红字英文介绍The_Scarlet_Letter

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红字英文介绍The

Important Detail
Continually，and in a thousand other ways,did she feel the innumerable
throbs of anguish that had been so cunningly contrived for her by the
Summary
-Hester Prynne accepted the punishment and refused to reveal her child's father. -Roger Chillingworth began his revenge to Arthur Dimmesdale as a physician. -Hester planed to leave America with Dimmesdale, but failed. -Dimmesdale died after he acknowledged his sin at public gathering. -Chillingworth died a year later and Pearl inherited all of his money. -Hester and Pearl left Boston. -Many years later, Hester returned alone.
Father,it was often her mishap to find herself the text of the discourse.
She grew to have a dread of child ; for they had imbibed from their parents a vague idea of something horrible in this dreary woman,gliding silently through the town,with never any companion but only one child.

红字情节介绍

The end…
Frustrated in his revenge, Chillingworth dies within the year. Hester and Pearl leave Boston, and no one knows what has happened to them. Many years later, Hester returns alone, still wearing the scarlet letter, to live in her old cottage and resumes her charitable work. There is a sense of liberation in her and the townspeople, especially the women, who had finally begun to forgive Hester of her tragic indiscretion
The end…
The day before the ship is to sail, the townspeople gather for a holiday in honor of an election and Dimmesdale preaches his most eloquent sermon ever. Dimmesdale, leaving the church after his sermon, he mounts the scaffold with his lover and his daughter, and confesses publicly, exposing the mark supposedly seared into the flesh of his chest. He dies in Hester's arms after Pearl kisses him. .

红字介绍

The scarlet letter in the seventeenth century New England Puritan colonial rule as the background, based on the a love tragedy happened in Boston. Thought that her husband has died in the sea Hester, the young master gave birth to a daughter, but her husband Chillingworth safely back in the New England, and hide their identity. Chillingworth, found that his wife was forced to wear with red A word of it. When he found to Hester's lover is Dimmesdale , that urged Hester say paternity township name of all the leaders, Chillingworth began to torture the young minister guilty unceasingly. Finally, Chillingworth reputation by paranoid revenge; Dimmesdale unbearable guilt, body and mind into dying at Hester's bosom publicly acknowledged the fact that adultery; Only Hester bravely to face the future, start a new life is going to take my daughter to Europe.《红字》以十七世纪清教殖民统治下的新英格兰为背景，取材于当年在波士顿发生的一个恋爱悲剧。

红字英文介绍TheScarletLetter

Life in the Colonies was harsh; but it gave the Puritans the opportunity to form a society based on their religious ideals Puritans sought the freedom to live by their beliefs However; the Puritan leaders did not tolerate religious beliefs that differed from their own
➢ His themes often center on the inherent evil and sin of humanity
➢ His works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity
Important Work
• Just because of the ending; The Scarlet Letter was defined as nothing but a coarse and vulgar book with ideas that would pervert the minds of readers; when it was published at first However people realized that it was a thoughtful book with great value and worthy to study again and again
• Antinomian 唯信仰论者：主张基督徒可以废弃道德;依靠信仰来拯救灵魂
• Quaker 教友派：靠内心意识指引的教派

红字英文介绍The-Scarlet-LetterPPT课件

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Introduction
• The Scarlet Letter told a story of a puritan woman Hester Prynne who was punished to wear a scarlet A which stood for the crime of adultery. The pretty young lady tried to settle down in Boston with her old and ugly husband Chillinggworth, a scholar. But the latter did not appear for years. During this time, Hester committed adultery with a local Minster Dimmesdale, and gave birth to a girl Pearl. Facing the terrible punishment, Hester refused to give her lover’s name away to protect him. Years later, the husband Chillinggworth came to the town and found out the whole truth, and he operated an horror revenge on Dimmesdale, with hiding his own true name. Yet, as the story going, Hester and Dimmesdale became sympathetic figures, while Chillinggworth was a devil at last.

