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摘 要：Nathaniel Hawthorn is one of the great American writers in the 19th century;he is our first American novelist; he is also a master of symbolism . Most of his works reflect the life of puritans , his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter tells about a story happened in Boston in the times when Puritanism is rampant. In this novel, symbolism is the main artistic characteristic. There are many symbolic things , for example , prison , rose pearl, and the red letter “A”. As the story progresses , the letter takes on other unexpected meanings , so “A” is mainly discussed .
关键词：the scarlet letter；“A”；symbolic
中图分类号：H31 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1009-0118（2011）04-0236-03
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem , Massachusetts , on July 4 , 1804. Salem used to be an important port whose glory had departed in Hawthorne's youth. In the colonial times , the town was a place where the power of Puritans was very rampant. Hawthorne's family used to be a notable one, several generations of his ancestors were fanatical Puritans . It was said his ancestor , Henry Hawthorne , was one of the three judges in the notorious Salem witch trial, Henry was put under a curse by the husband of one of the convicted witches. The spelling of the family name remained Hathorne until young Nathaniel inserted the "w". It gave Hawthorne a deep and sad impression, and he regarded it as a shame which has a great influence on him . After finishing The Scarlet Letter , Hawthorne wrote an autobiographical article The Custom House as the introductory to the novel . He wrote like this in the article , “At all events , I , the present writer , as their representative, hereby take shame upon myself for their sakes , and pray that any curse incurred by them——as 1 have heard, and as the dreary and unprosperous condition of the race, for many a long year back , would argue to exist——may be now and henceforce removed .” This sense of guilty is a reason , to some degree , why sin , as the theme , frequently appeared in his works, The Scarlet Letter is not an exception . “His three main characters represent the publicly known, partially contrite sinner ; the secret sinner ; and what he called the Unpardonable sinner ”
Hawthorne lived in the times when Puritanism prevailed in American history . The term Puritanism is used in a broader sense to refer to attitudes and values considered characteristic of the Puritans. It has been employed to denote a rigid moralism , or the condemnation of innocent pleasure , or religious narrowness, adhered by the early New England Puritans . The American Puritanism as a culture heritage exerted great influence over American values , and this Puritan influence over American Romanticism was conspicuously noticeable . In addition , a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of “original sin”——“that is ,the dogma that all men were dammed because of their forefather Adam's guilt in eating the apple , that individuals could be saved only by the divine grace available if God chose them to belong to the elect .” and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne.
Hawthorne's understanding of the colonial history in New England , his apparent preoccupation with the moral issues of sin and guilt are brought to full display in his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter . In this particular novel , Hawthorne does not intend to tell a love story nor a story of sin , but focuses his attention on the moral, emotional, and psychological effects or consequences of the sin on the people in general and those main characters in particular , so as to show us the tension between society and individuals .
Symbolism is a literary movement , arising in France in the last half of 19th century , greatly influenced English writers, particularly poets , of 20th century To the symbolist poets , an emotion is indefinite and therefore difficult to communicate . Symbolist poets tend to avoid any direct statement of meaning . Instead , they work through emotionally powerful symbols that suggest meaning and mood . Hawthorne's ability to create vivid and symbolic images that embody great moral questions appears strongly in his works . The Scarlet Letter is the first symbolism work in American literary history .
There are many symbolic things in The Scarlet Letter.
Rose Firstly , rose symbolizes the love between Hester and Dimmesdale, but only these two lovers know how important the love is . The flower represents love is very different from the weeds around them. Because their love is a kind of sin in the fanatical Puritans' eyes, the wild rose-bush , even though they have their delicate gems , they are doomed to be destroyed . But their love is natural, every human being, even the animal has a strong emotion to their lover ; so no matter what happened , no matter how difficult the situation is , the roses will offer their fragrance and fragile beauty . So the love between them will never disappear . Secondly, rose symbolizes Pearl .Hester Prynne dressed Pearl in bright lightly-ornamented costumes , while she herself in somber garments. When Hester went to Governor Bellingham's with her child , Pearl was dressed in a red costume. The perverse Pearl failed in the catechism . Bellingham said Pearl is like a “Red Rose, at the very least , judging from thy hue !” Pearl is a strange child , compared with the Puritan child, she is a disobedient child . She didn't know who sent her to the world , let alone who made her . She said “she had not been made at all , but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison-door .”
