[Abstract]: The Scarlet Letter makes the American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne known all around the world. Hawthorne uses the symbolism so skillful that it enhances the artistic effects of his work greatly. This paper researches the symbolism in this novel from the following aspects: the changing symbolic meaning of the scarlet letter, the names of the major characters and many objects that are described in the novel to make the symbolism clear to the readers. [Keywords]: The Scarlet Letter, symbolism
[摘要 ] ： 《红字》使美国作家霍桑誉满全球，作者在作品中采用的象征手法贯穿始终的、无处不在，加强了作品的艺术效果。本文从红字的多种象征意义、主要人物的人命寓意以及景物寓意等方面入手，研究《红字》中的象征手法。
[ 关键词 ] ：《红字》，象征
Nathaniel Hawthorne is considered to be the first greatest American fiction writer in the moralistic tradition. His work The Scarlet Letter that is notable for its allegory and symbolism is regarded as the first symbolic novel in American literature. The novel revolves around one major symbol: the scarlet letter. Besides, some other objects that are described in the novel have their symbolic meanings. Moreover, the names of the four major characters’: Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth and Pearl also have their symbolic meanings. The Scarlet Letter is a novel of much symbolic.
1. Different meanings of the scarlet letter "A": 1.1 The Changes of the Symbolic Meaning of the Scarlet Letter “A”. In this novel, the scarlet letter "A" changes its meaning many different times. This change is significant. It shows growth in the characters, and the community in which they live. The letter "A" begins as a symbol of sin. It then becomes a symbol of alone and alienation, and finally it becomes a symbol of able, angel and admirable. 1.1.1 Adultery The letter "A", worn on Hester's bosom, is a symbol of her adultery against Roger Chillingworth. This is the puritan way of treating her as a criminal, for the crime of adultery. The puritan treatment continues, because as Hester walks through the streets, she will be looked down upon as if she is some sort of demon from hell that commits a terrible crime. This letter is meant to be worn in shame, and to make Hester feel unwanted. "Here, she said to herself, had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment…(P74)" Hester is ashamed of her sin, but she chooses not to show it. She commits this sin in the heat of passion, and fully admits it because, though she is ashamed, she also receives her greatest treasure, Pearl, out of it. She is a very strong woman to be able to hold up so well against what she must face. Many will have fled Boston, and seek a place where no one knows of her great sin. Hester chooses to stay though, which shows a lot of strength and integrity. Any woman with enough nerve to hold up against a town, which despises her very existence, and to stay in a place where her daughter is referred to as a "devil child," either has some sort of psychological problem, or is a very tough woman.
1.1.2 Alone and Alienation The scarlet letter "A" also stands for Hester's lonely life in New England. After she is released, Hester lives in a cottage near the outskirts of the city. " It had been built by an earlier settler, and abandoned, because the soil about it was too sterile for cultivation, while its comparative remoteness put it out of the sphere of that social activity which already marked the habits of the emigrants.” (P75) Hester's social life is virtually eliminated as a result of her shameful history. Hester comes to have a part to perform in the world with her native energy of character and rare capacity." However, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came to contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, and as much alone as if she inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs and senses than the rest of human kind. She stood apart from moral interests… seemed to be the sole portion that she retained in the universal heart."(P78) Hester has no friends in the world, and little Pearl is the only companion of her lonely life, so the scarlet letter “A” also is a symbol of the words “alone” and “alienate”. 1.1.3 Able, Admirable and Angel Later, the scarlet letter “A” changes its meaning into being able, angel and admirable. The townspeople who condemned her now believe the scarlet letter to stand for her ability to her beautiful needlework and for her unselfish assistance to the poor and sick. “The letter was the symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness is found in her so much power to do and power to sympathize - that many people refuses to interpret the scarlet letter ‘A’ by its original signification.”(P148) At this point, a lot of the townspeople realize what a noble character Hester possesses. “Do you see that woman with the embroidered badge? It is our Hester – the town’s own Hester – who is so kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so comforting to the afflicted!”(149) The townspeople soon begin to believe that the badge served to ward off evil, and Hester grows to be quite admirable amongst the people of the town. Hester overcomes the shame of her sin through the purity and goodness of her soul. Unselfishly offering her time and love to those who need her most proves that she is not worthy of the fate which has been dealt to her.