The_Scarlet_Letter《红字》作品分析

The Scarlet LetterHistorical ContextThe Transcendentalist MovementThe Scarlet Letter, which takes as its principal subject colonial seventeenth-century New England, was written and published in the middle of the nineteenth century. Hawthorne began writing the novel in 1849, after his dismissal from the Custom-House, and it was published in 1850. The discrepancy between the time represented in the novel and the time of its production has often been a point of confusion to students. Because Hawthorne took an earlier time as his subject, the novel is considered a historical romance written in the midst of the American literary movement called transcendentalism (c. 1836-60).The principle writers of transcendentalism included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and W. H. Channing. Transcendentalism was, broadly speaking, a reaction against the rationalism of the previous century and the religious orthodoxy of Calvinist New England. Transcendentalism stressed the romantic tenets of mysticism, idealism, and individualism. In religious terms it saw God not as a distant and harsh authority, but as an essential aspect of the individual and the natural world, which were themselves considered inseparable. Because of this profound unity of all matter, human and natural, knowledge of the world and its laws could be obtained through a kind of mystical rapture with the world. This type of experience was perhaps most famously explained in Emerson's Nature, where he wrote, "I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part and parcel of God." Even though Hawthorne was close to many transcendentalists, including Emerson, and even though he lived for a while at the transcendentalist experimental community of Brook Farm, he was rather peripheral to the movement. Hawthorne even pokes fun at Brook Farm and his transcendentalist contemporaries in "The Custom-House," referring to them as his "dreamy brethren indulging in fantastic speculation." Where they saw the possibilities of achieving knowledge through mystical experience, Hawthorne was far more skeptical. Abolitionism and RevolutionMore important to Hawthorne's literary productions, and particularly The Scarlet Letter, was abolitionism and European revolution. These, in Hawthorne's view, were episodes of threatening instability. Abolitionism was the nineteenth-century movement to end slavery in the United States. Though it varied in intensity, abolitionism contained a very radical strain that helped to form a climate for John Brown's capture of Harpers Ferry in 1859. (John Brown intended to establish a base for armed slave insurrection.) The rising intensity and violence of abolitionism was an important cause of the Civil War. Hawthorne's conservative position in relation to abolitionism did not necessarily mean that he was pro-slavery, but he did quite clearly oppose abolitionists, writing that slavery was "one of those evils which divine Providence does not leave to be remedied by human contrivances."What Hawthorne feared were violent disruptions of the social order like those that were happening in Europe at the time he wrote The Scarlet Letter. The bloody social upheaval that most interested Americans began in France in 1848. This, and other revolutions of the period, pitted the lower and middle classes against established power and authority. While the revolutions eventually failed, they were largely waged under the banner of socialism, and it was this fact that caused concern in America; as one journalist wrote, as quoted by Bercovitch, here there were "foreboding shadows" of "Communism, Socialism, Pillage, Murder, Anarchy, and the Guillotine vs. Law and Order, Family and Property." Critics have recently pointed to Hawthorne's guillotine imagery in "The Custom-House" (where he even suggests the tidle "The Posthumous Papers of a Decapitated Surveyor" for his tale) and metaphors of his own victimization as some evidence of his sympathies with regard to revolution and social order.The Puritan ColoniesThe novel was written in the mid-nineteenth century, but it takes the mid-seventeenth century for the events it describes (1642-49). The Massachusetts Bay Colony was established by John Winthorp (whose death is represented near the center of the novel) and other Puritans in 1630. They sought to establish an ideal community in America that could act as a model of influence for what they saw as a corrupt civil and religious order in England. This sense of mission was the center of their religious and social identity. Directed toward therealization of such an ideal, the Puritans required a strict moral regulation; anyone in the conmmunity who sinned threatened not only their soul, but the very possibility of civil and religious perfection in America and in England. Not coincidentally, the years Hawthorne chose to represent in The Scarlet Letter were the same as those of the English Civil War fought between King Charles I and the Puritan Parliament; the latter was naturally supported by the New England colonists.Plot summaryThe novel takes place during the summer in 17th-century Boston, Massachusetts in a Puritan village. A young woman, named Hester Prynne, has been led from the town prison with her infant daughter in her arms and on the breast of her gown "a rag of scarlet cloth" that "assumed the shape of a letter." It was the uppercase letter "A". The Scarlet Letter "A" represents the act of adultery that she has committed and it is to be a symbol of her sin—a badge of shame—for all to see. A man, who was elderly and a stranger to the town, enters the crowd and asks another onlooker what's happening. He responds by explaining that Hester is being punished for adultery. Hester's husband, who is much older than she, and whose real name is unknown, has sent her ahead to America whilst settling affairs in Europe. However, her husband does not arrive in Boston, and the consensus is that he has been lost at sea. It is apparent that, while waiting for her husband, Hester has had an affair, leading to the birth of her daughter. She will not reveal her lover's identity, however, and the scarlet letter, along with her subsequent public shaming, is the punishment for her sin and secrecy. On this day Hester is led to the town scaffold and harangued by the town fathers, but she again refuses to identify her child's father.[2]The elderly onlooker is Hester's missing husband, who is now practicing medicine and calling himself Roger Chillingworth. He settles in Boston, intent on revenge. He reveals his true identity to no one but Hester, whom he has sworn to secrecy. Several years pass. Hester supports herself by working as a seamstress, and her daughter Pearl grows into a willful, impish child—in Hawthorne's work, Pearl is more of a symbol than an actual character—and is said to be the scarlet letter come to life as both Hester's love and her punishment. Shunned by the community, they live in a small cottage on the outskirts of Boston. Community officials attempt to take Pearl away from Hester, but with the help of Arthur Dimmesdale, an eloquent minister, the mother and daughter manage to stay together. Dimmesdale, however, appears to be wasting away and suffers from mysterious heart trouble, seemingly caused by psychological distress. Chillingworth attaches himself to the ailing minister and eventually moves in with him so that he can provide his patient with round-the-clock care. Chillingworth also suspects that there may be a connection between the minister's torments and Hester's secret, and he begins to test Dimmesdale to see what he can learn. One afternoon, while the minister sleeps, Chillingworth discovers something undescribed to the reader, supposedly an "A" burned into Dimmesdale's chest, which convinces him that his suspicions are correct.[2]Dimmesdale's psychological anguish deepens, and he invents new tortures for himself. In the meantime, Hester's charitable deeds and quiet humility have earned her a reprieve from the scorn of the community. One night, when Pearl is about seven years old, she and her mother are returning home from a visit to the deathbed of John Winthrop when they encounter Dimmesdale atop the town scaffold, trying to punish himself for his sins. Hester and Pearl join him, and the three link hands. Dimmesdale refuses Pearl's request that he acknowledge her publicly the next day, and a meteor marks a dull red "A" in the night sky. It is interpreted by the townsfolk to mean Angel, as a prominent figure in the community had died that night, but Dimmesdale sees it as meaning adultery. Hester can see that the minister's condition is worsening, and she resolves to intervene. She goes to Chillingworth and asks him to stop adding to Dimmesdale's self-torment. Chillingworth refuses. She suggests that she may reveal his true identity to Dimmesdale.