Decoding Scarlet A

Although the semiotics is a weapon of decoding the role, narrative, topic, aesthetic image and origin of culture in our contemporary scopes of literary arts and aesthetics, the interpretation or annotation is opening. A recoding is usually an encoding, that is to say, an unveiling is a new veiling in the related field of encoding-decoding-recoding. In this sense, this thesis about the interpretation of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is not only a theoretic annotation, but also a scholastic endeavor that may have both insight and blind spot in the meantime.The thesis that is composed of the preface and four parts is sustained by the theories of narrative semiotics, literal semiotics, archetypal semiotics and cultural semiotics. The connections between the symbol"A"and the formal skills, variations of topic and literary images in religion are annotated. The relevancy between American Puritanical rules and scarlet"A"and the connotation of the sign"A"can be interpreted from this literary perspective. The preface sums up the background of Nathaniel Hawthorne, his writings and some research achievements. The main idea is introduced from revealing the complicated signification of the multivocal symbol of scarlet"A"and the relativity about the symbol and semiotics interpretation.The first part analyzes the narrative semiotic and structure of The Scarlet Letter. Using for reference of Greimas's"the model of activity element"and"symbolic rectangle", a dimensional"A"is revealed from the relation of four heroes and heroines: Pearl, Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth and Hester Prynne. The concealed"A"model implies the narrative genre of"rebel"against"order". Especially, we can see the same logical relation in the"symbolic rectangle"of The Scarlet Letter.The second part is about the semiotic decoding and the differance meaning of the scarlet"A". The signified of"A"and Prynne's character are deeply analyzed during the deconstructionist semiotics interpretation. The variation of topic deducts in the play of signifier and signified. Scarlet letter"A"is a symbol of Hester Prynne. The stink and noisy bastard, Pearl is the potential meaning of this symbol. She displays the chain of the signified of"A". It can be...