美国文学学期论文
The Symbolic Meaning of the Scarlet Letter
I. Introduction
The Scarlet Letter is written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, an American writer. He likes using symbols and allegory in his novels. Moreover, he is the creator of psychological novel in America. The story of The Scarlet Letter is set in the Puritan past of the seventeenth century. An ageing English scholar sends her beautiful wife Hester Prynne to make a new home in New England. However, when he comes over two years later, he is surprised to see her wife in pillory, wearing a scarlet letter “A” on her breast holding her illicit child in her arms. Determined to find out who the child’s father is, the old scholar disguises himself as a physician and changes his name to Roger Chillingworth. Gradually he discovers that the villain is the much admired clergyman, Authur Dimmesdale. He keeps preying upon the conscience of Dimmesdale, who cuts himself off from society and suffers secretly for his sin. Dimmesdale withers physically and spiritually. At last, he confesses his sin on Election Sermon Day and ends his life. This thesis is centered on the symbolic meaning of the scarlet letter “A”.
II. Analysis of scarlet letter
Chapter One: The Reasons of W earing the Scarlet Letter “A”
1.1. The literal meaning of the scarlet letter
The scarlet letter “A” stands for adultery. In the seventeenth, English Puritan held strict religions and principles. If anyone who commits the sin of adultery, he or she is penalized by the community to wear the scarlet letter “A”. The heroine of the story —Hester Prynne betrayed her husband and falls in love with her young clergyman. She even bores a little girl named Pearl. According to the local laws, she has to bear the scarlet “A” for her sin of adultery.
1.2. The goal of wearing the scarlet letter
The scarlet letter “A” warns He ster Prynne that it is illegal to betray her husband as a married woman and reminds her of the shame of what she has done. The community takes Hester Prynne as a representative of adultery to warn others not to follow her suit. Otherwise, the person
who does not follow the law will be tortured for his crime, both in physical and in mental.
Chapter Two: The Symbols of the Scarlet Letter
2.1. The visible scarlet letter — Hester Prynne
Hester Prynne is born in a poor family and marries to an old, ugly man. She falls in love with her clergyman when she hears of the death of her husband in the sea. She is sentenced to adultery for being pregnant and has to wear the scarlet letter on her breast. In order to keep the fame of her lover, she faces all the difficulties and sufferings. Many years later when her child grows up, she gives up the comfortable life with her daughter in England and returns to the place to accompany Dimmesdale until her death, although he has died for a long time.
Hester Prynne is a new, brave woman who dares to break up the traditions of Puritanism. We know that Hester has to wears clothes with the scarlet letter as a symbol of shame. Unexpectedly, she embroiders the scarlet letter with the fabrics of silk and old to show her delicate and imaginative skill of needlework (Hawthorne, 87). Besides, her child’s attire is distinguished by fanciful or fantastic ingenuity to heighten the airy charm (Hawthorne, 88). These behaviors show us that she faces the sin positively and bravely. In this circumstances, the meaning of “A”turns into “Able”.
Hester Prynne is also a kind-hearted lady. Although she works hard to do needlework, she finds that she is separated by the local people and not belongs to society. She begins to help the poor, whom she seeks out to be the objects of her bounty, often reviles the hand that is stretched forth to succor them (Hawthorne, 90). At the beginning, she is not accepted by others even those she helps, but she never complains about anything and is always ready to help others. In this way, she wins the respect of some people. Meantime, her virtue makes the “A” turn into “Admirable”.
Hester Prynne makes the sin and chooses to face it positively, rather than negatively. She is a great woman in my heart who dares to pursue her own happiness and fight for it, never giving up the hope. Everyone knows we should face the obstacles of life positively and live for our happiness everyday. However, how many people of us can carry this word out into practice all the time? In this sense, “A” turns into “Advance” of the times.
