探析《红字》中清教思想及其影响

分类号：I106.4 单位代码：10110
学号：s2*******
中北大学
硕士学位论文
A Research on the Influence of Puritanism on
The Scarlet Letter
探析《红字》中清教思想及其影响
Candidate 韩正
Supervisor 王晋华
Major 英语语言文学
2010 年 04 月 26 日
A Research on the Influence of Puritanism on
The Scarlet Letter
探析《红字》中清教思想及其影响
by
HAN Zheng
THESIS
Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English Language & Literature
in the School of Humanities & Social Sciences
of North University of China
April, 2010
图书分类号 I106.4 密级非密UDC： 82.091
硕士学位论文
A Research on the Influence of Puritanism on
The Scarlet Letter
探析《红字》中清教思想及其影响
韩正
指导教师（姓名、职称）王晋华教授
申请学位级别文学硕士
专业名称英语语言文学
论文提交日期 2010 年 04 月 26 日
论文答辩日期 2010 年 05 月 31 日
学位授予日期________年______月______日
论文评阅人吉哲民教授、卢绍刚副教授
答辩委员会主席杜耀文教授（太原理工大学）
2010年 04月 26日
原创性声明
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Acknowledgements
I am particularly grateful for my respected supervisor, Professor Wang Jinhua, for his constant patience and encouragement during my writing process, for his invaluable suggestions and guidance, without which, my thesis would not have come into being. It is he who makes my writing process interesting and meaningful. I will also thank all the teachers who taught me in my studying period.
Abstract
Hawthorne is one of the most prominent romantic novelists in the world, and his works have strong religious tones. The Scarlet Letter is Hawthorne's masterpiece. With the colonial period in New England as background, with adultery as a clue, the novel portrays in detail the Puritan‘s persecution towards human‘s spirit and flesh. From a humanitarian point of view, the author explores a variety of moral, philosophical issues on the evil of human nature, as well as the rigorous requirements and harsh penalties towards the people at that time, fundamentally reflects the defects of Puritan society and the lessons to learn for the next generations.
For more than 100 years, Hawthorne and his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter have been commented from a variety of angles: social, historical, psychological and theological. In this thesis, the origin and the decline of Puritanism as well as its value systems are analyzed in depth, and its ideological roots are also explored. And then the concrete impacts of Puritanism on the main characters in The Scarlet Letter are studied, including the persecution towards the heroine Hester Prynne by Puritanism, as well as Arthur Dimmesdale‘ inner conflict s between the religious doctrine and the crime of adultery he committed. After that, the persecutions of Puritanism on witches are explored, and the figures in the reality and the characters in the novel are compared, for instance, the comparison between the behavior of the victims in the 1692 Witch Trials and Hester Prynne‘s practices in the novel, and the comparison between the judge's apology in the 1692 Witch Trials and Dimmesdale‘s repentance in the novel.
At last, many social issues related with Puritanism are further explored, such as, the separation of church and state, the single mother, the child‘s guardianship as well as the immoral clergyman. By analyzing the Puritan persecution, this thesis reveals many issues in the Puritan society, hoping to enlighten people to ponder these issues in present society.