[2]Later in the story, while walking through the forest, the sun would not shine on Hester, although Pearl could bask in it. They then encounter Dimmesdale, as he is taking a walk in the woods that day. Hester informs Dimmesdale of the true identity of Chillingworth and the former lovers decide to flee to Europe, where they can live with Pearl as a family. They will take a ship sailing from Boston in four days. Both feel a sense of release, and Hester removes her scarlet letter and lets down her hair. The sun immediately breaks through the clouds and trees to illuminate her release and joy. Pearl, playing nearby, does not recognize her mother without the letter. She is unnerved and expels a shriek until her mother points out the letter on the ground. Hester beckonsPearl to come to her, but Pearl will not go to her mother until Hester buttons the letter back onto her dress. Pearl then goes to her mother. Dimmesdale gives Pearl a kiss on the forehead, which Pearl immediately tries to wash off in the brook, because he again refuses to make known publicly their relationship. However, he too clearly feels a release from the pretense of his former life, and the laws and sins he has lived with.The day before the ship is to sail, the townspeople gather for a holiday put on in honor of an election and Dimmesdale preaches his most eloquent sermon ever. Meanwhile, Hester has learned that Chillingworth knows of their plan and has booked passage on the same ship. Dimmesdale, leaving the church after his sermon, sees Hester and Pearl standing before the town scaffold. He impulsively mounts the scaffold with his lover and his daughter, and confesses publicly, exposing the mark supposedly seared into the flesh of his chest. He falls dead just after Pearl kisses him.[2]Frustrated in his revenge, Chillingworth dies a year later. Hester and Pearl leave Boston, and no one knows what has happened to them. Many years later, Hester returns alone, still wearing the scarlet letter, to live in her old cottage and resumes her charitable work. She receives occasional letters from Pearl, who was rumored to have married a European aristocrat and established a family of her own. Pearl also inherits all of Chillingworth's money even though he knows she is not his daughter. There is a sense of liberation in her and the townspeople, especially the women, who had finally begun to forgive Hester of her tragic indiscretion. When Hester dies, she is buried in "a new grave near an old and sunken one, in that burial ground beside which King's Chapel has since been built. It was near that old and sunken grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one tombstone served for both." The tombstone was decorated with a letter "A", for Hester and Dimmesdale.Character ListHester Prynne A young woman sent to the colonies by her husband, who plans to join her later but is presumed lost at sea. She is a symbol of the acknowledged sinner; one whose transgression has been identified and who makes appropriate, socio-religious atonement.（Hester Prynne is the central and most important character in The Scarlet Letter. Hester was married to Roger Chillingworth while living in England and, later, Amsterdam — a city to which many English Puritans moved for religious freedom. Hester preceded her husband to New England, as he had business matters to settle in Amsterdam, and after approximately two years in America she committed adultery with the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale.The novel begins as Hester nears the end of her prison term for adultery. While adultery was considered a grave threat to the Puritan community, such that death was considered a just punishment, the Puritan authorities weighed the long absence and possible death of her husband in their sentence. Thus, they settled on the punishment of permanent public humiliation and moral example: Hester was to forever wear the scarlet letter A on the bodice of her clothing.While seemingly free to leave the community and even America at her will, Hester chooses to stay. As the narrator puts it, "Here, she said to herself, had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul." According to this reasoning, Hester assumes her residence in a small abandoned cottage on the outskirts of the community.While the novel is, in large part, a record of the torment Hester suffers under the burden of her symbol of shame, eventually, after the implied marriage of her daughter Pearl and the death of Chillingworth and Dimmesdale, Hester becomes an accepted and even a highly valued member of the community. Instead of being a symbol of scorn, Hester, and the letter A, according to the narrator, "became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too." The people of the community even come to Hester for comfort and counsel in times of trouble and sorrow because they trust her to offer unselfish advice toward the resolution of upsetting conflict. Thus, in the end, Hester becomes an important figure in preserving the peace and stability of the community.）Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale Dimmesdale is the unmarried pastor of Hester's congregation; he is also thefather of Hester's daughter, Pearl. He is a symbol of the secret sinner; one who recognizes his transgression but keeps it hidden and secret, even to his own downfall.（Arthur Dimmesdale is the young, charismatic minister with whom Hester commits adultery. Unlike Hester, who bears the child Pearl by their affair, Dimmesdale shows no outward evidence of his sin, and, as Hester does not expose him, he lives with the great anguish of his secret guilt until he confesses publicly and soon after dies near the end of the novel.Dimmesdale is presented as a figure of frailty and weakness in contrast to Hester's strength (both moral and physical), pride, and determination. He consistently refuses to confess his sin (until the end), even though he repeatedly states that it were better, less spiritually painful, if his great failing were known. Thus Dimmesdale struggles through the years and the narrative, enduring and faltering beneath his growing pain (with both the help and harm of Roger Chillingworth), until, after his failed plan to escape to Europe with Hester and Pearl, he confesses and dies.）Pearl Pearl is the illegitimate daughter of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. She is the living manifestation of Hester's sin and a symbol of the product of the act of adultery and of an act of passion and love.（Pearl is the daughter of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. Necessarily marginal to Puritan society and scorned by other children, she grows up as an intimate of nature and the forest. Symbolically recreating the scarlet letter, Hester, in opposition to her own drab wardrobe, dresses Pearl in brilliant, decorative clothing such "that there was an absolute circle of radiance about her."Like most characters in The Scarlet Letter, Pearl is complex and contradictory. On the one hand, as the narrator describes, she "could not be made amenable to rules." At one moment in the novel, her disregard of authority takes the form of a violent game where she pretends to destroy the children of the Puritan elders: "the ugliest weeds of the garden [she imagined were the elders'] children, whom Pearl smote down and uprooted, most unmercifully." On the other hand, at a climactic point in the narrative, where Hester discards the scarlet letter on the floor of the forest, it is Pearl who dramatically insists that she resume the potent symbol. The form of her insistence is particularly important, for, against her mother's request, she does not bring the letter to Hester, but obstinately has Hester fetch the letter herself. This moment demonstrates one of the central conflicted themes of the novel about the authoritarian imposition of law and the willing subjection to it, or even embodiment of it. In this scene Pearl becomes the figure of authority to whom Hester willingly, if symbolically, obeys. Pearl eventually leaves with Hester for Europe (though Hester returns), where, it is implied, Pearl stays and, with the aid of Chillingworth's inheritance, is married to nobility.）Roger Chillingworth The pseudonym assumed by Hester Prynne's aged scholar-husband. He is a symbol of evil, of the "devil's handyman," of one consumed with revenge and devoid of compassion.（Roger Chillingworth is the alias of Hester's husband. The two were married in England and moved together to Amsterdam before Hester preceded Chillingworth to America. Chillingworth is a man devoted to knowledge. His outward physical deformity (a hunchback) is symbolic of his devotion to deep, as opposed to superficial, knowledge. His lifelong study of apothecary and the healing arts, first in Europe and later among the Indians of America, is a sincere benevolent exercise until he discovers his wife's infidelity, whereupon he turns his skills toward the evil of revenge.Chillingworth is introduced near the very start of the narrative, where he discovers Hester upon the scaffold with Pearl, the scarlet letter upon her chest, and displayed for public shame. After surviving a shipwreck on his voyage to America, he lived for some time among the Indians and slowly made his way to Boston and Hester. Upon discovering Hester's "ignominious" situation, Chilling-worth declines to announce his identity and instead chooses to reside in Boston to find and avenge himself on Hester's lover. When Dimmesdale becomes ill with the effects of his sin, Chillingworth comes to live with him under the same roof. Reneging on an earlier promise, Hester eventually discloses Chillingworth's identity to Dimmesdale. Soon after Dimmesdale publicly confesses his sin and, as Chillingworth puts it, "Hadst thou sought the whole earth over there was no one place so secret, —no high place nor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me, —save on this veryscaffold!" Thus, his vengeful victory taken from him, Chillingworth soon dies, though not before leaving all of his substantial wealth to Pearl.）Governor Bellingham This actual historical figure, Richard Bellingham, was elected governor in 1641, 1654, and 1665. In The Scarlet Letter, he witnesses Hester's punishment and is a symbol of civil authority and, combined with John Wilson, of the Puritan Theocracy.Mistress Hibbins Another historical figure, Ann Hibbins, sister of Governor Bellingham, was executed for witchcraft in 1656. In the novel, she has insight into the sins of both Hester and Dimmesdale and is a symbol of super or preternatural knowledge and evil powers.John Wilson The historical figure on whom this character is based was an English-born minister who arrived in Boston in 1630. He is a symbol of religious authority and, combined with Governor Bellingham, of the Puritan Theocracy.Character Analysis1.Hester PrynneWhat is most remarkable about Hester Prynne is her strength of character. While Hawthorne does not give a great deal of information about her life before the book opens, he does show her remarkable character, revealed through her public humiliation and subsequent, isolated life in Puritan society. Her inner strength, her defiance of convention, her honesty, and her compassion may have been in her character all along, but the scarlet letter brings them to our attention. She is, in the end, a survivor.Hester is physically described in the first scaffold scene as a tall young woman with a "figure of perfect elegance on a large scale." Her most impressive feature is her "dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam." Her complexion is rich, her eyes are dark and deep, and her regular features give her a beautiful face. In fact, so physically stunning is she that "her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped."Contrast this with her appearance after seven years of punishment for her sin. Her beautiful hair is hidden under her cap, her beauty and warmth are gone, buried under the burden of the elaborate scarlet letter on her bosom. When she removes the letter and takes off her cap in Chapter 13, she once again becomes the radiant beauty of seven years earlier. Symbolically, when Hester removes the letter and takes off the cap, she is, in effect, removing the harsh, stark, unbending Puritan social and moral structure.Hester is only to have a brief respite, however, because Pearl angrily demands she resume wearing the scarlet A. With the scarlet letter and her hair back in place, "her beauty, the warmth and richness of her womanhood, departed, like fading sunshine; and a gray shadow seemed to fall across her." While her punishment changes her physical appearance, it has a far more profound effect on her character.What we know about Hester from the days prior to her punishment is that she came from a "genteel but impoverished English family" of notable lineage. She married the much older Roger Chillingworth, who spent long hours over his books and experiments; yet she convinced herself that she was happy. When they left Amsterdam for the New World, he sent her ahead, but he was reportedly lost at sea, leaving Hester alone among the Puritans of Boston. Officially, she is a widow. While not a Puritan herself, Hester looks to Arthur Dimmesdale for comfort and spiritual guidance. Somewhere during this period of time, their solace becomes passion and results in the birth of Pearl.The reader first meets the incredibly strong Hester on the scaffold with Pearl in her arms, beginning her punishment. On the scaffold, she displays a sense of irony and contempt. The irony is present in the elaborate needlework of the scarlet letter. There are "fantastic flourishes of gold-thread," and the letter is ornately decorative, significantly beyond the colony's laws that call for somber, unadorned attire. The first description of Hester notes her "natural dignity and force of character" and mentions specifically the haughty smile and strong glance that reveal no self-consciousness of her plight. While she might be feeling agony as if "her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon," her face reveals no such thought, and her demeanor is described as "haughty." She displays a dignity and grace that reveals a deep trust in herself.In this first scene, Dimmesdale implores her to name the father of the baby and her penance may be lightened. Hester says "Never!" When asked again, she says "I will not speak!" While this declaration relievesDimmesdale and he praises her under his breath, it also shows Hester's determination to stand alone despite the opinion of society. Hester's self-reliance and inner strength are further revealed in her defiance of the law and in her iron will during her confrontation with the governor of the colony.Despite her lonely existence, Hester somehow finds an inner strength to defy both the townspeople and the local government. This defiance becomes stronger and will carry her through later interviews with both Chillingworth and Governor Bellingham. Her determination and lonely stand is repeated again when she confronts Governor Bellingham over the issue of Pearl's guardianship. When the governor determines to take Pearl away from her, Hester says, "God gave me the child! He gave her in requital of all things else, which he had taken from me . . . Ye shall not take her! I will die first!" When pressed further with assurances of Pearl's good care, Hester defiantly pleads with him, "God gave her into my keeping. I will not give her up!" Here Hester turns to Dimmesdale for help, the one time in the novel where she does not stand alone.Hester's strength is evident in her dealings with both her husband and her lover. Hester defies Chillingworth when he demands to know the name of her lover. In Chapter 4, when he interviews her in the jail, she firmly says, "Ask me not! That thou shalt never know!" In the forest scene, even Dimmesdale acknowledges that she has the strength he lacks. The minister calls on her to give him strength to overcome his indecisiveness twice in the forest and again as he faces his confession on Election Day.What is the source of this strength? As she walks out on the scaffold at the beginning of the novel, Hester determines that she must "sustain and carry" her burden forward "by the ordinary resources of her nature, or sink with it. She could no longer borrow from the future to help her through the present." Her loneliness is described in the Chapter 5 as she considers how she can support herself and Pearl, a problem that she solves with her needlework. Yet she continues to lack adult companionship throughout her life. She has nothing but her strength of spirit to sustain her. This inner calm is recognized in the changing attitude of the community when they acknowledge that the A is for "Able," "so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength."A second quality of Hester is that she is, above all, honest: She openly acknowledges her sin. In Chapter 17, she explains to Dimmesdale that she has been honest in all things except in disclosing his part in her pregnancy. "A lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side!" She also explains to Chillingworth that, even in their sham of a marriage, "thou knowest that I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any." She kept her word in carrying her husband's secret identity, and she tells the minister the truth only after she is released from her pledge. This life of public repentance, although bitter and difficult, helps her retain her sanity while Dimmesdale seems to be losing his.Finally, Hester becomes an angel of mercy who eventually lives out her life as a figure of compassion in the community. Hester becomes known for her charitable deeds. She offers comfort to the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden. When the governor is dying, she is at his side. "She came, not as a guest, but as a rightful inmate, into the household that was darkened by trouble." Yet Hester's presence is taken for granted, and those that she helps do not acknowledge her on the street.Hawthorne attributes this transformation to her lonely position in the world and her suffering. No friend, no companion, no foot crossed the threshold of her cottage. In her solitude, she had a great deal of time to think. Also, Hester has Pearl to raise, and she must do so amid a great number of difficulties. Her shame in the face of public opinion, her loneliness and suffering, and her quiet acceptance of her position make her respond to the calamities of others.In the end, Hester's strength, honesty, and compassion carry her through a life she had not imagined. While Dimmesdale dies after his public confession and Chillingworth dies consumed by his own hatred and revenge, Hester lives on, quietly, and becomes something of a legend in the colony of Boston. The scarlet letter made her what she became, and, in the end, she grew stronger and more at peace through her suffering.2.Arthur DimmesdaleDimmesdale, the personification of "human frailty and sorrow," is young, pale, and physically delicate. He has large, melancholy eyes and a tremulous mouth, suggesting great sensitivity. An ordained Puritan minister, he is well educated, and he has a philosophical turn of mind. There is no doubt that he is devoted to God, passionate in his religion, and effective in the pulpit. He also has the principal conflict in the novel, and his agonized。

小说红字(英文版)

3
C7&C8:the government‘s hall & the elf-child
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and the minister
Dimmesdale appeared to be wasting away and suffered from mysterious heart trouble. Chillingworth attached himself to Dimmesdale and lived with him so that he could provide his patient with round-the-clock care .Roger detected the minister as the lover and kept haunting his mind and soul.
C12:The minister’s vigil One night, Hester and Pearl encountered Dimmesdale at the town scaffold, trying to punish himself for his sins. Hester and Pearl joined him, and the three link hands. Dimmesdale refused Pearl’s request that he acknowledged her publicly the next day.
His four major romances or novels
written between 1850 and 1860
The Scarlet Letter《红字》 (1850)
The House of the Seven Gables 《七个尖角阁的房子》 (1851)

红字读后感The Scarlet Letter英语作文

The Scarlet LetterI. IntroductionNathaniel Hawthorne (1804一1864), born in a noble family in New England. He came from a religious family with generations of Calvinism. When he was four years old, his father who was a captain was died from the illness, his beautiful and wise mother brought up him and his sisters by herself. The grave Calvinism mood in his family and the society impressed him deeply, that formed him a depressed character and made him always think a lot. And what his ancestor did to persecute heresy made him feel guilty.The Scarlet Letter was declared a classic almost immediately after its publication in 1850, and it has stayed in print and in favor ever since. It has been hailed both as the first symbolic novel and as the first psychological novel (even though it was written before there was a science called psychology). But what really secures the place of The Scarlet Letter in the literary history is its treatment of human nature, sin, guilt, and pride—all timeless, universal themes--from a uniquely American point of view. In the decades that followed the American revolution, the united states struggled to distinguish itself culturally from Europe. There was a sense that if the United States were to become a great nation, it needed to have its own artistic traditions, not transplanted imitations of European models. Hawthorne rose to this challenge. The Scarlet Letter is set in the mid-seventeenth century in a puritan colony on the edge of an untamed forest still inhabited by native Americans. The landscape is wholly American.II. The Story of the BookThe novel takes place during the summer in 17th-century Boston, Massachusetts in a Puritan village. It narrates love affairs between three persons. The punished woman. Hester Prynne and his husband. Who called himself Roger Chillingworth. He is an old misshapen man and a doctor. Hester does not love him at all. Another man is a young minister, Dimmesdale, who has a high position among ministers and is highly respected among his people in town. Hester and Dimmesdale love each other. But their love is forbidden in that time. It is sinful. Due to this, Hester is punished by society with a letter A on her chest,which considered an evil, a shame.When the young woman Hester was taking out of the town prison with her beautiful and smart daughter, a man, a elderly and strange man appeared in the crowd. He was curious and he asked other people what was happening. Through other people, the man knew that the young woman was punished because of adultery. The strange man was Hester's husband, who was thought to be died. He asked Hester who was the little girl's father. Hester never told him. So he tried many ways to find the girl's father and wanted to revenge him. Occasionally, Hester's husband found that the young minister, Dimmesdale's performance was abnormal. Dimmesdale was always silent and depressed, seemed very guiltily. Soon, he was ill. Hester's husband got the chance to be close to the minister Dimmesdale as a doctor. Roger Chillingworth, Hester's husband got along well with Dimmesdale in the daily life, and finally, he found the secret. Dimmesdale, the young minister, who was respected by the town people, was the little girl's father. Then he took a series of measures to revenge the minister. In the last period of the minister's life, he suffered a lot both in mentally and physically. Finally, in the day before he became the bishop, after he confessed his sins, he died in the side of the person he loved.Frustrated in his revenge, Chillingworth dies a year later. Hester and Pearl leave Boston, and no one knows what has happened to them. Many years later, Hester returns alone, still wearing the scarlet letter, to live in her old cottage and resumes her charitable work. She receives occasional letters from Pearl, who was rumored to have married a European aristocrat and established a family of her own. Pearl also inherits all of Chillingworth's money even though he knows she is not his daughter. In the very end, people forgave Hester's sin, and after Hester's death, they buried her a new grave near an old and sunken one, which was near to the minister Dimmesdale's. Yet one tombstone served for both." The tombstone was decorated with a letter "A", for Hester and Dimmesdale.III. My Views on this BookIn the book, Hawthorne uses a bittersweet-ending story to show us something about the national America. The strict religious morality gives a deep influence to the society and there is a troubled relationship between white settles and native Americans. What is perhaps even more remarkable about this 150-year-old story if that its characters face the samemoral struggles as readers in the twenty-first century.The Scarlet Letter concerns about the moral, emotional and psychological effect of the sin on people in general. It's not simply a love story or a story of sin. The scarlet letter "A" is used to symbolize the harshness of Puritan society, showing how they brand sinners for life. It shows us an extraordinary picture of the 17th century's American Puritan society to us.In this book, I like the character Hester best. Although she is sinful, but her qualities is very commendable. On the other hand, her behaviour of pursuing happiness and true is not wrong. Everyone has his or her right to find his or her own happiness. If I have her courage and strength, I think many problems that I have come across in my study and life will be dealt with more proper and easier. In other words, Hester has taught me something. That is: To admit your mistake and face the fact bravely, and finally, manage it.What is the most remarkable point of Hester Prynne is her strength of character. While Hawthorne does not give a great deal of information about her life before the book opens, he does show her remarkable character, revealed through her public humiliation and subsequent, isolated life in Puritan society. Her inner strength, her defiance of convention, her honesty, and her compassion may have been in her character all along, but the scarlet letter brings them to our attention. She is, in the end, a survivor.In the end, Hester's strength, honesty, and compassion carry her through a life she had not imagined. While Dimmesdale dies after his public confession and Chillingworth dies consumed by his own hatred and revenge, Hester lives on, quietly, and becomes something of a legend in the colony of Boston. The scarlet letter made her what she became, and, in the end, she grew stronger and more at peace through her suffering.Hester Prynne, a lady should be respected.The Scarlet Letter, a book should be read.Modern readers will see much of themselves in the characters of The Scarlet Letter.。

红字the scarlet

The stings and venomous stabs like the pricking that needle stabs on her body. Rigid countenances contorted describes townspeople are ruthless and numb and are poisoned by Puritian social system. However, her scornful merriment indicates her disdainful attitude toward the society.
The Scarlet Letter
Hester Prynne
Townspeople
Letter A
This paragraph mainly describes that the incredibly strong Hester on the scaffold bore scornful eyes from the public, but still keeping her prideful self-esteem.
The unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman victim might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes , all ftred at her bosom. give particular attention It was almost intolerable to be borne
But , under the leaden infliction which it was suffering her doom to endure , she felt , at moments , as if she must needs shriek out with the full power of her lungs , and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the ground , or else go mad at once.

红字The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet LetterIn the novel The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne’s character Arthur Dimmesdale descends from his priestly celibacy into immorality through his elicit love affair with Hester Prynne. Hester refuses to give the name of her lover up and through her secrecy the descent of Dimmesadele begins. Although in the book Hester is the only one convicted of this crime, due to her inability to hide her pregnancy; Dimmesdale constantly condemns himself. Throughout the years after the discovery of Hester’s affair, the priest continues to spiral downwards into ultimate guilt-filled depression. He continues to grow ill and with the help of Roger Chillingworth continues to be haunted by his sin. His own lashings only contribute to this deterioration. A victim of love and human weakness, the priest loses his life to shame. Dimmesdale’s repentance and suffering make him the ultimate tragic hero. His actions condemned by society and his faith, Dimmesdale tries to receive an equal punishment, one as severe as his lovers, through his own remedies. Yet his efforts prove worthless and even destructive. His only door out is confession.In the named movie The Scarlet Letter, Hester reunited with Dimmesdale. They together with Pearl moved outside the community and lived happily ever after. Comparing with this end with the original end in the novel, I prefer the original end. Because sometimes the tragedy more impressive. Dimmesdale’s confession at the end of the novel, on thescaffolding, his grief is released and his supreme satisfaction allows the ultimate release; death. Dimmesdale’s affair was truly an act of love, yet the strict Puritan society in which he lives in and the rules in which he lives by did not allow him to openly express his sin without fear of total reprimand and disapproval of the people. His hidden sin presses upon his back, and the weight of his pain is too much. In facing his responsibility and confessing, it is easy to see Dimmesadle as the tragic hero of Hawthorne’s Th e Scarlet letter.Destroyed by Chillingworth lie and guilt, Dimmesdale dies in Hester's arms, and some see a scarlet A on his chest. Destroyed by his single-minded quest for vengeance, Chillingworth bequeaths his vast estates to Pearl, who leaves America to live abroad, depriving America of all she represents. The book ends with an allusion to Andrew Marvell's poem "The Unfortunate Lover," in which the lover lives on in story. So does Hester Prynne, perhaps the first fully realized female character in American fiction, whose meanings continue to attract new readers.Although criticism of The Scarlet Letter for a long time took Dimmesdale as the central character, it has more recently knowledge what was well understood in Hawthorne's own time, that Hester is protagonist and center. The narrator allies himself with her and, despite occasional adverse judgments, devotes himself to her cause. His cause as narrator is to obliterate her obliteration, to force the reader to acceptHester's reading of her letter as a badge of honor instead of a mark of negation. The narrator forces us, just as Hester forces her Puritan townsmates, to see her as a good woman on her own terms. In contrast to the two distorted male personalities who counterpoise her-the one obsessed with revenge, the other with his own purity-Hester appears almost a miracle of wholeness and sanity. While these men struggle with their own egos and fantasies, she has real battles-to maintain herself-respect in a community that scorns her, to stay sane in solitude, to support herself and her child, to raise that child to normal adulthood despite so many obstacles. Curiously, though she has been cast out of society, Hester remains very much in the world, whereas Chillingworth and Dimmesdale at the very center of society, are totally immured in their self-absorption. In her inner integrity and her outer responsiveness, Hester is a model and a counterstatement.As its title suggests, the book is about labeling, about the Puritan and later the American desire to eliminate ambiguity, to get the meanings right. The tale shows that even so simple a label as the first letter of the alphabet is full of burgeoning meanings dependent upon changing contexts. After Hester's competence and usefulness to the community become evident, some think the letter stands for "able." When an A appears in the sky at Governor John Winthrop's death, they think it stands for "angel." Since historical Puritans convicted of adultery were made towear the letters AD on their sleeves, critics have noted that these are Dimmesdale's initials and concluded that the A also represents Arthur. Anne Hutchinson of the Antinomian Controversy is explicitly mentioned in the text, so the letter also represents Anne and Antinomian. Readers may well conclude that the A can mean almost anything, even America, where we still struggle to rein scribe the labels that others put on us.Bruce Granger states that “ev en though Arthur Dimmesdale does not move down center until late in the action, The Scarlet Letter is finally his story and, what is more important, that he is a tragic hero… Hawthorne's allegorical romance centers on a good man's struggle with and eventual victory over the guilt he experiences after committing lechery.” (Granger, 1). In the end this holly sinner steps out from behind his lies and deception, even against the grain of the Puritan society, in order to actually become the pious person he had fooled everyone into believing he was. Trapped in society’s grasp, filled with remorse and tossed about by the harsh sea of sin; Dinnesdale pushes through with honesty and became the tragic hero of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.。

英美文学欣赏资料-红字the scarlet letter-精选文档

Story Synopsis
Years later, the husband Chillingworth came to the town and found out the whole truth, and he operated an horror revenge on Dimmesdale, with hiding his own true name. Yet, as the story going, Hester and Dimmesdale became sympathetic figures, while Chillingworth was a devil at last.
The Scarlet Letter
-----Nathaniel Hawthorne
19th century American Romanticism Hawthorne's novel
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Novelist and short story writer, a central figure in the American Renaissance. Nathaniel Hawthorne's best-known works include The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851). Like Edgar Allan Poe, Hawthorne took a dark view of human nature.
Book review and summary
The Scarlet Letter represents the height of Hawthorne's literary genius .It remains relevant for its philosophical and psychological depth, and continues to be read as a classic tale on a universal theme.

《红字》主要情节theplotofscarletletter

The plot of the scarlet letter（《红字》主要情节）The story begins in seventeenth century’s boston, massachussetts colony.H ESTER P RYNNE, the novel’s heroin, is led out of a prison carrying an baby, named P EARL, the daughter of an unknowns man . A bright red “A” is embroidered on her chest. she is forced to climb up a scaffold to endure public shame for her adultery. Just then she notices her husband, now he is named chillingworth,who is thought has died in the sea. Hester refuse to tell the Reverend A RTHUR D IMMESDALE the man’s name and is sent back to her prison cell. Chillingworth gets inside the prison to speak with Hester, and there forces her to promise never to reveal that he’s her husband. Three years pass. Hester is let out of prison and moves to the outskirts of Boston as a seamstress.Meanwhile, Chillingworth is working in Boston as a physician. Dimmesdale has fallen ill with heart trouble. Chillingworth discovers that Dimmesdale has carved a mark over his heart that is like Hester’s scarlet letter, he realizes that Dimmesdale is Hester’s lover. He begins to torture him. One night meets hester and pearl. Heater tells him Chillingworth’s true identity. T hey decide to flee to Europe. However, herealizes he’s dying. He mounts the scaffo ld and confesses his sin to the crowd and revealing a scarlet letter carved into his breast.Hester and Pearl leave Boston. Chillingworth dies after dimmesdale. Many years later, Hester remains in Boston until her death and is buried alongside Dimmesdale. Their shared tombstone bears a letter “A.”。

the scarlet letter中文译文

the scarlet letter中文译文《红字》（The Scarlet Letter）是一部经典小说，由美国作家纳撒尼尔·霍桑（Nathaniel Hawthorne）于1850年发表。