PearlThe reason why Hester called Pearl is that she regards the child as a treasure in her life . Pearl is the fruit of the love between her and Dimmesdale . Since she violated the belief of Puritans , she was forced to wear the scarlet letter in her left life . What's more , she was forced to leave the man she loved and had love affairs. Because of the Puritans , she has nothing treasure in her life but the child . If there were not Pearl , Hester would have no courage to live ; so Pearl keeps Hester in life , Pearl gives the second life to Hester . However , Pearl is a token of Hester's shame. In Hester's words , “she is my happiness , she is my torture , none the less! Pearl keeps me here in life ! Pearl punishes me too ! See ye not , she is the scarlet letter , only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a million-fold the power of retribution for my sin ?” Pearl is another form of punishment for I Hester,and this kind of punishment is more serious than the visible and tangible letter “A”. Even though Hester loves her child so much , Pearl's strange actions always hurt her feelings . But except love , Hester has nothing to give to her child . So Hester is a great mother and also a great woman . At last, child as Pearl is, she has the capability of an adult , It seems Pearl is sent to the world to remind Hester of her sin by the Greator's sacred pledge. Once she amused herself with wild flowers by flinging them at her mother's bosom . Also , Pearl is a symbol of the love between Hester and Dimmesdale . In her was visible the tie that united them and Pearl was the oneness of their being . Hawthorne described this natural family four times in The Scarlet Letter. The first time is when Hester was forced to stand on the scaffold after she was released front the prison ; The second is when Dimmesdale imagined he would tell the sin of his on the scaffold ; The third is the meeting in the forest ; the last is Dimmesdale's confession in broad daylight . So Pearl is the fruit of their love .
To Hester :“A” is a symbol of unjust humiliation . Her sin is an excess of passion——surely a sin, but growing from Nature . So , even though she was standing on the scaffold to show her disgrace publicly , she always wear a haughty smile and with a glance that would not be abashed . Although Hester is not only passionate but proud , behind the haughty smile , there must be agony beyond description ; however , she will never give up before the Puritans . “A” is not only a symbol of adultery,but also a symbol of alienation.After her release,Hester Prynne,therefore,did no flee.“On the outskirts of the town , within the verge of peninsula , but not in close vicinity to any other habitation , there was a small thatched cottage” From then on , Hester lived in the cottage with Pearl, earning her life on doing needles . She became an outcast from society and other women. The scarlet letter has an effect of a spell , taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity , and enclosing her in a sphere by herself . There is no friend who dares to visit her .“A” also means unfair treatment . Hester is hard-working', chartable. She herself always wore the sober dress , except the money she spent on Pearl , she gave the other to the people who needed help and frequently made clothes for them . But , “the poor , as we have already said , who she sought out to be the objects of her bounty , often reviled tile hand that was stretched forth to succor them .”Usually , the people get help will appreciate the person gives the help , but what Hester got is injury and laughing . What's more , I Hester was doing her best to sincerely mend her ways , but the governors are not considerable .“Whenever she entered the church, it was often her mishap to find herself the text of the discourse .” In the town people's eyes , once Hester wore the scarlet letter , she became sinful woman , a woman who always doing disgraceful things. The letter is a passport to regions where other women dared not to tread . But , the letter is what makes Hester stronger than Dimmesdale and Chillingworth; to some degree , Hester is much happier than Dimmesdale because she can wear the letter openly upon her bosom, while with much courage and willpower , so “A” also means ability. Because of her love with Dimmesdale, she was forced lo wear the letter , so “A” is also the symbol of their love .
To the people in the town:At the very beginning, A is a hidden shame, the letter “A” is a ignominious one, her action is a great scandal in that times. To the mad Puritans, the scarlet letter is a token of infamy, the infant in her arms is a sin-born one. But as the story progresses, the letter takes another and unexpected meaning. People began to accept her and believe that the letter has a supernatural power, they then believe that it means able. They said the letter was a symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her, so mush power to do, and power to symbolize, that many people refused to connect the scarlet “A” to its original signification. They said that it meant Able, so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength. On the night of the minister's vigil, people saw a letter “A” in the sky, so they interpret that it stands for Angel. Until this interpretation, the brand of shame becomes almost a mark of honor.