The three changes in the scarlet letter are significant; they show the progressive possession of her sin, her lonely life, and her ability. Hester is a strong admirable woman who goes through more emotional torture that most people go through in a lifetime.
.2.Biblical Archetype
The scarlet letter "A" also can be seen the symbol of Adam. It tells us that Hester's sin is the original sin of human being, it is forgivable. The writer shows his sympathy by describing the scarlet letter "A" on Hester's clothing as an ornament and a decoration. Hester's making the scarlet letter "A" into a thing of beauty offends many bystanders, who comment that, " it were well if we stripped Madame Hester's rich gown off her dainty shoulders."(P51) However, as a young woman observes, "not a stitch in that embroidered letter, but she has felt it in her heart." (P51) The feeling of sympathy, only expressed by one of the characters throughout this scene, is used by Hawthorne to criticize the puritans for their strictness. The society is too strict in its ways, and Hawthorne shows his contempt for the treatment of Hester by constantly reinforcing how cruelly the people talk about her. Hawthorne says at the end of Chapter One," Finding it (rosebush) so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers, and present it to the reader. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweat moral blossom, that may be found alone the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow."(P46) This kind of sympathy can be seen in the novel everywhere. To Hester, the scarlet letter "A" also stands for her lover, Pearl's father, Arthur Dimmesdale. Her fantastically embroidering the scarlet letter "A", which means adultery, is somehow a way she shows her passion for Arthur. Her refusing to tell the name of Pearl's father is a way to protect him. Her choosing to remain in New England after she is released is because it is the place where her lover stays. " There dwelt, there trod the feet of one with whom she deemed herself connected in a union, before the bar of final judgment, and make that their marriage-alter, for a joint futurity of endless retribution."(P74) She wears the scarlet letter for seven years, and misses her lover in this way. Only when she meets Arthur again in the forest seven years later, deciding to flee to somewhere else, does she throw the scarlet letter away. After Dimmesdale's death, Hester and Pearl disappear for several years. Despite living with her daughter, Hester comes back to live the rest of her life in her cottage again, and picks up the scarlet letter for the third time. To Hester, there is a more real life in New England than in that unknown region where Pearl has founded a home. "Here had been her sin, here, her sorrow, and here was yet to be her penitence." (P238)Moreover, here is where her lover lies. Hester eventually dies and is buried in the King's Chapel Cemetery. " It was near that old and sunken grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one tombstone served for both."--- " ON A FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER, GULES"(P240)
2. The Symbolic Meaning of the four Major Characters' Names: 2.1 Hester Prynne Hester Prynne is one of the major characters in The Scarlet Letter. The writer gives her much symbolic meaning by giving her this name. Hester sounds like Hestier, Zeus' sister in Greek mythology, who is a very beautiful goddess. This gives us a sense that Hester is a passionate beautiful woman. In this novel, she is the symbol of the truth, the goodness and the beauty. Nathaniel Hawthorne describes her in Chapter Two like this: "The young woman was tall, a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale, she had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes…"(P50) For so many years, Hester refuses to speak out the name of her partner in sin, but takes over all the punishment by herself. Instead of running from the hostile colonists, Hester withstands their insolence and pursues a normal life. She proves her worth with her uncommon sewing skills and provides community service. Hester's own sin gives her "sympathetic knowledge of the sin in other hearts." Even though the people she tries to help "often reviled the hand that was stretched forth to succor them," she continues her services because she actually cares. At last, the colonists come to think of the scarlet letter as " the cross on a nun's bosom", which is not small accomplishment. Also, Hester is the homophone of the word haste. At first, she gets married to Roger Prynne, an ugly man who gives his best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge. Not having got the news about her husband who should have arrived by ship from England, she falls love with Arthur hastily and gives birth to Pearl, for which she is condemned to wear on the breast of her gown the scarlet letter "A", which stands for adultery. But Hester’s adultery haste is nothing but a very natural thing to do. In the Holy Bible, Adam and Eve, the very ancestors of human being, who live in the Garden of Eden, eat the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden tricked by the serpent. After that, they begin to know good and evil, and also they begin to know sex. Adultery is nothing but the original sin of human being. God’s punishment to them is just sending them forth from the Garden of Eden. But in The Scarlet Letter, Hester is tortured physically and mentally for her sin. Hester says to Dimmesdale in the forest later, “What we did had a consecration of its own, we felt so!”(P179) In essence, their sin is no worse than Adam and Eve ’ s. The punishment of puritan society is somehow too hard on a woman who is led by human instinct. 2.2 Arthur Dimmesdale
