霍桑《红字》中的象征主义

霍桑《红字》中的象征主义

【标题】霍桑《红字》中的象征主义【作者】杨妮娜【关键词】霍桑；红字；象征主义【指导老师】许奋荣向俊【专业】英语【正文】

I. Introduction

A. Hawthorne’s Life and Works

Nathaniel Hawthorne?(1804―1864) was born in Salem, Massachusetts on July 4th1804. His ancestors were from a prestigious family. Five generations before him, John Hawthorne was one of the three Judges in the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. Later, his family became poorer and poorer, and in 1808, his father died of yellow fever. When Nathaniel Hawthorne was a boy, he lived in his hometown with his mother, and meanwhile he was influenced by the atmosphere, and formed religious thought. He studied the history of the Puritans. After his graduation from Bowdon College in Maine, he started his writing career and later became a novelist, short-story writer and essayist. His short stories included Twice Told Tales?(1837), Mosses from an Old Manse?(1846). His novels included The Scarlet Letter?(1850), The House of the Seven Gables?(1851), The Marble Faun?(1860).

B. The Background and the Plot of the Novel

After the independence of America, many new works gradually appeared and formed their own cultural characteristics. On the one hand, many writers were still influenced by British literatures. Emerson appealed American writers to get out of the effect of some abroad literature in his famous speech in 1837. On the other hand, many young writers tried their best to improve their writings and wrote works with their own cultural characteristics. Hawthorne himself was set in the year 1650 Boston, many people came here and wanted to pursue a happy life, they were the first people here, but they were deeply suppressed by Puritanism. In order to reveal the harsh pressure of the America society, the cheat of the church, the hypocrisy of morality, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter was thus written.

The Scarlet Letter told us a story that in June 1642, in the Puritan town of Boston, a crowd gathered to witness punishment. A young woman, Hester Prynne, had been found guilty of adultery and wore a scarlet letter?“A” on her bosom as a sign of sin. She refused to name the father of her little child Pearl. As she looked out over the crowd, Hester noticed an aging, misshapen man, she recognized him as her husband, who was presumed to have died at sea. Then he chose a new name Roger Chillingworth and decided to take revenge on the child’s father. He knew that the much-admired brilliant young clergyman Dimmesdale was the father of the little child

by chance. So Roger became intimately acquainted with him. While tormented by guilty conscience, Dimmesdale could not find courage to tell the truth publicly. Later, Hester decided to ask him to leave the town with them. Before the day they left, Dimmesdale gave his most inspired sermons, and then he climbed on the scaffold and confessed his sin, then died, Roger Chillingworth also died the same year. Many years later, Pearl lived a happy life in Europe, and Hester came back to Boston, when she died, buried near the grave of Dimmesdale, and they shared a simple tombstone.

II. Brief Introduction to Symbolism

A. The Definition of Symbolism

A symbol is anything that is used to represent something other than itself. In literature it is most often a concrete object that is used to represent something bro ader and more abstract?―often a moral, religious, or philosophical concept or value. Symbols range from the most obvious and mechanical substitution of one thing for another, to massive, complex, and perplexing creations. In literature, the definition of the literary device, symbolism, can simply be defined as being the art of practice of using symbols especially by investing things with a symbolic meaning or by expressing the invisible or intangible by means of visible or sensuous representatives. Symbolism in literature is also the deepness and hidden meaning in a piece of work. It is often used to represent a moral or religious belief or value. Symbolism is a traditional artistic form. It