Key words: Puritanism；crime and punishment; separation of church and state; single mother；child guardianship
摘要
霍桑是世界上最杰出的浪漫主义小说家之一，其作品具有浓郁的宗教色彩。

《红字》是霍桑的代表作，它以殖民地时期新英格兰为背景，以当时清教视为罪大恶极的一桩通奸罪为线索展开情节，细致入微地刻画了清教对人的精神以及肉体的迫害。

小说从人道主义的角度，一步一步地探究了有关罪恶和人性的各种道德、哲理问题，以及清教对当时社会人物苛刻要求和严厉惩罚，从根本上反映清教的弊端，从而希望后人能从中吸取经验教训。

本文介绍了近一百多年来，读者对霍桑及其作品《红字》从社会的、历史的、心理的、神学的等角度进行的评述。

接着从宗教的角度深入的分析了清教的起源及其衰落以及清教的信仰价值体系，探求其思想根源。

然后研究了在小说《红字》中清教对其主要人物具体的影响，包括清教对女主人公海斯特·白兰迫害，阿瑟·丁梅斯代尔面对宗教教义和所犯的通奸罪行的内心矛盾冲突。

接着谈到清教对巫师们的迫害，并将现实中的人物与小说中人物做了对比，比如“驱巫案”中的受害者行为和小说中的海斯特·白兰做法做出了对比，“驱巫案”中法官的道歉和小说中丁梅斯代尔的忏悔。

本文对于清教主义所引发的诸多社会问题，比如政教分离问题，单身母亲的问题，儿童的监护权归属问题，对肉体的惩罚问题, 以及牧师的不道德所引发的问题做出了进一步地探讨，希望对当今的社会有所借鉴意义。

希望通过分析清教对人们的迫害，揭示出清教社会中的诸多问题，以启迪现时的人们对当前社会进行更深刻的思考。

关键词：清教主义; 罪与罚; 政教分离; 单身母亲; 监护权
Table of Contents Acknowledgements (i)
Abstract(in English).......................................................................................................................................... i i Abstract(in Chinese) ........................................................................................................................................ i ii I Introduction. (1)
II Puritanism (6)
2.1 Origin and decline of Puritanism in America (6)
2.2 Puri tanism‘s beliefs and values (7)
III Puritanism in The Scarlet Letter (14)
3. 1 Intolerance of the Puritan community in T he Scarlet Letter (14)
3.2Influences of Puritanism upon characters in The Scarlet Letter (16)
3. 2. 1 Hester P rynne‘s resistance to the p ersecutions of Puritanism (16)
3. 2. 2 D immesdale‘s conflicts between Puritan morality and adultery (18)
3. 2. 3 Pearl–the green l etter of ―A‖ in Puritanism (22)
3.3Persecutions of Puritanism to witches (24)
3. 3. 1 Witchcraft in The Scarlet Letter (24)
3. 2. 2 Victims in the 1692 witch trials vs Hester Prynne (28)
3. 3. 3 S ewall‘s apology vs D immesdale‘s confession (29)
IV Issues Related with Puritanism in The Scarlet Letter (31)
4.1Issue of separation of church and state (31)
4.2Issue of single mother (33)
4.3Issue of physical punishment (35)
4.4Issue of child guardianship (37)
4.5Issue of immoral clergyman (40)
V Conclusion (44)
Bibliography (46)
Papers published during MA program (49)
Chapter I Introduction
Since Nathaniel Hawthorne‘s time to now, more than one hundred and fifty years have passed, his novels, especially The Scarlet Letter, have been read by many critics in different times from different perspectives, and all of them find his novel attractive and rewarding their concern. Perspective and methodology change according to different preferences, yet the favorable compliments on him have never ceased because his richness of imagination and delicate description of human emotions. D. H. Lawrence once called him a ―blue-eyed darling‖ who knew ―disagreeable things in his inner soul, ‖ b ut ―was careful to send them out in disguise. ‖(D. H. Lawrence, 1980：1122)
Among the best nineteenth-century American novelists, Nathaniel Hawthorne ranks with Herman Melville, Henry James, and Mark Twain, so he cannot be neglected whenever we discuss the best-known novelists in America. He was born on 4 July 1804, grew up in Salem, Massachusetts, and many of his fictional works were influenced by the background of the Puritan history, for example, The Great Boy (1832), Young Goodman Brown (1835), The May-Pole of Merry Mount (1836), and of course The Scarlet Letter.
When he was only four years old, his father, a sea-captain, died at sea, and he was raised by his mother and her family. In 1819，when his mother moved to Raymond Maine, he stayed in Salem with his uncle‘s family and had not seen his mother for two years. In the fall of 1821, at that time he was seventeen. He entered Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. In many respects, Hawthorne took away nothing from Bowdoin more important than the friendships he made there.
His classmate Franklin Pierce became a lifelong friend and went on to become American President. Hawthorne wrote Pierce‘s campaign biography, and Pierce rewarded him by appointing him American Consul in Liverpool, the most lucrative job Hawthorne had. Another classmate, Horatio Bridge, secretly subsidized the publication of Twice—Told Tales and let Hawthorne edit The Journal of an African Cruiser. A third classmate, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote a very favorable review of Twice—Told Tales and also became a lifelong friend and supporter. With the publication of Twice—Told Tales, Hawthorne emerged as an important writer in American history and his national reputation grew steadily through the following decades.
In 1838，Hawthorne met Sophia Peabody, and began a three-and half-year courtship, at last ended in marriage on July 9th, 1842. In order to combine job and writing, Hawthorne resigned his job at the
Boston Custom House, and soon took up residence at Brook Farm, a utopian community founded by George Ripley. In the interim, he wrote two books for children, Famous Old People and Liberty Tree, which, along with Grandfather’s Chair, were published.
