摘要

作为美国一位颇具影响力的作家，霍桑及其作品都深深地被清教主义影响着。他最为著名的作品—《红字》被认为是一幅生动描绘清教徒生活的图画。正是由于《红字》在美国文学中的崇高地位，许许多多的学者都研究讨论过这本小说。大多数学者对《红字》的研究都是围绕着清教主义、霍桑以及小说本身的。但也有部分学者探索的是清教主义对霍桑道德观的巨大影响。
在阅读完《红字》和查阅过资料之后，我逐渐发现了霍桑对清教主义矛盾的态度。他一面批判清教主义对人类本性的囚禁，一面又认同着清教徒的道德观。基于前人对《红字》的研究，这篇论文将会讨论在《红字》中，霍桑对清教主义的批判和妥协。这一讨论将被分为五个部分，首先简要地介绍论文的大致内容，然后再分析清教对霍桑的影响，再次，这篇论文会分别分析讨论霍桑对清教主义的批判与妥协。最后将为本文的研究作一个简短的总结。

关键词：《红字》，霍桑，清教主义，批判，妥协

Abstract

As a significant writer in American, Hawthorne was deeply influenced by the doctrines of Puritan, and so were his works. The Scarlet Letter, one of Hawthorne’s masterpieces, is considered as a vivid picture of the life of the Puritans. And it is because of its high position in American literature, it has been researched and discussed by many scholars. Almost all the researches were discussing about Puritanism, Hawthorne and the novel. Most scholars are discussing about Hawthorne’s criticism on Puritanism. Also, there is some discussion about the great influence of Puritanism on Hawthorne’s sense of morality.
After reading this novel and all these researches, Hawthorne’s struggle attitudes toward Puritanism can be found. He criticized that Puritanism imprisoned the nature of people, however, he did accept the sense of morality of the Puritans. Based on these researches, this thesis will discuss both Hawthorne’s criticism and his compromise to Puritanism in The Scarlet Letter. This thesis will be divided into five parts. The first part will give a brief introduction to this research. Part two will discuss Puritanism’s influence on Hawthorne. Then, this thesis will discuss Hawthorne’s criticism and compromise to Puritanism separately. Lastly, there will be a conclusion of this research based on the parts above.

Key words: The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne, Puritanism, criticism, compromise

1.    Introduction
Hawthorne is an American writer, and many of his works have discussed about the doctrines of Puritan. The Scarlet Letter, one of his most famous novels, has always been considered as a vivid picture of the society of the Puritans. In this novel, unlike the heroines of other novels, the heroine, Hester, was not a woman of good fortune or good reputation. She was a married woman who had fallen in love with her pastor. Thus, she committed adultery which was a terrible sin in the eyes of the Puritans. Besides Hester, the other three leading characters in this novel were sinners, too. Through these four sinners in the novel, Hawthorne criticized the doctrines of Puritan which have imprisoned human’s nature.