2.2. The invisible scarlet letter — Authur Dimmesdale
Dimmesdale is a young clergyman, who is Hester’s lover. Compared with Hester, who
proves her to be self-reliant, Dimmesdale chooses to hide his sin deeply and construct a public persona that increases his inner sin. However, Dimmesdale is so weak in spiritual and physical that when Chillingworth coldly probes into his heart, he is eventually destroyed. “The more Dimmesdale suppresses the impulse to make an outward confession, the more intensely inward his heart becomes.”(Tong, 108) It is this inwardness and this tragic intensity that moves me.
Finally, he comes to peace with himself only when he is able to stand on the scaffold (where Hester once stood) and turns his election sermon into confession that ends his life. In fact, he gets rid of the burden of guilt in this way and gets relieved. All in all, he does not have the courage to say the justice of his love for Hester and hide it in the deep heart, let alone separated himself with the old spiritual system.
2.3. The creator of the scarlet letter — Roger Chillingworth
Chillingworth is Hester’s husband, ugly and old. His ugly appearance and twisted body is the reflection of his ugly and twisted soul. He chooses to make Dimmesdale live with sufferings as his revenge mean, which in fact prevents him being sympathized as a victim. He explores the inward heart of Dimmesdale to find more proofs to exposure his sin. He is guilty of the unpardonable sin: the invasion into other person’s soul in order to manipulate the other person’s will for a very purpose. (Tong, 107)
He changes his love for Hester into hatred and makes the revenge as his life aim. He gives up the “broad love”of Christian spirit and enjoys the actions of revenging others and destroying oth ers’ soul. In the end, it turn s out that Chillingworth is the “bad criminal”, rather than a victim.
2.4. The living scarlet letter — Pearl
Pearl is the seed of “original sin” and fruit of love as well. Pearl is made up beautifully by her mother. Pearl’s beauty i s a strong contrast with Chillingworth’s ugliness: On the one hand, it reflects the author’s romantic ideas－the learned knowledge of old scholar makes him be a person polluted by civilization, while the wilderness of the little girl makes her keep the purity of nature. On the other hand, it i s the reflection of the author’s religious ideas－Chillingworth is Satan, while Pearl is angel. It is the perfect dream of the author and his imagination of religion.
III. Conclusion
From the analysis of the symbolic meaning of the scarlet letter, we can make a conclusion that
The Scarlet Letter probes the secret motivations in human behavior. Hawthorne explores the guilty and anxiety, which grows out of sins against humanity and asserts that emotional and intellectual ambivalence is from the heritage of America. The thesis analyzes the symbolic meaning of the scarlet letter and is benefit for the deep understanding of the four main characters in the novel. It provides the materials for the further study of The Scarlet Letter.
W ork Cited
[1] Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter.—Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 2007
[2] Tong Ming. A History of American Literature.—Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and
Research Press, 2008.1
[3] 常耀信著. 《美国文学简史》. —3版. —天津：南开大学出版社, 2008.9
[4] 方笑君主编. 《美国文学选读》. —北京：对外经济贸易大学出版社, 2009
[5] 王卓，李权文主编. 《美国文学史》. —武汉：华中师范大学出版社, 2010.8
[6] 左金梅主编. 《美国文学》.—青岛：青岛海洋大学出版社, 2000.9
[7] 左金梅主编. 《西方文学纲要及选读》.—青岛：青岛海洋大学出版社, 2001.9
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Melville also criticizes New England Transcendentalism of its emphasis on individualism and Oversoul. Another theme of this novel is “rejection and quest.” (3) The novel is highly symbolic. The voyage itself is a metaphor for “search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of experience.” Moby Dick is the most conspicuous symbol in the book and it is capable of many interpretations. It is a symbol of evil to some, one of goodness to others, and both to still others. Its whiteness is a paradoxical color, signifying as it does death and corruption as well as purity, innocence, and youth. It represents the final mystery of the universe which man will do well to desist from pursuing. (4) Melville manages to achieve the effect of ambiguity through employing the technique of multiple views of his narratives. He tends to write periodic sentences. His rich rhythmical prose and his poetic power have been profusely commented upon and praised. B. what does the white whale in Moby Dick symbolize? Why do you think so? For Captain Ahab, the white whale represents evil. After the loss of his leg in his encounter