Brook Farm failed in total because the community never attracted enough poets or writers to release from labor since it was founded. Hawthorne drew a conclusion that he had always spent most of his time and energy in physical labor and thus was unable to write. ―I think this present life of mine gives me an antipathy to pen and ink, even more than my Custom House experience did‖, he admitted, and he went on to call it the worst of all hateful places, fearing that his soul might be buried and perished under a dung-heap or in a furrow on the field. He liked outdoor work and at the same time liked the idea of a balance between work and writing, but the farm occupied virtually all of his time and physical and mental energy. ―My former stories all sprung up of their own accord, out of a quiet life‖, he told his friend George H allard. ―Now, I have no quiet at all; for when my outward man is at rest—which is seldom, and for short intervals—my mind is bothered with a sort of dull excitement, which makes it impossible to think continuously of any subject‖(Nathaniel Hawthorne, 2001:15). He worried about becoming brutalized and transformed into a slave, and he soon left Brook Farm for good.
Hawthorne left the Old Manse because he could not afford to live here. Magazine publication paid poorly, and the Hawthornes had to struggle to pay rent on the Old Manse, especially after the first child‘s birth. The only option Hawthorne could imagine was to return home—Salem. With the help of Franklin Pierce (American President), and five months later, he finally secured a lucrative political appointment as Surveyor in Salem Custom House. His yearly earnings approached $1,200, Hawthorne kept his position as Surveyor for three years. The election of the Whig Zachary Taylor to the presidency resulted in his firing in the summer of 1849. Hawthorne had not retained the Surveyor‘s position any longer.
He had his revenge on his political enemies in The Scarlet Letter, the novel he sat down to write almost immediately after he lost his job as Surveyor. Published on 16 March 1850, The Scarlet Letter was a bestseller according to nineteenth century standards. The first edition of 2,500 copies sold out quickly, as did a second edition of 2,500 published, the book had become one of the best-known American novels in nineteenth century. Because his original intention was a collection of tales like Mosses from an Old Manse, Hawthorne feared that The Scarlet Letter was too short to make a book, so he added ―The Custom House‖ preface.
The story is simple and dramatic. A beautiful young woman, Hester Prynne, was the wife of an old man, who maybe was dead on the sea, or no one knew where he was, had an illicit adulterous affair with an unknown man in the small village. She had no way to hide the affair, because she was pregnant with a baby, and was put into prison for her sin. After the child was born, on the day she emerged from prison to begin enduring her punishment in public. The old husband came out from the forest into town on the very day, and saw his lovely wife who was standing on the public scaffold with an ―A‖ for adultery sewn on her dress and a baby in her arms. The wife refused to tell her lover‘s name, and promised her husband that she would help him keep his identity.
The Scarlet Letter is a novel about the meaning and the effect of the letter ―A‖. Hawthor ne also points out that ―the Scarlet Letter‖ refers both to the letter ―A‖ Hester wears on her garment and to the book we are reading. Hawthorne introduces the interpretation of the letter ―A‖ in ―T he Custom House‖, the preface he wrote when the novel was finished. Hawthorne‘s novel tells a story about human nature from Hester‘s perspective, about what the letter ―A‖ to be branded and identified by others. But Hawthorne emphasizes that individual identity is determined by individuals and society, and especially by society, and not easily changed according to the individual‘s will. Hawthorne's literary style has important influence on the development of fiction in America. Just as Henry James says: ―In fact, the publication of The Scarlet Letter was a literary event of the first importance in the United States. The book was the first piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in the country. Something might at last be sent to Europe as exquisite in quality as anything that had been received, and the best of it was that the thing was absolutely American; it belonged to the soil, to the air; it came out of the very heart of New England. ‖(Henry James, 1992: 78)
Like the other works, The Scarlet Letter has stirred criticism since its first appearance. It has been analyzed from every possible perspective: the psychological, the historical, the sociological, the mythological, and the archetypal. Readers have discovered that it is useful in studying the Romantic Movement. Some critics can look on it as a study of repression in psychology, especially Freudian psychology. Others can find archetype in this novel, and others can have a field in symbolism. Social critics have discovered the art of depiction of a particular culture and the life in seventeenth century New England. Some experts have adopted a variety of methods of criticism, for instance, psychoanalytic criticism, feminism and archetypal criticism, to give their own interpretations of The Scarlet Letter. F. O. Matthiessen stresses the artfulness of the novel, developing the idea that this novel
is intrinsically theatrical. His stress on the repeated scaffold is a typical formalist criticism. Leland Schubert discusses the structural ways by repeated words, repeated images, repeated colors, repeated ideas and repeated suggestions. So he considers The Scarlet Letter as ―perfect, complete, whole, and wonderfully artificial‖.(Leland Schubert, 1953 :136-37) Richard Harter Fogle follows Schubert's lead, analyzing motifs involving color, especially light and dark, and he shows how the interconnected imagery of darkness and sunlight indicate the emotional and spiritual states of characters. Another critic，Darrel Abel combines a formalist attention with artistic structure.
