Analysis of Hester’s character 红字中海斯特的性格分析.doc

Abstract As one of the world’s most famous writers and “the Shakespeare of American” Nathaniel Hawthorne played a critical role in the highlight of romantic novel. As a trailblazer of writing romantic novel with psychology analysis, His representative work Scarlet Letter boosted him in the literary creation. And The Scarlet Letter has wined the world-wide attention. Especially the female protagonist Hester Prynne has attracted large numbers of scholars to analysis her characters. This paper is determined to detect the characters of Hester through three approaches which are her life experience, her daughter and the social environment she lives in. The result we get is that Hester is a pure, courageous, and kind-hearted woman whose spirit has enlightened a generation of women who lived in the dark corner of the world. Key words: pure; courageous; kind-heated 摘要 作为世界著名作家之一和“美国的莎士比亚”，霍桑在将浪漫主义文学推向了高峰。霍桑是将心理分析融进浪漫主义小说的创始人。他的代表作“红字”更是吸引了世界范围内人们的注意。而女主人公海斯特更是吸引着无数学者研究她的性格，对她的各种分析也是屡见不鲜。本论文将从海斯特的生活经验，家庭以及生存环境来分析她独特的性格。得出的结论是她是一位纯洁，勇敢，善良的女性并且激励者一代又一代生活在黑暗处的女性。 关键字：海斯特； 纯洁；勇敢；善良 1. Introduction of the novel and the author Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts. Some of his ancestors were men of prominence in the puritan theocracy of seventeenth-century New England. One of them was a colonial magistrate, notorious for his part in the persecution of the Quakers. Young Hawthorne was intensely aware of the misdeeds of his puritan ancestors, and this awareness led to his understanding of evil being at the core of human life. All his life, Hawthorne seems to be haunted by his sense of sin and evil in life. Reading his tales and romances, one cannot but be overwhelmed by the “back” vision which these works reveal. And his representative novel Scarlet Letter is the best embodiment of this viewpoint. The way in which Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter suggests that American Romanticism adapted itself to American Puritan moralism. In the novel, what Hawthorne predominant