with the white whale, Ahab begins to hate Moby Dick and tries his best to kill the whale. It seems that he embodies all of the evil he once consigned to the white whale. For other members on the whaling ship, the white whale symbolizes the unknown, mysterious natural force of the universe. For the readers, the white whale is capable of many interpretations, for it is “paradoxically benign an d malevolent, nourishing and destructive,” “massive, brutal, monolithic, but at the same time protean, erotically beautiful, infinitely variable.” C. Major themes: obsession, religion, and idealism versus pragmatism, revenge, racism, sanity, hierarchical relationships, and politics. D. the Pequod is the microcosm of human society and the voyage becomes a search for truth. Moby Dick is a mystery, an ultimate mystery of the universe, and the voyage of the mind will forever remain a search, not a discovery, of the truth. The whole story turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man’s deep reality and psychology. 5. Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass.It has been praised as “Democ ratic Bible”, and as American Epic. 主题：(1)he shows concern for the whole hard-working people and the burgeoning life of cities. (2) realization of the individual value. (3) pursuit of love and happiness. (4) Before and during the Civil War, Whitman expressed much mourning for the sufferings of the young lives in the battlefield and showed a determination to carry on the fighting dauntlessly until the final victory. 写作风格：(1) Whitman wrote “free verse”, that is, poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. (2) There is a strong sense of the poems being rhythmical. Parallelism and phonetic recurrence at the beginning of the lines contribute to the musicality of his poems. (3) Most of the pictures he painted with words are honest, undistorted images of different aspects of America of the day. (4) Whitman’s language is relatively simple and even rather crude. Another characteristic in Whitman’s language is his strong tendency to use oral English. Whitman’s vocabulary is amazing. He would use powerful, colorful, as well as rarely-used words. Leaves of Grass的分析： (1). Grass, the most common thing with the greatest vitality, is an image of the poet himself, a symbol of the then rising American nation and an embodiment of his ideals about democracy and freedom. (2). In this giant work, openness, freedom, and above all, individualism are all that concerned him. (3). In this book he also praises nature, democracy, labor and creation, and sings of man’s dignity and equality, and of th e brightest future of mankind. Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the “en-masse” and self as well. 6. Emily Dickinson: 诗歌的主要内容：love, nature, death and immortality. 7. Edgar Allen Poe: 短篇小说家和诗人。 Poe is the father of psychoanalytic criticism and the father of detective story. 主题：death of one’s beloved lover of great intelligence and beauty. He also writes about horror (Gothic) stories, murder, and insanity. 8. Henry James: The turn of the screw The founder of psychological realism. He was the first American writer to conceive his artistic work in international themes. 9. Mark Twain:The adventures of Huckleberry Finn Hemingway described it as the book from which “all modern American literature comes”. The style of this book is quite simple. The book is written in the colloquial style. Though a local book, it touches upon the human situation in a general, indeed universal way: humanitarianism ultimately triumphs. It tells a story about the United States before the Civil War, around 1850, when the great Mississippi Valley was still being settled. Here lies an America, wit its great national faults, full of violence and even cruelty, yet still retaining the virtues of “some simplicity, some innocence, some peace.” 10. Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser: 自然主义的代表人物。 11. F. Scott Fitzgerald:The Great Gatsby 迷惘一代的代表人物 12. Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms; For Whom the Bell Tolls; The Old Man and the Sea The title of For Whom the Bell Tolls comes from John Donne’s Meditation. 13. William Faulkner: stream of consciousness的写作手法 14. Ezra Pound: 意象派代表人物。 意象派基本主张： (1) Direct treatment of the “thing”, whether subjective or objective. (2) To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation (3) As regarding rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of a metronome. 