Some critics hold that The Scarlet Letter tends to teach morals rather than deals with the sin. The book is not against the sin of Hester Prynne, but the return of the morality. Her sin is sexual, and she is punished by the Puritan community, however, she does her best to help others and is respected by them. The happiness comes back to her when she gets on well with her fellowmen, finally she reestablishes a good relationship with the community.
Moreover, The Scarlet Letter is compared with other novels having similar themes, such as feminist ideas, moral visions, religious beliefs, original sin. By comparing the two novels The Scarlet Letter and The Wuthering Heights, we can discover not only the conflict between natural love and the civilized marriage, but also the relationship between individual and society.(Wu Yong, 2001: 34-35) Considering another two novels Tess of the d’Urbervilles and The Scarlet Letter,the former brings serious accusation against the hypocritical Christian moral standard, while the latter is against the inhumane Puritan moral standard.(Dong Wugang, 1995: 81)
However, some critics hold that this novel analyzes the psychological factors of adultery rather than sin itself. Stewart argues: ―The Scarlet Letter is not a book about adultery, or even really about sin. It is a book about their actions. The best way to appreciate the characters and their functions in the novel is to study their relation to the central sin and the manner in which that sin lays bare their souls. ‖(Paul R. Stewart, 1998:58) Rubinstein holds a similar view: ―More profoundly in The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne considers the effect on an individual's character of enforced penance of hypocrisy and of hatred. ‖(Anisette T. Rubinstein.1998: 100)
So The Scarlet Letter is about the sin of different characters and the courses of psychological development of different figures. Furthermore, it‘s also a reflection of Hawthorne's psychological process. In Hawthorne's works, the richness and multiplicity of meanings is beyond any book, and at the same time they reveal a psychological insight into moral isolation and human emotion, so that The
Scarlet Letter is not only a great work of that time, but timeless. In Anthology of American Literature, Hawthorne is described as the following:
―Hawthorne has been identified a writer persecuted by ancestral sin and frustrated with a sense of guilt. His friend Herman Melville said ‗Calvinistic sense of Innate Depravity and Original Sin, from whose visitations, in some shape or other, no deeply thinking mind is always and wholly free.‘‖(George McMichael, 1980:1122)
Hawthorne describes Puritanism as cruel and intolerant, indicating the conflict between moral and religious standards of the P uritan society and of the characters. Hawthorne‘s judgment and evaluation of Puritanism, and of Individualism, and of Feminism, and of community authority strike the core of American history and American thought.
In China, some experts and scholars employ comparative methods and textual analysis in interpreting The Scarlet Letter. Their studies can be simply divided into several different types: First of all, some critics want to explore the book according the relationship between the author and the book. Certainly, Hawthorne‘s life experiences and religious background affect the characters in the novel. Hawt horne‘s Puritan moral concept can be shown through the mystical atmosphere in the novel, and so do his understanding of the relationship between God and man. Secondly, the writing techniques, for instance, symbolism, psychological description, ambiguity, are also probed. An important example is the various symbolic meanings of the letter ―A‖. At the beginning, the scarlet letter ―A‖ is a symbol of shame, means ―Adultery‖, it wants to make Hester feel ashamed, but as time passes by, its meaning shifts, becomes a positive symbol of identity to Hester, stands for ―Able‖ and ―Angel‖. Thirdly, some critics adopted different critical approaches including archetypal theories, Freudian Psycho-analysis, Lacan‘s criticism. Some critics apply the Freudian Psycho-analysis and archetypal structure to analyze why Hester and Dimmesdale have different attitudes to adultery. They have similar instincts, nevertheless, have different beliefs, different ideals, so different egos wield different defense measures, and thus they go different ways, have different outcomes.
