美国文学 霍桑《红字》赏析

The Scarlet Letter

Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne Symbolism：

The Scarlet Letter, A symbol of shame, but instead it becomes a powerful symbol of identity to Hester. The letter’s meaning shifts as time passes. Originally intended to mark Hester as an adulteress, the “A” eventually comes to stand for “Able.”

The Meteor , to Dimmesdale, the meteor implies that he should wear a mark of shame just as Hester does. The meteor is interpreted differently by the rest of the community, which thinks that it stands for “Angel” and marks Governor Winthrop’s entry into heaven

The Rosebush,Next to the Prison Door .The narrator chooses to begin his story with the image of the rosebush beside the prison door. The rosebush symbolizes the ability of nature to endure and outlast man’s activities.

Pearl is a sort of living version of her mother’s scarlet letter. She is the physical consequence of sexual sin and the indicator of a transgression (evildoing). Upward American spirit Character analysis:

Hester: disloyalty, betrayal, deception, sexual desire, adultery. Face, correct, redeem, purify. Praise, content, conformability.

Dimmesdale: adultery, cowardice, hypocrisy, dishonesty, selfishness, too coward to confess, tortured by his conscience. Sympathetic, disfavor his hesitation, indecisiveness and cowardice.

Chillingworth: revenge. Tortured by the desire of revenge, twisted and reduced to nothing. disgusted, think he committed greater crime. Puritanism in The Scarlet Letter

Puritan background: setting, events, characters, thoughts, behaviors.

Puritan doctrines: original sin, total depravity, predestination, limited atonement. Ralph Waldo Emerson 1. Nature

The declaration of Transcendentalism Analysis of “Nature”

A long essay which has eight parts: the opening, commodity, beauty, language, discipline, Idealism, spirit and prospects. Our selection is taken from the opening. Taken as a whole, “Nature” expresses Emerson’s philosophy in a more systematic fashion than any other work of his. Meanings of nature I Beauty

Nature is beautiful. : the complete, mysterious, useful and moral beauty of nature. First, nature’s beauty lies in its completeness. Second, nature’s beauty lies in its mystery. cannot be manipulated. Only when he holds a sincere respect for nature, can man feel the mysterious beauty of nature. Third, nature’s beauty lies in its usefulness. Nature provides man without any benefit II Nature Is Divine ?

Nature is divine and has the eternal order which should not be violated. Influenced in a way by Chinese ancient philosophy, Emerson believes that all the things in the world come from the same root---the Oversoul. ? ?

Emerson believes that man can find God in his own heart by direct contact with nature

Nature has permeated (penetrate) all aspects of human life. Spirit embodied in nature has influence upon us. Nature inspires man and gives him\\her power. Man should find the truth,

goodness and beauty in his own soul and bring into play his potentiality as human being. Then, he will become himself “All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do\ ?

For Emerson, the individual is potentially the most divine and any organization or existing idea can not limit the development of individual. III Nature Is Changing

Everything in nature is in a process---growing, withdrawing and falling into the ground. The flowing of nature comes from a force which impels it to develop. For instance, a river is always in constantly flowing. It originates from mountains, flows along great plains and ultimately converges into the sea. Transcendental philosophy

Nature symbolizes freedom, independence and change. These are Individualism elements which attend to significance of common life. Therefore Emerson's nature is the theoretical base of American Individualism---one of the characteristics of American culture. As the symbol of Spirit, nature helps to prove that man's soul is beautiful, divine and fluid. Man should pursue spiritual fulfillment

Excerpt from Nature: in Nature Emerson puts forward every phenomenon of the nature there was the spirit of the spirit of the nature.

Here from this paragraph we could see that emerson found the beauty in the wildness nature rather than the village or something. “in the wildness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages.” In the wildness of the nature, emerson can transcend physical body to the spirit of the God and he can become one part of the spirit.

