as she did sometimes. I laid my head on the quiet water-lily of her cheek and held her tight. Surprisingly, a feeling of pleasure slowly flooded over me. Can you feel pleasure from hugging a body similar to your own? For me, pleasure had always been in the shape of another body whose hollows fitted my curves and whose swellings nestled in the tender flatlands of my flesh. Was Hester showing me another kind of bodily pleasure?

I was not really worried about the outcome of the plot. In fact, I tried not to think about it. I let my mind blur and color dreams and I concentrated above all on my baby. She had started to move in my womb; a sort of slow, gentle creeping as if she wanted to explore her confined quarters. […] A little longer and we would be looking at each other and her fresh gaze would make me ashamed of my wrinkles and my stumps of teeth. My daughter would settle old scores for me! She would know how to win the love of a man with a heart as warm as cornbread. […] They would have children they would teach to see beauty in themselves. Children who would grow straight and free toward the sky.