摘要

纳撒尼尔•霍桑是19世纪杰出的美国小说家。他的代表作《红字》自问世以来得到了学者们许多的赞誉和研究。后世对霍桑及其作品的研究涉及到对小说的评论、作者的宗教意识、《红字》的多重主题和写作风格、小说的写作背景及其社会和文学意义。但到目前为止，人们对小说中孤独主题的研究并不多。本文通过对小说中四位主人公的心理活动、言语行为和个性特点的分析，探究《红字》中四位主人公所体现的孤独和其原因。

关键词: 《红字》；孤独；心理；语言；个性特点

Abstract

Nathaniel Hawthorne is an outstanding American writer in 19th century. The Scarlet Letter as one of his representative works has gained lots of reputation and comments. There are many comments and criticisms on the author’s religion consciousness, its multiple themes and writing styles, the novel’s background and its significance in society and literature. But there are few people have ever done a deep research in the loneliness theme of the novel. This thesis analysis the psychological activities, verbal behaviors and personality traits of the four main characters to probe into their loneliness and its reasons.

Key Words: The Scarlet Letter; loneliness; psychology; language; personality traits

1.    Introduction
1.1 Purpose
The Scarlet Letter is the masterpiece of Nathaniel Hawthorne, which enjoys a high reputation in American History. Moreover, there are many comments and criticisms on the author’s religion consciousness, its multiple themes and writing styles, the novel’s background and its significance in society and literature. But the loneliness in the novel also deserves our attention and research. As few of scholars have done research on this thesis— On the Loneliness in The Scarlet Letter, this thesis will probe into their loneliness and demonstrate its reasons in terms of the psychological activities, verbal behaviors and personality traits of the four main characters.
    Two methods are used in order to complete this thesis. The first one is material gathering, there are Chinese and English versions of The Scarlet Letter and the movie which is based on the novel. The other one is bibliographic search. Thank to the library of Jiaxing University supplying many theses and materials which can be used in my paper to support my opinion.