To Chillingworth: “A” means betray of her wife. It is a public shame. It is the humiliation of not being the father of Pearl. The burning shame may still blaze upon his bosom. He is a knowledgeable man, he will not encounter the dishonor that besmirches the husband of a faithless woman. So the letter is a humiliation of him and the need for revenge.
To Pearl: The letter A is a bright and mysterious curiosity which symbolizes the existence of her and her mother. The first thing that she had noticed is the scarlet letter on Hester's bosom. Pearl looks Hester and the letter as a whole. In chapter 19, seeing her mother not wearing the scarlet letter, Pearl is very strange. It seems she doesn’t know Hester, she pointed the scarlet letter with her finger and then pointed towards her mother's breast. When Hester wore the letter again, in a mood of tenderness, Pearl “drew down her mother's head and kissed her brow and both her cheeks” and then “Put up her mouth, and kissed the scarlet letter ‘A’, too.”To Pearl, “A” represents purity and innocence, it is a symbol of maturity. She used wild flowers to make a letter “A” and wore it on her bosom. She thought when she became a grown woman, she would also wear the letter on her bosom. But Pearl doesn’t know the real meaning of “A”, in this child's eyes, it is also a secret just like the one in Dimmesdale’s mind——with his hand holding continually over his bosom.
To Dimmesdale: “A” is a piercing reminder of his sin, it makes him struggle with his inner mind. Dimmesdale, “the secret sinner” under Hawthorne's pen, is the adulterer. As long as he thinks of Hester and Pearl, he is guilty. In his life,he has nothing but despair, his sin is like fires burning in secret.
参考文献：
[1]Nathaniel Hawthorne,The Custom House[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社,2001.
[2]David Levin,The Introduction to the Second Edition of The Scarlet Letter,New York:Dell Publishing Co.Inc,1961.
[3]AnnetteT.Rubinstein,American Literature Root and Flower(Volume 1),Beijing:Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press,1988.
[4]Nathaniel Hawthorne,The Scarlet Letter[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社,2001.
关键词：the scarlet letter；“A”；symbolic
中图分类号：H31 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1009-0118（2011）04-0236-03
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem , Massachusetts , on July 4 , 1804. Salem used to be an important port whose glory had departed in Hawthorne's youth. In the colonial times , the town was a place where the power of Puritans was very rampant. Hawthorne's family used to be a notable one, several generations of his ancestors were fanatical Puritans . It was said his ancestor , Henry Hawthorne , was one of the three judges in the notorious Salem witch trial, Henry was put under a curse by the husband of one of the convicted witches. The spelling of the family name remained Hathorne until young Nathaniel inserted the "w". It gave Hawthorne a deep and sad impression, and he regarded it as a shame which has a great influence on him . After finishing The Scarlet Letter , Hawthorne wrote an autobiographical article The Custom House as the introductory to the novel . He wrote like this in the article , “At all events , I , the present writer , as their representative, hereby take shame upon myself for their sakes , and pray that any curse incurred by them——as 1 have heard, and as the dreary and unprosperous condition of the race, for many a long year back , would argue to exist——may be now and henceforce removed .” This sense of guilty is a reason , to some degree , why sin , as the theme , frequently appeared in his works, The Scarlet Letter is not an exception . “His three main characters represent the publicly known, partially contrite sinner ; the secret sinner ; and what he called the Unpardonable sinner ”
Hawthorne lived in the times when Puritanism prevailed in American history . The term Puritanism is used in a broader sense to refer to attitudes and values considered characteristic of the Puritans. It has been employed to denote a rigid moralism , or the condemnation of innocent pleasure , or religious narrowness, adhered by the early New England Puritans . The American Puritanism as a culture heritage exerted great influence over American values , and this Puritan influence over American Romanticism was conspicuously noticeable . In addition , a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of “original sin”——“that is ,the dogma that all men were dammed because of their forefather Adam's guilt in eating the apple , that individuals could be saved only by the divine grace available if God chose them to belong to the elect .” and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne.
