Analysis of the Conflicts between the Main Characters and the Social Norms in The Scarlet Letter.doc

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1、分析红字中主要人物和社会规范的冲突Analysis of the Conflicts between the Main Characters and the Social Norms in The Scarlet LetterContents111123357791011121213Abstract.Key words. Introduction to Nathaniel Hawthorne1.1 Early Life and Works. 1.2 Later Life and Mature Works. .1.3 Short Stories. Introduction to the Nove

2、l. Social Norms in New England in the 17th Century. Analysis of the Main Characters 4.1 Hester Prynne. 4.2 Arthur Dimmesdale. 4.3 Roger Chillingworth. 4.4 Pearl. Hathornes Thoughts. Conclusion.References.摘要：红字是19世纪美国著名作家纳撒尼尔霍桑的优秀长篇小说，是一部思想内丰富，底蕴深刻的多元主题作品。本文通过对17世纪新英格兰的社会规范的陈述，对作品中几个主要人物形象的分析及作品中主人公在

3、不同的遭遇面前所表现出来的不同行为，不同态度以及不同结局的探讨，论述了在当时的社会风俗习惯下，人们的思想冲突和心理活动，反映了严格的宗教制度摧残人性，压抑人的自然要求，造成普遍的思想矛盾和言行不一。关键词：社会规范; 主要人物; 性格; 冲突; 思想Abstract: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a multi-thematic novel with abundant inside information and rich content. with a detailed analysis of the portal of the

4、positive characters as well as the negative ones in the novel, this article states peoples conflicts of their thoughts and psychological activities under social norms of that period, reflects strict religious rules devastate human nature, depress peoples natural requirements, cause common conflicts

5、and divergence. Key Words: social norms; main figures; character; conflicts; thought. Introduction to Nathaniel HawthorneNathaniel Hawthorne（18041864）, American novelist and short-story writer, born in Salem, Massachusetts, is one of the great masters of American fiction. His novels and tales are pe

6、netrating explorations of moral and spiritual conflicts.1.1 Early Life and WorksDescended from a prominent Puritan family, Hawthorne was the son of a sea captain who died when Nathaniel was 4 years old. When he was 14 he and his mother moved to a lonely farm in Maine. After attending Bowdoin College

7、 (182125), he devoted himself to writing. His first novel, Fanshawe (1829), published anonymously, was unsuccessful. His short stories won notice and were collected in Twice-Told Tales (1837, second series, 1842). Unable to support himself by writing and editing, he took a job at the Boston customho

8、use.Later, Hawthorne lived at the experimental community Brook Farm for about six months, but he did not share the optimism and idealism of the transcendentalist participants (see transcendentalism), and he did not feel himself suited to communal life. In 1842 he married Sophia Peabody, a friend and

9、 follower of Emerson, Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller, and they settled in Concord. There he wrote the tales and sketches in the collection Mosses from an Old Manse (1846).1.2 Later Life and Mature WorksIn order to earn a livelihood Hawthorne served as a surveyor of the port at Salem (184649), where he

10、 began writing his masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter (1850). Set in 17th-century Puritan New England, the novel delves deeply into the human heart, presenting the problems of moral evil and guilt through allegory and symbolism. It is often considered the first American psychological novel. Hawthornes

11、next novel, The House of the Seven Gables (1851), takes place in the New England of his own period but nevertheless also deals with the effects of Puritanism.For a time Hawthorne lived at “Tanglewood,” near Lenox, Mass, where he wrote A Wonder Book (1852), based on Greek mythology, which became a ju

12、venile classic, and Twice Told Tales (1853), also for children. At this time he befriended his neighbor Herman Melville, who was one of the first to appreciate Hawthornes genius. Returning to Concord, Hawthorne completed The Blithedale Romance (1852), a novel based on his Brook Farm experience.A cam

13、paign biography of his college friend Franklin Pierce earned Hawthorne the post of consul at Liverpool (185357) after Pierce became President. Hawthornes stay in England is reflected in the travel sketches of Our Old Home (1863), and a visit to Italy resulted in the novel The Marble Faun (1860). Aft

14、er returning to the United States, he worked on several novels that were never finished. He died during a trip to the White Mts. with Franklin Pierce.1.3 Short StoriesAside from his importance as a novelist, Hawthorne is justly celebrated as a short-story writer. He helped to establish the American

15、short story as a significant art form with his haunting tales of human loneliness, frustration, hypocrisy, eccentricity, and frailty. Among his most brilliant stories are “The Ministers Black Veil,” “Roger Malvins Burial,” “Young Goodman Brown,” “Rappaccinis Daughter,” “The Great Stone Face,” and “E

16、than Brand.”. Introduction to the NovelThe Scarlet Letter opens with a long preamble about how the book came to be written. The nameless narrator was the surveyor of the customhouse in Salem, Massachusetts. In the customhouses attic, he discovered a number of documents, among them a manuscript that

17、was bundled with a scarlet, gold-embroidered patch of cloth in the shape of an “A.” The manuscript, the work of a past surveyor, detailed events that occurred some two hundred years before the narrators time. When the narrator lost his customs post, he decided to write a fictional account of the eve

18、nts recorded in the manuscript. The Scarlet Letter is the final product.The story begins in seventeenth-century Boston, then a Puritan settlement. A young woman, Hester Prynne, is led from the town prison with her infant daughter, Pearl, in her arms and the scarlet letter “A” on her breast. A man in

19、 the crowd tells an elderly onlooker that Hester is being punished for adultery. Hesters husband, a scholar much older than she is, sent her ahead to America, but he never arrived in Boston. The consensus is that he has been lost at sea. While waiting for her husband, Hester has apparently had an af

20、fair, as she has given birth to a child. She will not reveal her lovers identity, however, and the scarlet letter, along with her public shaming, is her punishment for her sin and her secrecy. On this day Hester is led to the town scaffold and harangued by the town fathers, but she again refuses to

21、identify her childs father.The elderly onlooker is Hesters 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 sup

22、ports herself by working as a seamstress, and Pearl grows into a willful, impish child. 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, a young and eloquent ministe

23、r, 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

24、 patient with round-the-clock care. Chillingworth also suspects that there may be a connection between the ministers torments and Hesters secret, and he begins to test Dimmesdale to see what he can learn. One afternoon, while the minister sleeps, Chillingworth discovers a mark on the mans breast (th

25、e details of which are kept from the reader), which convinces him that his suspicions are correct.Dimmesdales psychological anguish deepens, and he invents new tortures for himself. In the meantime, Hesters charitable deeds and quiet humility have earned her a reprieve from the scorn of the communit

26、y. One night, when Pearl is about seven years old, she and her mother are returning home from a visit to a deathbed 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 Pearls request tha

27、t he acknowledge her publicly the next day, and a meteor marks a dull red “A” in the night sky. Hester can see that the ministers condition is worsening, and she resolves to intervene. She goes to Chillingworth and asks him to stop adding to Dimmesdales self-torment. Chillingworth refuses.Hester arr

28、anges an encounter with Dimmesdale in the forest because she is aware that Chillingworth has probably guessed that she plans to reveal his identity to Dimmesdale. 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

29、 days. Both feel a sense of release, and Hester removes her scarlet letter and lets down her hair. Pearl, playing nearby, does not recognize her mother without the letter. The day before the ship is to sail, the townspeople gather for a holiday and Dimmesdale preaches his most eloquent sermon ever.

30、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 pu

31、blicly, exposing a scarlet letter seared into the flesh of his chest. He falls dead, as Pearl kisses him.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 sc

32、arlet letter, to live in her old cottage and resume her charitable work. She receives occasional letters from Pearl, who has married an 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

33、 “A.”. Social Norms in New England in the 17th centuryThe Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne expresses the aspects of relationships, religion, community, discipline and punishment in the puritan community of the 17th century Boston. Relationships between men and women were very constrained and th

34、at was what made adultery such a bad sin in the eyes of everyone in the community. Religion seemed to govern over all, people would look up to reverends and the community believed that fate was their destiny. Public discipline and punishment were used to discourage everyone else from committing the

35、same crime or sin as the offending criminal did. The community was to follow the beliefs of god and to do their duties the best they could, yet were there to criticize and punish all who disobeyed the religion or laws. In the 17th century Boston every thing was very strict and everyone was expected

36、to follow the laws, which makes Hesters sin such an excellent example of the beliefs of that time period. The first scaffold scene is very important because the scene sums up the beliefs of the general public at that time, and gives a prospective of what Hester Prynne must deal with. In the beginnin

37、g of chapter two the scene is described as it could have betokened nothing short of the anticipated execution of some noted culprit,(47) showing that the whole town was there for a ruthless public punishment. The crowd was not there for an execution though, but there for a public punishment of Heste

38、r Prynne who had committed adultery. A townsman describes Hesters punishment to a stranger as, they have doomed Mistress Prynne to stand only a space of three hours on the platform of the pillory, and then thereafter, for the remainder of her natural life, to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom.(58)

39、 This scene shows the weight of values and morals upon society in the 17th century and how public punishment was not only used as punishment but as a way to discourage others from committing the same crime. The community was key in this punishment because it helped alienate Hester and further her pa

40、in. The punishment brings forth Hesters underlying pain, Hester sent forth a cry she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real.(55) This pain only breaks surface once, yet throughout the whole story

41、Hester must deal with the shame and emotional pain of the scarlet letter. The stranger sums it up best with the quotation, Thus she will be a living sermon against sin, until the ignominious letter be engraved upon her tombstone. They have not been bold to put force the extremity of our righteous la

42、w against her. The penalty therefore is death.(58) A townsman explains that the penalty is death for her crime (showing the harshness of the 17th century), yet that the other party in the affair must have played a strong role in tempting her, so they just sentenced her to the letter on her chest and

43、 three hours on the scaffold. The stranger shows how most people reacted when only seeing one of the guilty two parties up on the scaffold, it irks me, nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity should not, at least, stand on the scaffold by her side.(62) Women still did not have that many right

44、s, so anything Hester said in her defense would have just been ignored. Relationships were not supposed to be broken unless by divorce, even if the husband was at the bottom of the sea-where Hesters husband was believed to be. Through relationships, religion, community, discipline and punishment the

45、 reader can get a better understanding of what was expected of townspeople in the 17th century. The Scarlet Letter shows the pain and suffering a woman went through when she broke her marriage, and disobeyed her religion. She then was sentenced to a public punishment to be humiliated, tormented, and

46、 alienated by the community around her. The fate-driven religious society in 17th century Boston would not accept sin of any kind and the punishment for adultery was death. Instead, the community branded Hester Prynne with the letter A for the rest of her life and made her stand in front of the whol

47、e community as an example for everyone that sin and corruption was not accepted in their society.Since religion was such a key part of their lives, anyone who did disobey their god was looked down upon. What made religion ironic in this story was how everyone looked up to a reverend that had committed the same sin as someone they looked down upon severely. Dimmesdale says, Before the judgment-seat, thy mother, and thou, and I, must stand together! But daylight of this world shall not see our meeting!(134). The reverend knows his sin and wants be punished w