这部小说被誉为美国文学史上的巨著，讲述了一个在17世纪新英格兰社会中，因性丑闻被判刑的女性海薇·普林（Hester Prynne）的故事。

在小说中，霍桑为读者呈现出海薇·普林的故事，并通过她的故事，深刻地反思了人性、道德和社会价值观。

除此之外，小说中还存在着大量的 symbol（象征符号），如红字、夜、森林等，这些 symbol 为小说增添了不少意义和魅力。

随着《红字》的国际影响逐渐加大，这部小说被译成多种语言，并且在中文学术界中也有多个译本。

“红字”的中文译文主要有王士祯译本、严合标译本、钱钟书译本和顾颉刚译本等。

下面我将对这几个译本进行比较和评价。

首先是王士祯译本。

据我所知，这个译本是最早的中文译本之一，最早发表于20世纪50年代。

相较于其他译本，这个译本的语言简练，易于理解，也比较符合当时的中文读者的口味。

然而，王士祯译本在翻译原著中的symbol 时并未十分准确地传达原意，这与原著的意图不相符。

其次是严合标译本。

相对于王士祯译本，严合标译本对原著中 symbol 的传达更为准确，但在整体语言风格上相对较为生硬。

这个译本的语言并不够流畅，也不能使人深入感受到原著中的情感和气氛。

因此，虽然这个译本的准确度得到了提高，但整体阅读体验并不是很好。

其次是钱钟书译本。

这个译本被誉为是中国现代化大师之一的钱钟书先生所作的《红字》中文翻译。

这个译本在语言上追求的是优美和准确，而结合钱老的文学智慧和阅读体验，使得这个译本得到了众多中文读者的喜爱。

不过，相较于原著，译本在符号的传达上仍然存在一定的问题。

最后是顾颉刚译本。

这个译本是较为新近的一个版本，其中翻译者尤其关注了原著中 symbol 的传达。

美国文学红字英文赏析 The+Scarlet+Letter

productive, as he wrote The House of the Seven Gables and The Blithedale Romance, along with A Wonder Book (1852) and Tanglewood Tales (1853).
Hawthorne Biography
They finally returned to the United States, after an absence of seven years, and took up residence in their first permanent home, The Wayside, at Concord.
Most of Hawthorne's early stories were published anonymously (without an author's name) in magazines and giftbooks.
In 1837, the publication of Twice-Told Tales
Hawthorne Biography
Years Abroad and Death Although he had always been an exceptionally active
man, Hawthorne's health began to fail him. Since he refused to submit to any thorough medical examination, the details of his declining health remain mysterious. Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864.

《红字》英文介绍

1
2 3
Author
Characters Plot Themes
4
1
Author
Nathaniel Hawthorne (纳撒尼尔·霍桑) An American novelist and short story writer His fiction works are . considered dark romanticism（黑色浪漫主义）
Able
As time goes by, Hester has added to the letter another meaning through her own efforts.
Angel
Gradually，it becomes indeterminate（模糊的）： people even regard it as angle.
The Ending
She
receives occasional letters from Pearl, who has married a European aristocrat and established a family of her own. When Hester dies, she is buried next to Dimmesdale. The two share a single tombstone, which bears a scarlet “A.”
considereddarkromanticism黑色浪漫主义majorworks?shortstories?twicetoldtales故事重述1837?twicetoldtales故事重述1837?mossesfromanoldmanse古宅青苔1846?younggoodmanbrown?theministersblackveilmajorworks?novels红字?thescarletletter红字1850?thehouseofthesevengables带有七个尖角阁的房子1851?blithedaleromance福谷传奇1852?themarblefaun玉石雕像186022charactershesterdimmesdalechillingworthpearl22characters?old?ugly?scholarchillingworth?deformedshoulders畸形的肩膀?distortedsoul扭曲的灵魂?heisinterestedinrevenge

