摘 要

《红字》是由美国著名小说家霍桑写的一部经典长篇小说，它描写了海丝特与丁梅斯代尔的一段爱情悲剧，其背景是十七世纪北美洲清教徒殖民统治下的新英格兰。这个故事运用了大量的象征手法，不仅表达了作者对清教主义压抑人性的不满，还表明作者主张自然人性和爱情自由的向往。本文试图从以下角度分析主人公之一珠儿：珠儿的自然和神圣、珠儿的象征意义——“活的红字“和”珠宝和财富”以及珠儿的矛盾性，从而得出结论：作者试图通过《红字》这部小说揭露清教社会对人性的压抑，并唤起读者对殖民地时期社会的伪善和宗教教义的认识。

关键词：珠儿；矛盾性；清教主义；象征

Contents

1 Introduction.................................................................................................................1

2 Demonstration.............................................................................................................3

2.1 Pearl’s character....................................................................................................3

2.1.1 Holiness.......................................................................................................3

2.1.2 Naturalness..................................................................................................3

2.2 Pearl’s symbolic meanings...................................................................................4

2.2.1 Living scarlet A...........................................................................................4

2.2.2 Jewelry and wealth......................................................................................5

2.3 Pearl’s Contradiction............................................................................................5

2.3.1 Pearl as a devil.............................................................................................6

2.3.2 Pearl as an angel..........................................................................................6

3 Conclusion...................................................................................................................8

Works Cited....................................................................................................................9

Bibliography.................................................................................................................10

An Analysis of Pearl in The Scarlet Letter

1. Introduction

Nathaniel Hawthorne was the most influential romantic novelist and psychological novelist in the nineteenth century. He was dissatisfied with the lost American social morality and bourgeois hypocrisy; however, he did not want to fundamentally change the unreasonable social system, and only seek the improvement of social morality. He also preached God and advocated moral self─perfection. On the one hand, he was not satisfied with the Puritanism that suppressed humanity; On the other hand, he was full of hope for new things. In 1825, Hawthorne graduated from Bowdoin College, and returned to Salem and began writing. Then he took office twice in 1836 and 1846 in customs. Because of the turmoil of government, in 1848 Hawthorne lost his position and concentrated on writing, then he finished the most important full-length novel The Scarlet Letter. In 1853, he was appointed consul in Liverpool, England. After 1857, he emigrated to Italy and created another novel The Marble Faun (1860) that probed into the problem of good and evil. In addition, his works also included The House of The Seven Gables (1851), The Bithedale Romance (1852) and so on.

Besides, Hawthorne was the pioneer of psychological novel. He was good at analyzing people's inner mind, and most of his works were to discuss the issue of morality and evil. He also advocated cleaning up sins, purifying minds, and gaining salvation by good deeds and self─repentance. The Scarlet Letter was one of his representative works, which was called the first American symbolism novel. It was created under the pressure of life and career. The novel was set in colonial America more than 200 years ago, centering on love and hate, good and evil, punishment and revenge between four protagonists—Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth and Pearl. At the same time, it also revealed religious deception and moral hypocrisy, and the cruelty of American social code in the era of capitalist development in the nineteenth century. However, the author did not merely probe into the dark side of human nature. He simultaneously showed great sympathy to many good protagonists while exposing the social evils and bad qualities of human nature. Although this novel depicted a love tragedy happening in New England ruled by Puritan regime, the theme of this novel was not love. The author's real intention was to explore the evil lingering in his own heart. Since The Scarlet Letter was published, it has gained the love of countless readers, relying on its profound theme and outstanding artistic expression skills. Among them, there also have been literary enthusiasts and critics. So far, articles commented on The Scarlet Letter have still never been reduced. From these articles, we could see that these discussions and articles on The Scarlet Letter have almost used all the methods and perspectives that could be used to evaluate literary works, for example, focusing on the author's biographical criticism, focusing on the sociological criticism of the background.

In this novel, Hawthorne used a large number of symbols to express the theme of the novel. What’s more, four protagonists in it were closely related to the novel, and they all have been deeply analyzed by numerous critics. The special meanings are fully displayed in one character Pearl（胡燕 234）. In this thesis, Pearl is to be analyzed in detail from the following three angles: Pearl's own image, the symbolic meanings of Pearl—“living scarlet A” and “jewelry and wealth”, and the contradiction in Pearl. Pearl is a living scarlet letter because she has been the evidence of Hester’s crime of adultery since she was born. She has the special significance of its existence in this novel as an invisible line which runs through the whole novel and she is the best character in Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter who helps the author to express his attitude to puritanism and love.

2 Demonstration

2.1 Pearl’s character