Abstract:

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) is one of the greatest romantic novelist in American literature in the 19th century. His masterpiece The Scarlet Letter, which is known as a creation of the imagination that discloses the truth of human heart, is a story about sin and redemption. This thesis aims to explore the theme of The Scarlet Letter in this aspect. This paper expresses the view that the main characters in the novel were all the combination of good and evil. Hawthorne’s fiction works often focus on the inherent evil and sin of humanity and his works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity. There is no traditional concept of absolutely good in human kind in Hawthorne’s view. This thesis analyzes the sins committed by three main characters in the story and explores how they obtain their self-redemption in different ways. With the introduction of Nathaniel Hawthorne in terms of his family background, living environment and life experience, we can see that Hawthorne was fully aware of the Puritan’s tyranny, hostility and hideousness. He used his own thinking and contradiction to write The Scarlet Letter in the state of self-struggle. As a writer with social responsibility and conscience, Hawthorne used the characters in his fiction to exhort and guide us: People need to acknowledge the universality of sin and do good things to get salvation and relieve themselves. In this way, people can purify their mind and obtain the rebirth of the soul.

Keywords: Nathaniel Hawthorne; Sin; Redemption

摘  要：

霍桑(1804-1864)是20世纪美国文学史上最伟大的浪漫主义小说家之一。他的著作《红字》被评为富有想象力的揭示人类内心的佳作，其描写了一个有关罪恶，救赎以及作者罪恶观的故事。这篇论文旨在从这一主题研究《红字》。  《红字》中的主要人物都是善与恶的混合体，霍桑的作品往往侧重于人类固有的邪恶和罪恶，并且有着道德意义和深层心理描写的复杂性。从作者的角度看来没有传统观念上绝对的善和恶。这篇论文分析了作品中三个主要角色所犯的罪并探讨了他们以不同的方式完成了各自的自我救赎。并从霍桑的家庭背景，生活环境和自身经历等方面探讨了他的道德观。我们可以看出霍桑对于清教的专制，反动和丑恶有着深刻的认识，在自我挣扎和救赎中，他用自己的良知和矛盾为我们描绘了《红字》这样一部作品。作为一个有社会责任感和良知的作家，他用自己作品中的人物来劝诫和指引读者:人们应该要认识到罪恶的普遍性，并通过做善事来获得救赎使自己解脱。通过这样的方式，人们才能获得思想的净化和灵魂的重生。

关键词：霍桑；罪恶；救赎

1 Introduction
1.1 Religious Background
Puritans refer to the radicals of the British middle-class who advocated to eradicate the residual effects of Catholicism in the Anglican Church in the 1560s. They required the removal of the corruption in the Anglicanism and reformation of the tedious ritual. Their radicalness and fanaticism resulted in the persecution of the authority at that time. Some self-righteous puritans pursue the pure faith and imagine themselves as the chosen people by God .There is no hope to bring down the official authority in Britain but they don’t want to be contaminated by evil power. These puritans came to the new land to build their ideal home with the great hope and aspiration. This is the New England and this is the beginning of the America. These puritans wanted to build a democratic state where people with morality, equity and pure belief in this new land by their diligence, optimism and their fanatical religious fervor. Their religious thoughts have great influence on cultivating values and moral ethics of the later Americans in this new land.