摘 要

原罪与救赎作为清教思想的一个基本要义之一，对美国的社会生活、风俗习惯以及文学创作等方面产生了巨大的影响。作为19世纪杰出的美国作家，霍桑的作品中弥漫着浓厚的“罪与赎”的思想，其中使他名满全球的代表作《红字》就是这样一部作品。当时作为统治思想的清教思想以及霍桑家族的传统思想对霍桑的创作产生了深远的影响。通过阅读《红字》，读者可以清楚地了解到新英格兰时期清教思想统治下人们的生活。在《红字》中，三个主人公都因为自身所犯下的罪而不同程度的受到了生活上和精神上的痛苦，但最终却以不同的方式完成了心灵的救赎。在小说中不断出现的字母A,也是这部小说的一大特点，它在不同时期代表着原罪与救赎等不同的意义，是小说中不可或缺的因素。本文试图通过对清教思想的基本价值观的讨论和对《红字》中人物形象的分析，向人们展示清教思想对霍桑的影响，《红字》中所呈现出来的原罪与救赎思想以及字母A所代表的意义。  
关键词：清教思想；原罪；救赎；《红字》

Abstract

The idea of sin and redemption, as one of the fundamental principles in Puritanism, has great impact on American social life, manners and customs as well as literature. Being one of the most important writers in 19th century, Hawthorne is obsessed with the idea of sin and atonement in his works. The Scarlet Letter, making Hawthorne famous all over the world, is a work of this kind. Puritanism--the dominant thought of Hawthorne’s time and the tradition of Hawthorne’s family both deeply explain why Hawthorne’s works can clearly portray the life of people in the colonial period. Reading this novel, people can easily understand the hardship of people’s life under Puritan’s control. In this novel, the three main characters all suffer great pain both physically and mentally, but at last they all redeem the sins they have committed. By discussing the principles of Puritanism and analyzing the three main characters in The Scarlet Letter, this thesis will try to elaborate how the Puritanism influences Hawthorne’s works and trace the sin and redemption presented in The Scarlet Letter as well as explaining the meaning of letter ‘‘A’’ in Puritan’s thoughts.

Keywords: Puritanism; Sin; Atonement; The Scarlet Letter

Chapter 1 Introduction
After publishing The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne won good reputation as one of the greatest writers at his time. From then on, people were keen to know more about Hawthorne’s life and experience and lots of critical papers were published about him and his novels. He is also becoming more and more popular in China. Since the publication of his novels in Chinese, Chinese scholars and readers have shown great interest in his works.
People can easily see the spirit of Bible in Hawthorne’s works and this has become one of the most important features of his works. As one of the important writers in the 19th century, Hawthorne influences and makes great contribution to the development of American literature. We can see shadows of Hawthorne in many following writers’ works.