摘  要

《红字》是19世纪美国浪漫主义作家霍桑的长篇小说，发表于1850年，它讲述了发生在北美殖民时期的恋爱悲剧。这篇论文的主旨是分析《红字》女主人公的爱情悲剧。作者主要侧重研究每个主人公的性格。在这篇论文中，作者主要运用了文献查阅法，归纳法以及引用法来分析影响女主人公海斯特命运的相关因素。故事发生在19世纪的美国清教社会，通奸和偷情被认为是不可宽恕的罪行。女主人公海斯特有着不同于传统妇女的强烈的反抗精神和女性觉醒意识，所以她勇敢地和牧师丁梅斯代尔相爱了。通过研究,作者认为, 就是因为她的这种反叛的个性导致了她的爱情悲剧，因为那时人们还不能接受具有反抗意识的女性。但是两位男主人公的性格使海斯特的爱情悲剧雪上加霜，奇林沃思的邪恶和丁梅斯代尔的懦弱使海斯特遭受了更多的伤害。总之，主人公们的性格最终导致了女主角的爱情悲剧。

关键词：《红字》；海斯特；爱情悲剧；性格

Abstract

The Scarlet Letter is a novel written by American Romantic writer Nathaniel Hawthorne and it was published in 1850, it tells the story of a love tragedy that occurred in North America during the colonial period. This paper aims to analyze the tragedy love of the heroine in The Scarlet Letter. The writer mainly focuses on the character of each protagonist. In this thesis, the writer mainly uses documental method, inductive method and citing method to enrich the paper and analyze the factors that change Hester’s life. As the story happened in the 19th century in a puritan society in American, love affair is absolutely forbidden at that time. The heroine Hester has rebellious spirit and woman consciousness so she is different from the conventional woman and falls in love with the priest Dimmesdale bravely. It is her character that results in her love tragedy, people can not accept a rebellious woman. But what makes things worse is the two heroes Chillingworth and Dimmesdale. Chillingworth’s evilness and Dimmesdale’s timidness let Hester suffer a lot. All in all, it is their character that makes Hester’s love become a tragedy.

Key words: The Scarlet Letter; Hester; love tragedy; character

1 Introduction
1.1 Nathaniel Hawthorn’s introduction and his works
Nathaniel Hawthorne( July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. He was born in Salem. He entered Bowdoin College in 1821, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1824, and graduated in 1825. Hawthorne published his first work, a novel titled Fanshawe, in 1828. He published several short stories in various periodicals which he collected in 1837 as Twice-Told Tales. The next year, he became engaged to Sophia Peabody. He worked at a Custom House and joined Brook Farm, a transcendentalist community, before marrying Peabody in 1842.