Hawthorne's understanding of the colonial history in New England , his apparent preoccupation with the moral issues of sin and guilt are brought to full display in his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter . In this particular novel , Hawthorne does not intend to tell a love story nor a story of sin , but focuses his attention on the moral, emotional, and psychological effects or consequences of the sin on the people in general and those main characters in particular , so as to show us the tension between society and individuals .
Symbolism is a literary movement , arising in France in the last half of 19th century , greatly influenced English writers, particularly poets , of 20th century To the symbolist poets , an emotion is indefinite and therefore difficult to communicate . Symbolist poets tend to avoid any direct statement of meaning . Instead , they work through emotionally powerful symbols that suggest meaning and mood . Hawthorne's ability to create vivid and symbolic images that embody great moral questions appears strongly in his works . The Scarlet Letter is the first symbolism work in American literary history .
There are many symbolic things in The Scarlet Letter.
Rose Firstly , rose symbolizes the love between Hester and Dimmesdale, but only these two lovers know how important the love is . The flower represents love is very different from the weeds around them. Because their love is a kind of sin in the fanatical Puritans' eyes, the wild rose-bush , even though they have their delicate gems , they are doomed to be destroyed . But their love is natural, every human being, even the animal has a strong emotion to their lover ; so no matter what happened , no matter how difficult the situation is , the roses will offer their fragrance and fragile beauty . So the love between them will never disappear . Secondly, rose symbolizes Pearl .Hester Prynne dressed Pearl in bright lightly-ornamented costumes , while she herself in somber garments. When Hester went to Governor Bellingham's with her child , Pearl was dressed in a red costume. The perverse Pearl failed in the catechism . Bellingham said Pearl is like a “Red Rose, at the very least , judging from thy hue !” Pearl is a strange child , compared with the Puritan child, she is a disobedient child . She didn't know who sent her to the world , let alone who made her . She said “she had not been made at all , but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison-door .”
PearlThe reason why Hester called Pearl is that she regards the child as a treasure in her life . Pearl is the fruit of the love between her and Dimmesdale . Since she violated the belief of Puritans , she was forced to wear the scarlet letter in her left life . What's more , she was forced to leave the man she loved and had love affairs. Because of the Puritans , she has nothing treasure in her life but the child . If there were not Pearl , Hester would have no courage to live ; so Pearl keeps Hester in life , Pearl gives the second life to Hester . However , Pearl is a token of Hester's shame. In Hester's words , “she is my happiness , she is my torture , none the less! Pearl keeps me here in life ! Pearl punishes me too ! See ye not , she is the scarlet letter , only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a million-fold the power of retribution for my sin ?” Pearl is another form of punishment for I Hester,and this kind of punishment is more serious than the visible and tangible letter “A”. Even though Hester loves her child so much , Pearl's strange actions always hurt her feelings . But except love , Hester has nothing to give to her child . So Hester is a great mother and also a great woman . At last, child as Pearl is, she has the capability of an adult , It seems Pearl is sent to the world to remind Hester of her sin by the Greator's sacred pledge. Once she amused herself with wild flowers by flinging them at her mother's bosom . Also , Pearl is a symbol of the love between Hester and Dimmesdale . In her was visible the tie that united them and Pearl was the oneness of their being . Hawthorne described this natural family four times in The Scarlet Letter. The first time is when Hester was forced to stand on the scaffold after she was released front the prison ; The second is when Dimmesdale imagined he would tell the sin of his on the scaffold ; The third is the meeting in the forest ; the last is Dimmesdale's confession in broad daylight . So Pearl is the fruit of their love .
