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Abstract: The Scarlet Letter makes the American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne known all around the world. Hawthorne is a pious Christian, and is deeply influenced by the theology. He's so much indulged in the religious doctrine that people can find the reflection of the God almost everywhere in his works. After reading The Scarlet Letter, one is mostly impressed by the spirit of The Bible the story depicted. The book chiefly discusses sin and how to atone for it. Hester Prynne is the heroine of the fiction. This paper researches her fate to illustrate the influence of The Bible to Hawthorne. Hester Prynne commits adultery and is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her breast. At the beginning, she encounters all kinds of sufferings, both from the society and from her own soul. However, she realizes her sin and tries her best to atone for it. And she dose not choose to avoid her fault. Finally, through her endeavor, God forgives her. In short, sin and atoning for sin, that is the purpose of this paper. 
 
Chapter One: Biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne
With the publication of The Scarlet Letter in 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne became one of the greatest writer at that time and built his reputation as a major American author. Since that time on, people began to take great interest in all aspects of his life and a great many biographical and critical studies had been written about him and his works. He is also becoming more and more popular and familiar with Chinese readers. Since the Chinese translation of The scarlet Letter appeared in 1950s, scholars and readers in this country have shown an ever-increasing interest in his works.
Hawthorne was born on the fourth of July, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. Some of his ancestors were big shots in seventeenth-century New England, which was under the control of Puritanism. One of them was a colonial magistrate, notorious for his participation in the persecution of Quakers, and another was a judge at the...