15. Robert Frost: natural poet. 16. Eugene Glastone O’Neill: Desire Under the Elms Long Days Journey into Night: Mark Twain H. L. Mencken considered "the true father of our national literatu re” Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(1884) and Life on the Mississippi(1883) Twain shaped the world's view of American and made a more extensive combination of American folk humor and serious literature than previous writers had ever done. Mark Twain’s sty le 1) Twain is also known as a local colorist, who preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of his regions 2) Another fact that made Twain unique is his magic power with language, his use of vernacular. His words are colloquial, concrete and direct in effect, and his sentence structures are simple, even ungrammatical, which is typical of the spoken language 3) Mark Twain's humor is remarkable, too. Most of his works tend to be funny, containing some practical jokes, comic details, witty remarks. 4) Paid more attention to the "life" of the Americans, Concerned with the life of a small, well-defined region and the lower-class people 5) Nostalgic in a vanishing way of life and recorders of a present that faded before their eyes Adventures of Huckleberry Fin The character analysis and social meaning of Huck Finn Huck is a typical American boy with “a sound heart and a deformed conscience”. He appears to be vulgar in language and in manner, but he is honest and decent in es sence. His remarkable raft’s journey down on the Mississippi river can be regarded as his process of education and his way to grow up. Huck is the son of nature and a symbol for freedom and earthly pragmatism. Through the eye of Huck, the innocent and reluctant rebel, we see the pre-Civil War American society fully exposed. Twain contrasts the life on the river and the life on the banks, the innocence and the experience, the nature and the culture, the wilderness and the civilization. Ernest Hemingway A Nobel Prize winner for literature His style, the particular type of hero in his novels, and his life attitudes have been widely recognized, not only in English-speaking countries but all over the world Hemingway shot himself with a hunting gun In Our Time (1925)is the first book to present a Hemingway hero--Nick Adams The Sun Also Rises(1926) is Hemingway's first true novel. A vivid portrait of "The Lost Generation," -- a group of young Americans who left their native land and fought in the war and later engaged themselves in writing in a new way about their own experiences. Hemingway's second big success is A Farewell to Arms, telling us a story about the tragic love affair of a wounded American soldier with a British nurse -- emphasizes his belief that man is trapped both physically and mentally, but goes to some lengths to refute the idea of nature, man is doomed to be entrapped For Whom the Bell Tolls clearly represents a new beginning in Hemingway's career as a writer, which concerns a volunteer American guerrilla Robert Jordan fighting in the Spanish Civil War, this work Caps his career and leads to his receipt of the Nobel Prize The Old Man and the Sea, Men Without Women(1927), Death in the Afternoon(1932), The Snows of Kilimanjaro, To Have and Have Not (1937) Hemingway develops the style of colloquialism initiated by Mark Twain Hemingway was highly praised by the Nobel Prize Committee for "his powerful style-forming mastery of the art" of creating modern fiction. Indian Camp The title indicates that the material is contemporary and to some extent, representative of the early twentieth-century experience A reference to the well-know phrase from the Book of Common Prayer:" Give us peace in our time, O Lord," the title is very ironic because there is no peace at all in the stories In a chronological order, introduces Nick Adams to readers from his childhood to adolescence and manhood Nick watches his father deliver an Indian woman of a baby by Caesarian section, with a Jack-knife and without anesthesia. This incident brings the boy into contact with something that is perplexing and unpleasant, and is actually Nick's initiation into the pain and violence of birth and death. Most of Hemingway's later works are merely variations of the Nick Adams stories in In Our Time The Hemingway code heroes and grace under pressure They have seen the cold world, and for one cause, they boldly and courageously face the reality. They have an indestructible spirit for his optimistic view of life. Whatever the result is, they are ready to live with grace under pressure. No matter how tragic the ending is, they will never be defeated. Finally, they will be prevailing because of their indestructible spirit and courage. The iceberg technique Hemingway believes that a good writer does not need to reveal every detail of a character or action. The one-eighth is presented will suggest all other meaningful dimensions of the story. Thus, Hemingway’s language is symbolic and suggestive.