Chapter II Puritanism
2.1 Origin and decline of Puritanism in America
The study of Puritanism, especially its system of crime and punishment, is basic for a comprehensive understanding of The Scarlet Letter. First of all, of course, the Puritans in New England and the Puritan‘s belief system are the setting for Hawthorne‘s novel. In this novel, Hawthorne rewrites the history of the Puritan colony in Massachusetts Bay, for instance, in the initial chapters, ―The Prison Door‖, ―The Market Place‖ and ―The Recognition‖, in the middle chapters, ―The Governor‘s Hall‖ and ―The Elf-Child and the Minister‖, as well as in the final chapters, ―The New England Holiday‖ and ―The Procession‖. In each chapter, we can see that the old age dominates the town，and its sternness and narrowness are in conflict with the creativity, nature, and passion.
In 1581, the first Puritan church was established in London, England. One branch of the Puritans was called Separatists because they wanted to pull away from the established Anglican Church to form a separate church. Another branch of the Puritans was comprised of non-Separatists because they wanted to reform the Protestant church, not form a new one.
The two branches of the Puritans and other religious groups who rebelled against the state religion were greatly treated as outlaws in England, were persecuted severely during the reign of the Stuart kings, JamesⅠ, and CharlesⅠ, from 1603 to 1642. Because of defying the king of England, who was the official head of the church, the Puritans were not allowed to congregate freely; their ministers were often prohibited from preaching and imprisoned owing to disobedience; and members were sometimes subject to arrest if they were found reading scripture. In 1608 some of the Separatist Puritans began moving to Holland, where they were not subject to persecution.
In 1620, the English monarchy granted a group of Puritan Separatists a charter to make a settlement in the English colonies that is now called New Jersey and New York. There were economic incentives for the Puritans to move to the New England, including economic unease in Europe and the hope to make a profit in America, nevertheless their main incentive was religious: they would be able to practice their religion without obstacle. In the late fall, some Puritans sailed on the Mayflower and arrived in Massachusetts.
For about eighty years, the Puritans held absolute power in New England. They made positively
contribution to the eventual breaking away from English control, the development of sea trade, farming, manufacturing, urban business, and especially education. The present political system derives from the model they originally built up. Despite this, Puritan government was hardly democratic: only members of the church could vote, only males who owned land could vote. What‘s more, religious doctrine became civil law, and the rule of the religious leaders was absolute.
In the late seventeenth century, precisely in 1692, a new charter forced Puritanism on Massachusetts Bay by the crown to lessen its political power. Common citizens, formerly accustomed to follow, originally looked on the clergy as overeducated, out of touch with reality, at the same time tyrannical. Furthermore, the cruelty and intolerance of the Puritan leaders in America caused them to lose the support of Puritans in England. With merchants in New England prospering from trade, assembly began to concern more about the matters in the whole world than about the spirit, let alone the heaven and hell. Those who moved to west, away from the New England Puritan community, liked freedom rather than Puritan oppression, so Puritanism began to become weaker and weaker.
2.2 Puritanism’s beliefs and values
Puritan doctrine is rooted in a Calvinistic view of biblical history. According to the Puritans, the world began with a contract between God and Adam and Eve. When Adam and Eve, being tempted by the devil to break their part of the contract, disobeyed God and ate the fruit of the forbidden tree. God became so angry that his rage was great and never-ending. From then on, the Puritans believed, though God controlled all th ings, anger was his main attribute. Owing to the God‘s fury at the breaking of the first contract, the whole world and the nature as well as the fate of human beings radically changed. God would continually punish human beings with diseases and disasters. Even worse, the souls of all human beings were believed to be evil from the moment of conception of Adam and Eve. The Puritans believed that this situation changed somewhat with the appearance of Jesus. Because God entered into a second contract with Jesus on man‘s behalf, and only a very few, few individuals would be saved. These few were called ―the elect‖ because God had chosen them to be saved. Actually, in Puritan‘s view, even the elect deserved to be damned, but because of God‘s grace, they were saved despite their corrupt natures. The Puritans as a whole believed themselves to be God‘s ―Chosen People‖, so there was a sense that they, especially, were recipients of God‘s grace.