Arthur Dimmesdale is a well-regarded young minister, whose initials are AD, which also stands for adultery. The author obviously tells us Author Dimmesdale is the partner in sin of Hester Prynne by giving him this name. The word Dimmesdale also has many symbolic meanings. Dim means dark and weak, and dale means valley, so the dimdale here is actually a symbol of the "dim-interior" of the clergyman. He loves Hester deeply, and he is the father of Pearl, but he can only show his passion for her in the forest or in darkness. His response to the sin is to lie. He stands before Hester and the rest of the town and proceeds to give a moving speech about how it would be in her and the father's best interest for her to reveal the father's name. Though he never actually says that he is not the other partner, he implies it by talking of the father in third person. Such as, "If thou feelest it to be for thy soul's peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer"(P63). He concedes his guilt for seven years, at the same time; he is tortured by his sin for so many years. He punishes himself by believing that he can never be redeemed. He feels that he will never been seen the same in the eyes of God, and that no amount of penitence can ever return him to God's good graces. He hates his hypocrisy to sin, but dares not tell the truth that he is the fellow-sinner of Hester. When he finally decides to expose the truth and tell his followers of how he deceives them, his fixation on his sin has utterly corroded him to the point of death. The only good that comes out of conceding his guilt is that he passes away without any secrets, for he is already too far gone to be able to be saved. At the end of the story, the writer put the morals which press upon the readers from the poor minister's miserable experience into one sentence," Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!" (P236) 2.3 Roger Chillingworth
Roger Chillingworth, like all of Hawthorne’s main characters, is complex and difficult to see through. The words “chilling” and “worth” compose the surname Chillingworth. Chilling comes from the word “chilly”, which means this man is a merciless avenger. He is calm in temperament, kindly, but keep evil intentions. Being a man already in decay and misshapen from his birth hour, he married Hester, a woman with youth and beauty, deluding himself with the idea that intellectual gifts might veil physical deformity in a young girl's fantasy. He married Hester not because he loved her but because he wanted to light a household fire in his lonely and chilly heart. He is a bookworm who spends his best time in libraries, and shows no love to his young wife. It is he that has destroyed Hester's flower like youth, and indirectly leads to Hester's tragedy. After he discovers that his wife bore another man's child, Roger gives up his independence. He used to be a scholar, who dedicates his best years "to feed the hungry dream of knowledge," but his new allegiance becomes finding and slowly punishing the man who seduces his wife. He soon becomes obsessed with his new mission in life, and when he targets Reverend Dimmesdale as the possible parent, he disguises himself as one trust friend of the minister, attaching himself to him as a parishioner. For seven years, he digs into the minister's heart with keen pleasure. He searches the minister’s thoughts; he causes the poor minister to die daily a living death. He searches into the minister's dim interior for a long time, and turns over many precious a tread, and as wary an outlook, as a thief entering a chamber where a man lies only half asleep,--- or, if it may be, broad awake,--- with purpose to steal the very treasure which this man guards as the apple of his eyes,"(P119) When he finally found the scarlet letter "A" on the bosom of the minister, he busted out a ghastly rapture, When he does these, he is turning from a victim to a sinner. Chillingworth is also means that the avenger's life is worthless. When he finds his wife betrays him, he dedicates all his time to seeking revenge. He gives up his identity, living with the minister and being by his side all day, every day. His largest sacrifice is by far, his own life. After spending so much time dwelling on his revenge, Chillingworth forgets that he still has a change to lead a life of his own. So after Dimmesdale reveals his secret to the world, " All his strength and energy---- all his vital and intellectual force--- seemed at once to desert him; in so much that he positively withered up, shriveled away, and almost vanied from mortal sight, like an uprooted weed that lies wilting in the sun."(P236) Chillingworth dies less that a year later because he has nothing left to live for. The poor forlorn creature is more wretched than his victim is --- the avenger had devoted himself.
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