The Religious, Moral And Spiritual Power Of Woman-children: A Comparative Study On Hawthorne’s Pearl And Stowe’s Eva

Hawthorne and Stow are two great representative writers of the 19th Century American literature. For one thing, Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter has long enjoyed great popularity among the readers all over the world; in the novel there is a little woman-child image — Pearl who is widely known by readers for her beautiful appearance, innocent character and her being endowed with God’s mysterious power. Having been called by Lincoln the woman who made this Big War, Harriet Beecher Stowe, left people many valuable works, among which, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is particularly popular due to its praise of humanistic care, preaching of Christian love and exposition of moral behaviors. Besides, it’s worth mentioning that she creates an image of a little woman-child who is beautiful, angelic like the Gospel messenger. Obviously, Pearl and Eva have some similarities. The two girls are only six or seven years old but more intelligent, perceptive and honest than their peers, and more attractive than adults. They understand everything and see through everything. What’s more, many American literary works are related to the apparent religious thoughts, but in China the situation is different. The two authors use the little girls as the novel’s characters rather than boys. So there are many kinds of power making the two girls so marvelous.This paper is conducted from the perspective of comparative study, combined with the archetypal criticism, aesthetics theory and Corliss Lamont’s humanitarianism to analyze the two little heroines (Pearl and Eva) similar marvelous images, namely, having the sacred power of god, the supernatural power of beauty of human nature and the spiritual power of humanitarianism. This paper consists of six parts. In the introduction part and Chapter Two, it introduces the basic information concerning authors and their works, and the status of research both at home and abroad, the research purpose and significance and also the theoretical basis of the paper. In Chapter Three, Four and Five, it introduces Pearl and Eva’s religious, moral and spiritual power. First of all, they have God-like wisdom and power. Second, they have something in common in terms of beauty that they both not only have outward beauty but also inner beauty. Third, they have the spiritual power of humanitarianism; the authors try to use the reasonable and holy humanitarian spirit to inspire people. Chapter Six is the concluding part.Therefore, through the analysis of two little woman-children’s similar appealing images, people in contemporary times can learn much from their beautiful heart and good deeds, then accordingly take steps to treat others honestly, help people attentively and improve themselves to create a new future.