Although the religion teaches that all people are basically corrupt, what we see in The Scarlet
Letter is the tendency for every individual, especially the Puritans, who see themselves as God‘s Chosen People, believe that they themselves are not really so bad at heart or that in some way they can overcome their human nature. We can see this from community leaders who deal with Hester‘s misbehavior very self-righteously, as if they were exempt from the feelings which she and her lover gave in. There is even the assumption that they are better than Hester, so they have the right to take Pearl from her. The community leaders‘ self-righteous attitude can be seen in treating her as a third-rater, making her obey their orders, and forcing her to wear a scarlet letter in her life. All of these come from their false assurance that they are God‘s chosen people. But they seldom seem to think whether they have the wisdom and goodness to judge Hester as they do at random, just as the following: ―But, out of the whole human family, it would not have been easy to select the same number of wise and virtuous persons who should be less capable of sitting in judgment on an erring woman‘s heart , and disentangling its mesh of good and evil, than the sages of rigid aspect towards whom Hester Prynne now turned her face.”(Nathaniel Hawthorne, 2001: 70)
It is also important to emphasize the Puritan‘s belief that God punish the whole community on the slightest offence, for instance, for the misbehavior of anyone of its members. If someone in the community refused to attend church, violated moral codes, or expressed false or impious belief, God might punish the whole community with disease, famine, or other natural disasters. This explains why the Puritans were so aggressive in punishing moral misbehaviors. They wanted to show God that the slight wrong behavio r was not tolerated in the community and hoped that God didn‘t punish the whole group because of the actions of one person.
As we can see, the scarlet ―A‖ represents human nature, which the Puritans see as ―to derive its scarlet hue from the flames of the infernal pit‖,but by contrast, Pearl sees as natural, or green. Throughout the novel, attitudes toward the ―A‖ are almost identical with attitudes human nature itself. The sermons delivered in The Scarlet Letter give sufficient evidence of the Puritans‘ v iew towards the natural moral corruption of human beings. The first sermon, lectured by the Reverend John Wilson, is ―a discourse on sin, in all its branches, but with continual reference to the ignominious letter‖, which goes on for an hour or more while Hester is standing on the scaffold with her infant. Clergymen continue to use her as a symbol of human depravity when she attends church.
The Scarlet Letter speaks more strongly than any other statements of the human being‘s corruption: Hester is able to s ee the scarlet letter, that‘s to say, sin of the heart, on every person she meets, even the
pure virgin, the older maiden lady, the most holy minister. These revelations horrify her：―What were they? Could they be other than the insidious whispers of the bad angel, who would fain have persuaded the struggling woman, as yet only half his victim, that the outward guise of purity was but a lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on a bosom besides Hester Prynne‘s?‖ (Nathaniel Hawthorne, 2001: 90)
The fact is that the pious Mr. Dimmesdale who has committed one of the worst sins, according to the Puritans, emphasizes their doctrines that everyone, whether pious or not, is depraved and corrupt. He himself struggles with the irony that he is considered to be a man of God, yet hides the fact that he is human, which is to say sinful. He pictures himself:
―I, whom you behold in these black garments of the priesthood. I, who ascend the sacred desk, and turn my pale face heavenward, taking upon myself to hold communion. In your behalf, with the Most High Omniscience, I, in whose daily life you discern the sanctity of Enoch. I, whose footsteps, as you suppose, leave a gleam along my earthly track, whereby the pilgrims that shall come after me may be guided to the regions of the blest. I, who have laid the hand of baptism upon your children. I, who have breathed the parting prayer over your dying friends, to whom the Amen sounded faintly from a world which they had quitted. I, you pastor, whom you so reverence and trust, am utterly a pollution and a lie!‖ (Nathaniel Hawthorne, 2001: 140)
Dimmesdale‘s sermons to his adoring audience display the doctrine of natural depravity in a particular way. In fact, he is trying to confess his own specific sin with Hester, but his general way of putting his message makes the convocation believe that they are hearing the usual message on the sinfulness of all human beings:
―More than once–nay, more than a hundred times–he had actually spoken! Spoken! But how? He had told his hearers that he was altogether vile, a viler companion of the vilest, the worst of sinners, an abomination, a thing of unimaginable iniquity; and that the only wonder was that they did not see his wretched body shriveled up before their eyes by the burning wrath of the Almighty!‖(Nathaniel Hawthorne, 2001: 40)
Nathaniel Hawthorne, the nineteenth-century descendent of the Puritan, remembered the most striking notorious events in his fiction. The major events include their criminalization and punishment for the victimless crimes, for example, their banishment of the Reverend Roger Williams in 1635; their banishment of Anne Hutchinson in 1637; their persecution of Quakers; and their persecution of witches。