红字(霍桑)——人物分析

• He struggles desperately to confess, punishing himself physically, and frequently coming right to the brink 边缘 of confession in his sermons.
About human’s nature and sociality
Atonement(赎罪）—Compromise thearchy(神权)
• Atonement is a basic creed(教义) of protestant and the main method is to help others. • Hester won much respect among those townspeople who once condemned her. • The public memory of her original sin has been dimmed, and the Letter A which originally stood for „Adultery‟
Pearl kissed his lips. A situation where even her own role is as a great tragedy, aroused the wild child’s compassion.
Little Pearl, who's born with a false charge, grows up innocent and lively with no restraint. She is destined to live a happy life .
Psychological and physical struggle
• As a minister ,he's weekly calls upon people to confess and openly repent of their sins, while knowing that he himself is incapable of doing so .
• He is an individual whose identity owes more to external circumstances than to his innate nature. • He lives in puritan, this social facts forced him to abandon his beloved and bears his mental torture. • From this point of view tragedy cannot be avoided .
Arthur Dimmesdale
Dimmesdale
• Clues: Sin → struggle → extricate • Dilemma: Confess or conceal隐藏 • About human’s nature and sociality
解脱
Sin——Rebel of puritan
Sin——Rebel of puritan
• Dimmesdale is also a gloomy, weakminded, cowardice（怯懦） and selfish man.
• eg. When Hester tells him Chillingworth is her husband, he is not brave to face and overcome it, but to sink down on the ground, and burry his face in his hands, he throws his burden upon Hester. “I am powerless to go! ….Lost as my own soul is, I would still do what I may for other human souls! I dare not quit my post…
这个小精灵似的孩子如若再不能成长为一个高贵 的妇人，那就是她从母亲身上继承到的邪恶实在太大了.
¤ Kind
"Dear little pearl, are you willing to kiss me now? That day in the woods you do not want to kiss me! Can you now?"
一个出生就被冠以无须有罪名的小珍珠，她天真活泼不畏
各界束缚地成长着。她的生命注定是幸福的。
• Eg. She encourages her lover to flee with her to Europe but in vain. After she wears the scarlet letter, she receives all the coldness and condemns quietly and never complains.
Roger Chillingworth
small thin aged with one shoulder higher than the other
Character
Not a good husband .He ignored his wife for much of the time, yet expected her to nourish his soul with affection. Self-absorbed and both physically and psychologically monstrous（畸形的）.
) )
• About women‟s right and freedom
Able Adultery Amiable Angel
Crime——Rebel of puritan
• She is unconventional(非传统的) and a rebel of puritan. She is active strong-minded and never gives in to the fate.
Women‟s right and freedom
• Many people think that Hester is a soldier of feminism. • “The crowd of Puritans might have seen in this beautiful woman…an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity.(圣母)”
Chillingworth’s Revenge
He is a scholar and uses his knowledge to disguise（伪装） himself as a doctor, intent on discovering and tormenting Hester's anonymous lover.
As Hester says:
Old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man’s faculty（能力） of transforming himself into a devil.
Pearl
¤ Pure
she never cares about what others will think about her, she just live by herself. She is as happy as an ordinary girl, even more than that. She never tries to hate anyone, just considering many as natural and tries to find answers to what’s on her mind.
At the beginning, he is an ordained （授予神职） minister, educated, modest, is a devoted servant of God, passionate in his religion and effective in the pulpit讲坛.
¤Active
She seems to live in a colorful world. She always jumps around, putting on the beautiful clothes made by her mother. She is a little bit like a wild child. ‘The evil which she inherited from her mother must be great indeed, if a noble woman do not grow out of this elfish child.‘
The Scarlet Letter
——character analysis
L
I
D
LOADING LOADING
Hester
A
Dimmesdale
G
Chillingworth
Peal
Hester Prynne
Hester Prynne
• Crime(犯罪 →Atonement(赎罪 →Renascence(重生) ↓ ↓ • Rebel or Compromise
wk.baidu.com
changed to 'Able‟.
Women‟s right and freedom
The letter is the symbol of the lover of Prynne. Her experience of going to America and leaving America and finally back to America shows her pursuit of American freedom, the liberation of human nature and returning to her spiritual homeland.