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1、Analysis of Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter字数：2883来源：ICSREI 杂志 2012 年 11 期 字体：大 中 小 打印当页正文Abstract. The Scarlet Letter is the American novel of the nineteenth century. In The Scarlet Letter, symbolism runs through the novel. This paper researches the symbolism from the aspect of the symbolic meaning
2、 of the scarlet letter. Key words: The Scarlet Letter; symbolism; romance I.Introduction The Scarlet Letter is the American novel of the nineteenth century. It was published in 1850. The period from 1840s to 1870s was the central part of the so-called Victorian history. Petter J.Parish discussed thi
3、s in his essay Confidence and Anxiety in Victorian American. In this essay Parish argues that a peculiar combination of confidence and anxiety seems to have been a distinctive feature of Victorian American. That means, on one hand, the rapid social change, the industrialization and urbanization, the
4、 expansion of the religious intolerance, all these form the serious social conflicts at that time, and the most important of which is that the humanity is realized and accepted by people wider, and the conflicts between divinity and humanity becomes hotter. The Scarlet Letter is the most famous work
5、s that reflects this situation. This remarkable novels mirrors the strong humanity and the criticism of the society. Some of Hawthornes contemporary writers such as Henry James, Edgar Allen Poe and Herman Melville were his first critics. Henry James(1843-1916), US-British famous novelist, regards it
6、 as the most excellent classic novel. He claims that “The book was the first piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in the country-something might at last be sent to Europe as exquisite in quality as the thing that had been received, and the best of it was that rhe thing was absolutely American;
7、 it belonged to the soil, to the airEdgar ALLEN Poe(1809-1849), U.S poet, eritic and short story writer, hailed him as the finest practitioner of art, prised him as “extraordinary genius, having no rival erther in America and elsewhere”. Herman Melcille(1819-1891), Hawthornes best friend, one of the
8、 greatest U.S writers, called him “the largest brain with the largest heart.” in America literature. He compared him to Shakespeare, he wrote in 1850, the year when The Scarlet Letter was published, “Now I do not say that Nathaniel of Salem (Hawthorne) is a greater man than William of Avon (Shakespe
9、are), but the difference between the two men is by no means immeasurable”. D.H. Lawrence acclaimed, “It is a marvelous allegory. It is to me one if the greast allegories in all literature, The Scarlet Letter. Its marvelous under-meaning! And its perfect duplicity.” For many critics, this novle is no
10、t only Hawthorens personal success but also the first native American novel that rceveives a worldwide reputation. It is the declaration of cultural independence of U.S., the proof of an emerging distinctive American literary tradition.Based on a theme that appears in Endicott and the Red Gross. Thi
11、s somber romance of conscience and consequences of concealed guilt is set in puritan Boston in the mid-17th century. The story is simple but very moving. An aged English scholar sent his young wife Hester Prynne to establish their home in Boston. When he came over two yeas later,he found Hester in t
12、he pillory with her illegitimate child in her arms, She refused to name her lover and was sentenced to wear a scarlet letter “A”as a token of her sin throughout her lifetime. Minister Dimmesdale, the adulterer dare not admit openly the sin he committed but was constantly tortured by a sense of guilt
13、. Doctor Chillingworth, Hesters Husband, discovered who was the adulterer and made up a cruel plan of revenge to torture the Mininster mentally till his death. However, the author does not describe the novel just as a love tragedy, on the contrary, he puts the characters into a peculiar surrounding
14、and entrusts them with a special symbolic significance. In The Scarlet Letter, symbolism runs through the novel, it revolves around one major symbol: the scarlet letter “A”. At the beginning it symbolizes the sin of Hestrer-adultery, and then gradually when Hester is accepted by the community, it st
15、ands for Hesters intelligence and hard working-able. At the end of the novel the symbol has evolved to repersent the high virtues of Hester Prynne-angelic. Moreover, the name of the little Pearl also has certain symbolic meanings. The natural environments described in the novel are all endowed with
16、a deep symbolic significance. In view of these, the paper is divided into three parts to discuss the symbolic of the novel. The first part mainly talks about the symbolic significance of the scarlet letter “A”; the second part discusses the symbolic significance of little Pearl in which she is identified as the living scarlet letter in the whole story. In the third part, several typical natural enviromments, such as the light and darkness, the forest, the jail, th