To Hester :“A” is a symbol of unjust humiliation . Her sin is an excess of passion——surely a sin, but growing from Nature . So , even though she was standing on the scaffold to show her disgrace publicly , she always wear a haughty smile and with a glance that would not be abashed . Although Hester is not only passionate but proud , behind the haughty smile , there must be agony beyond description ; however , she will never give up before the Puritans . “A” is not only a symbol of adultery,but also a symbol of alienation.After her release,Hester Prynne,therefore,did no flee.“On the outskirts of the town , within the verge of peninsula , but not in close vicinity to any other habitation , there was a small thatched cottage” From then on , Hester lived in the cottage with Pearl, earning her life on doing needles . She became an outcast from society and other women. The scarlet letter has an effect of a spell , taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity , and enclosing her in a sphere by herself . There is no friend who dares to visit her .“A” also means unfair treatment . Hester is hard-working', chartable. She herself always wore the sober dress , except the money she spent on Pearl , she gave the other to the people who needed help and frequently made clothes for them . But , “the poor , as we have already said , who she sought out to be the objects of her bounty , often reviled tile hand that was stretched forth to succor them .”Usually , the people get help will appreciate the person gives the help , but what Hester got is injury and laughing . What's more , I Hester was doing her best to sincerely mend her ways , but the governors are not considerable .“Whenever she entered the church, it was often her mishap to find herself the text of the discourse .” In the town people's eyes , once Hester wore the scarlet letter , she became sinful woman , a woman who always doing disgraceful things. The letter is a passport to regions where other women dared not to tread . But , the letter is what makes Hester stronger than Dimmesdale and Chillingworth; to some degree , Hester is much happier than Dimmesdale because she can wear the letter openly upon her bosom, while with much courage and willpower , so “A” also means ability. Because of her love with Dimmesdale, she was forced lo wear the letter , so “A” is also the symbol of their love .
To the people in the town:At the very beginning, A is a hidden shame, the letter “A” is a ignominious one, her action is a great scandal in that times. To the mad Puritans, the scarlet letter is a token of infamy, the infant in her arms is a sin-born one. But as the story progresses, the letter takes another and unexpected meaning. People began to accept her and believe that the letter has a supernatural power, they then believe that it means able. They said the letter was a symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her, so mush power to do, and power to symbolize, that many people refused to connect the scarlet “A” to its original signification. They said that it meant Able, so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength. On the night of the minister's vigil, people saw a letter “A” in the sky, so they interpret that it stands for Angel. Until this interpretation, the brand of shame becomes almost a mark of honor.
To Chillingworth: “A” means betray of her wife. It is a public shame. It is the humiliation of not being the father of Pearl. The burning shame may still blaze upon his bosom. He is a knowledgeable man, he will not encounter the dishonor that besmirches the husband of a faithless woman. So the letter is a humiliation of him and the need for revenge.
To Pearl: The letter A is a bright and mysterious curiosity which symbolizes the existence of her and her mother. The first thing that she had noticed is the scarlet letter on Hester's bosom. Pearl looks Hester and the letter as a whole. In chapter 19, seeing her mother not wearing the scarlet letter, Pearl is very strange. It seems she doesn’t know Hester, she pointed the scarlet letter with her finger and then pointed towards her mother's breast. When Hester wore the letter again, in a mood of tenderness, Pearl “drew down her mother's head and kissed her brow and both her cheeks” and then “Put up her mouth, and kissed the scarlet letter ‘A’, too.”To Pearl, “A” represents purity and innocence, it is a symbol of maturity. She used wild flowers to make a letter “A” and wore it on her bosom. She thought when she became a grown woman, she would also wear the letter on her bosom. But Pearl doesn’t know the real meaning of “A”, in this child's eyes, it is also a secret just like the one in Dimmesdale’s mind——with his hand holding continually over his bosom.
To Dimmesdale: “A” is a piercing reminder of his sin, it makes him struggle with his inner mind. Dimmesdale, “the secret sinner” under Hawthorne's pen, is the adulterer. As long as he thinks of Hester and Pearl, he is guilty. In his life,he has nothing but despair, his sin is like fires burning in secret.
参考文献：
[1]Nathaniel Hawthorne,The Custom House[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社,2001.
[2]David Levin,The Introduction to the Second Edition of The Scarlet Letter,New York:Dell Publishing Co.Inc,1961.
[3]AnnetteT.Rubinstein,American Literature Root and Flower(Volume 1),Beijing:Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press,1988.
[4]Nathaniel Hawthorne,The Scarlet Letter[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社,2001.