红字英语读书报告范文

红字英语读书报告红字英语读书报告范文红字英语读书报告范文第一篇：《红字》读书报告The Spirit of The Scarlet LettersThe Scarlet Letter, written by Hawthorn,who was an American novelist and short story writer, show us a story about soul. As you known, everyone has soul, but someone maintain the soul, some people damage the soul, and others lose the soul, so the world is filled with all kinds of life and the story of human.The protagonist, Hester Prynne, wore the scarlet letters on her chest symbolizing the harshness of Puritan society, just because she fell in love with the priest, Arthur Dimmesdale and then had a child. For protecting the priest's reputation, she accepted the punishment with no hesitation----a red A letter on her chest meaning Adultery. Although it is absolutely difficult for her to live normally and happily with a red A, she is a great woman who had never surrendered to the fate, who even showed the contempt for the fate all her life, who had a spirit of sacrifice for pure love. She deeply knew if you want to gain freedom and liberation, you have no choice but to fighting with the pedantic Puritan and the dark society. With a hotly public opinion,Hester Prynne is no doubt guilty of adultery and accused by religion, but she choosed to face the dark days with a positive attitude.Faced with the mistake she had done, she just felt no regret but consciousness. She is the woman who had always been resisting the miserable fate, who was always looking forward to a better life, whose heart was full of unselfish love.Her consciousness and adamancy, doughtiness and unconvention showed a supercharacter of the new colonial women. With the mind of strong resistance and fighting will, she had obviously already showed the view of objecting to the Puritan and the common customs.So she became noble man receiving the respect from other people, at the same time, she succeeded in eliminating the shame form the red A which should become the symbol of noble in the end.That is the reason why the Hester Prynne impressed me a lot.In my opinion, the scarlet letters not only represent the shame or the symbol of noble, but, in fact, a spiritual hint and pressure.Everyone, more or less, is likely to have the scarlet letters in his or her own heart.When we do something wrong, there is always a justice reminding us that the things what we have done was wrong.And then you will have the continuously torment of conscience, so some criminals will surrender, and even feel ashamed or what we have done. It is the scarlet letter in our heart which is having an effect on us, isn't it ?Everybody has his scarlet letter, but some are the voice of the justice, some are the crime of the accused. The Scarlet letter is yourself and defeating the scarlet letter is facing yourself.The Scarlet Letter let me to feel the peace after the depression, the happiness after the pain.第二篇：《红字》读书报告A Book Report of The Scarlet LetterBy Lan Jianlong, 2010The Scarlet Letter is written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, an American novelist, and was published by Shanghai Translation Press in 1989.The story is set in Boston in the 17th century .At that time, the City Fathers moved to New England, and built the houses, the churches as well as the prisons with their own hands. Theybrought the customs and religion of old England with them, and strong bias towards women.The gist of the story is as follows: Hester Prynne is the female protagonist in this novel. She is a young, beautiful and gentle woman –a perfect woman in people’s eye. However, she married Roger Chilingworth, an old misshapen man, who is also a doctor. She feels no happiness at all. Several years later, her husband was lost on the sea, so with nobody accompanying her, she had to live a lonely life. Just like the flaming fire in the night, a young, energetic priest named Arthur Dimmesdale, came into her life. They fell in love with each other, and they spent a period time of life full of passion and true love. Soon Hester found that she became pregnant. Owing to this, she was arrested and gave birth to a little girl in the prison. At that time, only would she tell the public the name of the adulterer, could she got rid of the imputation. As we know, a priest would be blamed and punished badly if he does something that is forbidden by God. In order to protect his high position and good reputation, she accepted the shame, wore the scarlet letter, which referred to shame, and stood alone under the scaffold in the public. The person who questioned Hester happened to be Mr. Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale himself had a pure heart--he may couldn’t help crying out that he was the adulterer, but at last he didn’t bring himself to admit his guilt. To him, the letter was a combination of guilty, misery and evilness. From that day on, he had printed the letter A in his mind .Hester’s former husband Chilingworth came back someday and he decided to take revenge on the priest. He pretended to be the priest’s doctor and friend,but his real intention was to gnaw his heart with endless guilty. His revenge lasted for seven years. And finally, Mr.Dimmesdale couldn’t bear the misery hidden deep in his heart, and he told the townspeople, who always thought highly of him, that he was the very man. Standing under the scaffold, he became strong enough to do the thing that he failed to do seven years ago. He pulled open his shirt for them to see the scarlet letter on his chest. No one had ever put the letter on his chest, but they saw the red-hot “A” blazing up. He felt his life was lies, emptiness and death. Luckily, he got a clear conscience in the end.After reading this novel, I begin to understand the western culture and the religion in the 17th century. Here I can only give you my own view instead of the common view. I just analysis the characters in this story as follows, because of the limitation of the number of words. The Scarlet Letter offers an extraordinary insight into the norms and behavior of the 17th century in American Puritan society. The basic conflicts and problems of its main characters, however, are familiar to readers in the present. The female protagonist, has borne a child out of wedlock and has been jailed for over three months and sentenced to wear a symbol of her adultery, a scarlet “A” on her dress at all times. It concerns about the moral, emotional and psychological effect of the sin on people in general. It’s not simply a love story or a story of sin. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the scarlet letters to symbolize the harshness of Puritan society, showing how they brand sinners for life.The story happened in Boston about 200 years ago. It narrates love affairs between three persons. Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester’s husband, Who called himself Roger Chillingworth. He is an old doctor. Hester does not love him at all. Another man is a young minister, Dimmesdale, whohas a high position among ministers and is highly respected among his people in town. Hester and Dimmesdale love each other. But their love is forbidden in that time. It is sinful. Due to this, Hester is punished by society with a letter A on her chest, which considered an evil, a shame.In this novel, the mainline seems to be around the letter A. Hester is brave enough to face the cruel reality. She is always with a mind of courage. She has been alone with her child for so long, with little communication. Shame!Hopelessness! Loneliness! Hester has to wear the letter A day after day, seven years as for punishment and ill fame. When a woman has lived through a difficult experience, her character changes a great deal. If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she survives, the tenderness will leave her .Hester’s charitable deeds and quiet humility have earned her a reprieve from the scorn of the community. The letter on her chest represents her work on earth, always helping others, without expecting any thanks. Never afterwards, does that scarlet letter leave her chest. The townspeople no longer view the letter as a punishment, but rather as representing her great strength and bravery and thy say it means “Able”. But Arthur Dimmesdale, his sin against Hester and Pearl is that he will not acknowledge them as his wife and daughter in the daylight. He keeps his dreadful secret from all those under his care in the church for seven years for fear that he will lose their love and will not be forgiven. He is too weak to admit his sins. He suffers from mysterious heart trouble, seemingly caused by psychological distress. What’s worse, he is an advisor to the townspeople about their sins. After Mr. Dimmesd ale’s death , no one changes more in appearance than Roger Chillingworth. All his strength and energy has been usedto harm his patient. This unhappy man has made his aim in life to add to the suffering of the young minister. When the evil old man no longer has such a purpose, the devil takes him back to the hell. It is a curious subject of observation, however, whether hatred or love are not of the same place. Each takes a great deal of emotion from one person. The two feelings seem basically the same, expect that one is smiled upon by God, while the other is worshipped by the devil.Before reading the book, I didn’t know what the writer would sayabout an ordinary letter “A”. But after reading, I have learnt that you should be brave enough to show your guilty, or it will be worse to hide it in mind. It is like a snake keeps biting your heart and won’t make you feel better until you speak your mind.。

美国文学Scarlet_Letter_红字

Chapter One: The Prison Door
• A large crowd of Puritans stands outside of the prison, waiting for the door to open. The prison is described as a, "wooden jail ... already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front." The iron on the prison is rusting and creates an overall appearance of decay.
• Outside the building, next to the door, a rosebush stands in full bloom.
Why is the prison the setting of Chapter 1 and what is the implication of the description of the roses?
• The rosebush itself is an obvious symbol of passion and the wilderness; it symbolizes the ability of nature to endure and outlast man’s activities;
The Scarlet Letter: Background
The setting of The Scarlet Letter is Boston in the 1640s. Persecuted in England, the Puritans came to North America to form their own communities.

Book-report-红字-The-scarlet-letter

Time and Place Written
Salem and Concord. Massachusetts: late 1840s Date of First Publication
1850 Publisher
Ticknor, Reed. and Fields
Setting(Time)
Middle of the seventeenth century Setting(Place)
The scarlet letter
Author Nathaniel Hawthorne Type of Work Novel Genre Symbolic; semi-allegorical; historical fiction; romance (in the sense that it rejects realism in favor of symbols and ideas)
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Boston, Massachusetts Protagonist
பைடு நூலகம்Hester Prynne
Major Conflict
Her husband having inexplicably failed to join her in Boston following their emigration from Europe, Hester Prynne engages in an extramarital affair with Arthur Dimmesdale. When she gives birth to a child, Hester invokes the condemnation of her community—a condemnation they manifest by forcing her to wear a letter “A” for “adulteror” , as well as the vengeful wrath of her husband who has appeared just in time to witness her public shaming.