Nathaniel Hawthorne's Dilemma In The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne was regarded as the most outstanding novelist of American Romanticism in the 19^th century.His works often integrate moral and history into the artistic technique tactfully.The Scarlet Letter is the famous piece that Hawthorne has carefully prepared.And it has been controversial since its publication in 1850.The novel uses adultery as the main storyline,and moral as a way by which characters achieve their redemption.Hawthorne‘s elegant and refined writing style,integral frame structure and nuanced psychological analysis are widely acclaimed and known by critics and readers all around the world.Scholars at home and abroad have interpreted this work from different approaches including new criticism,psychoanalysis,feminism,deconstruction,eco-criticism and so on,but they fail to notice the dilemma of Hawthorne‘s thoughts in this work.Hawthorne was born in Massachusetts where the Puritanism was deeply ingrained,and he was influenced by religious atmosphere since his childhood.As a result of cultural and geographical influence,Hawthorne was characterized by his?gene?of Puritanism,which was one of the important religious sources of his later creation.At the same time,Hawthorne was also deeply influenced by the American Transcendental philosophy,so he had doubts upon and criticisms of human nature and religious doctrine,and he had a deeper exploration of human destiny.He deeply felt the shackles on and destruction of human nature imposed by the Puritan doctrine,and could not get rid of the cultural tradition of Puritanism.He pursued the integrity of human nature and criticized the Puritan narrow view of human nature.At the same time,he showed sympathy and respect for Puritans.Hawthorne carried the gene of Puritanism and was also a successor to transcendentalism.The Scarlet Letter is the one of the most famous and important works that he created under the influence of these two thoughts.On the one hand,it exposes the ideological drawbacks of Puritanism and explores religious ethics and the?good?and?evil?inhuman nature.On the other hand,under the influence of transcendentalism,it profoundly rethinks God and nature.These conflicting thoughts make the text more interesting and intriguing.This thesis adopts the historical approach and textual reading to analyze Nathaniel Hawthorne‘s dilemma.It is composed of three parts.The first part is the introduction,introducing some main ideas about the writer and the work‘s background.The second part is the body,which is divided into four chapters.Chapter one is literature review,summarizing the academic research of The Scarlet Letter at home and abroad and pointing out the research significance of this thesis.Chapter two is Hawthorne and Puritanism,discussing how Puritanism came into being,how it came to America,and how it influenced Hawthorne.Chapter three is Hawthorne and transcendentalism.It aims to introduce the background of Transcendentalism and its influence on Hawthorne.Chapter four is the dilemma of Nathaniel Hawthorne‘s thoughts.It mainly discusses three aspects:the contradiction between God and man,the contradiction between?good?and?evil?in human nature,and the contradiction of nature.And it analyzes the predicament of Hawthorne‘s thought from the perspective of the protagonist.The third part is the conclusion.This part aims to comment on the dilemma of Hawthorne‘s thoughts,concluding that Hawthorne‘s dilemma is a product of his time,and thus helping people to have a better understanding of Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter.