摘要:霍桑的红字是美国文学中分析和讨论最多的文学作品在之一。霍桑的模糊性和他强烈的符号使用说明作出这项工作非常复杂和麻烦。它显示了一个作家在他的作品的骄傲。红字运用象征手法展现了他的伟大,产生尽可能优秀的小说。纳撒尼尔·霍桑的红字是美国文学中最著名的象征性的小说。
lism may refer to the use of abstract concepts, as a way to obfuscate any literal interpretation, or to allow for the broader applicability of the prose to meanings beyond what may be literally described.
In Hawthorne’s masterpiece The Scarlet Letter, symbols are extensively used. “He casts doubts on his story to keep the reader in a world of uncertainty without telling them the true answer” and “uses concrete objects as well as characters to serve as his symbols, which is characteristic of Hawthorne.” (Wang Leng: 49) His work The Scarlet Letter that is notable for its allegory and symbolism is regarded as the first symbolic novel in American literature.
Ⅳ. Symbols in The Scarlet Letter 红字符号
A. The ambiguity of the symbolic meaning in The Scarlet Letter
Symbolism has been employed massively in the novel, from the jail, the rose in the beginning to the afterward scaffold, the forest and the letter “A” and even Pearl have rich symbolic significance. However, because of the individuality and the writing style of the author, the symbolic significance is very ambiguous, faintly recognizable, presenting the feature of instability and uncertainty. In this novel, many symbols may have at least one interpretation: the symbol images in the novel connote many meanings: the letter “A” symbolizes a double characteristic of being the angel and the evil; the “scaffold” symbolizes the moral court of the torturing souls; the “stream” symbolizes the distinctive districts of guilty and purity; the “forest” symbolizes the spiritual moors covered with darkness and dullness.
Hawthorne was a writer with contradictory thoughts: The Scarlet Letter had reflected prominently his characteristic of contradictory sentiment. On the one hand, Hawthorne opposed absolute religious morality, on the other hand, to the innermost feelings, he had the deep-rooted Puritanism. In his work, Hawthorne directly or indirectly exposed the Puritan the darkness, brutality and hypocrisy of the colonial rule. But, the fact is, Hawthorne was subjectively the one who judged the human and the world by the religious view as the standard. In his writing, both Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne were victims of Puritanism. He internally sympathized with Hester Prynne’s bitter experiences, but at the same time he lets her suffer for reparations, until the end of her life.
1. Hawthorne’s family background
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was born in Salem, Massachusetts, his ancestral home, where he spent many years of his youth. His earliest American progenitor had been a judge there and had persecuted the Quakers. The man’s son had achieved even greater notoriety when he sentenced a number of innocent people to death as one of the judges at the Salem witchcraft trials in 1692. The deeds of his Puritan forbears seemed to have left an indelible impression on Hawthorne for he repeatedly turned to the
history of New England for inspiration in his fiction, particularly to that of Salem. There is no evidence that he was influenced by Puritan religious views but he was undoubtedly both fascinated and repelled by the Puritan mind and its moral and psychological concerns. Hence the preoccupation in his fiction with such themes as original sin, the effects of sin and guilt on the sinners themselves or on their posterity, and the conflict between the ‘
本论文由英语论文网提供整理,提供论文代写,英语论文代写,代写论文,代写英语论文,代写留学生论文,代写英文论文,留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。