He emerges into the nature, and then he goes into the Oversoul. “I am part or particle of God.” “I am nothing; I see all”. This sentence clearly shows that emerson merges into the sporit. And in the nature we could get the eternal beauty. 2. Self-Reliance

①“The Confidence”. a man must show his opinion confidently and bravely in spite of different ideas. ②“The Independence”. A man should keep himself firmly ; not be easily influenced by environment. ③Keep personality, which is closely related to the confidence and the independence. a man must keep his personality and conform to his own principles.

④“Showing no Sympathy to the Poor” shows that why the poor are poor is mainly due to their backward thinking. Showing help to this kind of people means doing harm to them.

Comment: In Self-reliance, Emerson expressed the romantic idea of individualism, with an emphasis on being self-sufficient. He promoted relying on oneself rather than on established society. Emerson was known for his repeated use of phrase “trust thyself”. “Self-reliance” is his explanation---both systematic and passionate of what he meant by this, and why he was moved to make it his catchphrase. Every individual possesses a unique genius, Emerson argues, that can only be revealed when that individual has the courage to trust his or her own thoughts, attitudes, and inclinations against all public disapproval. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1. A Psalm of Life

①Love of nature, love for the past ②Trochaic tetrameter

③constant theme for poets: The relationship of life and death.④He expresses his pertinent interpretation to that by warning us that though life is hard and everybody must die, time flies and life is short, yet, human beings ought to be hold “to act,” to face the reality straightly so as to make otherwise meaningless life significant. 2. My Lost Youth

Ⅴ. Terms 10’ New England Poets

The new England poets were the representatives of imitation, authors like Irving, William Cullen Bryant, Henry wadsworth Longfellow etc. tried to imitate the forms and themes of their English brothers, such as Alexander Pope, Robert Burns, Thomas Gray, wordsworth and so on. Rip van winkle

This is one story in Washington Irving’s Sketch Book. It tells a story of a kind but hen-pecked man rip van winkle. The protagonist does not take care of his own family very well and just wants to live idly. But his wife does not want him to live the life like that and keeps talking to him. Unhappy at home, he enters in the mountain with his gun and dog. One afternoon, he meets some strangers looking people playing at nine pins. Out of curiosity, he drinks the wine and falls into sleep. When he wakes up, he finds his dog missing and his gun rusted. He has to go back to the village again. But can not recognize the village and the folks. Later his surprise, he has been slept for 20 years. And his wife has been dead and his children grow up. At the end of story, his daughter takes him home and he still lives the life as he was used to. Ⅵ.Comment 20’

1. Comment on Moby Dick:

a. Although the narrator sees insanity in Ahab, Melville’s emotional sympathy is with the deficient Ahab. He begins with a noble intention to crush evil, but in taking this to the extreme, he becomes evil himself. He is destroyed by his consuming desire to root out evil.

b. Moby Dick is a symbol to represent cruel, brutal, malicious powers of nature. Nature is capable of destroying the human world. Nature threatens humanity & thus calls out the heroic powers of the human beings. So the power of the universe is both of blessing and curse. In this way, the author constructs a complicated statement about American view of nature. 2. Compare: Emily Dickinson with Walt Whitman in their writing style. Similarities

①Along with Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman stands as one of the two giants of American poetry in the nineteenth century. ②Pioneers of imagism ③Part of American Renaissance ④Influenced by transcendentalism

⑤Thematically, they both extolled in their different ways and emergent America, its expansion, its individualism and its Americanness, their poetry being part of “American Renaissance”

⑥Technically, they both added to the literary independence of the new nation by breaking free of the convention of the iambic pentameter and exhibiting a freedom in form unknown before: they are pioneers in American poetry. Differences

①Whitman seems to keep his eyes on society at large; Dickinson explores the inner life of the individual.

②Whereas Whitman is “national” in his outlook. Dickinson is “regional”

③Whitman has the “catalogue techniques”, all-inclusive catalogue. Whereas Dickinson’s concise, direct, simple diction and syntax

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