Chapter One Introduction 1.1 Overview The “Scarlet Letter” is considered as one of the symbolic works in American literature. In Hawthorne's, use of symbolism is one of the significant contributions to the rise of American Literature. As suggested by Bilind in his essay, symbolism in the Scarlet Letter ,that Symbolism in the novel makes it puritan's allegory, leave very little important point that where from Hawthorne derives his symbolism? (Bilind,2011:7,8) This research concentrates on symbolic images in The Scarlet Letter to uncover their meaning and how the idea of Hawthorne’s novel focuses on symbols. One well-known example in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter is where the scarlet letter "A" pinned to Hester Prynne's breast represents adultery.
He expressed his feelings, emotions, will and concept through the scarlet letter” A”, some natural scenery, and some of the major characters. The use of symbolism gives romantic thoughts and great subjective ideals to readers. This paper researches the symbolism in the novel from the following aspects: the changing symbolic meaning of the scarlet letter “A”, the colors, prison, the forest, the names of the major characters described in the novel to make the symbolism clear to the reader. Key words: The Scarlet Letter, symbolism, sin 摘要 霍桑创作象征主义小说的独特天赋触及人类的道德的最深根源，其代表作是《红字》。 它也是最能代表其思想和艺术风格的杰出作品，被视为美国第一部象征主义小说。它是少数卓有建树的作品之一，因为它涉及疏远，罪恶，惩罚及内疚，或是那种使一代一代人们所感受的感情。在《红字》中那个牵动着读者内心的鲜红字母“A”贯穿全篇，并被作家赋予了丰富的象征涵义。霍桑通过鲜红的字母“A”，通过大自然中的一些景象，表达出了自己的某些感觉、情思、意志和观念，使作品充满了丰富的浪漫主义想象和强烈的主观色彩。本文主要从以下几方面研究《红字》中的象征主义: 红色字母A、颜色、监狱、森林的象征意义在文中做出阐述。 关键词: 红字 象征意义 罪恶 Ⅰ Introduction Nathaniel Hawthorne is considered to be the first greatest American fiction writer and his greatest symbolic contribution is The Scarlet Letter, which is regarded as the first symbolic novel in the American literature. In the novel, each word, image, and event works toward a single effect.
His narration is crowded with symbols derived from the historical, mythological, and religious allusions. The most important symbols are: Egdon Heath, Rainbarrow, Bonfire, Wind and Storm, The moon, Eye sight, Gambling, and Paris. Hardy's characters tend to be symbolic rather than realistic especially for Clym Yeobright, Eustacia Vye, and Diggory Venn. This paper reveals the major symbols of the novel and studies them due to the basic theme of modernism and the other themes as well. The Return of the Native is a typical representative of Hardy's style "as critics have pointed out for sometime, Hardy's most instinctive mode as a writer is figurative, not analytic; 1 Symbolism in Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native Faisal Abdul Wahhab Hayder His most habitual method is symbolism, not argument.
Critics over the years focused on this search for a hidden significance, and put forward their own interpretation of this "truth." The scarlet letter has thus been assigned almost as many different meanings as there are words beginning with the letter A in the English dictionary. Instead of offering my own A-word as a key to understanding Nathaniel Hawthorne's masterpiece, I would like to focus on the notion of symbol itself, and on the way the author organizes this search for a meaning. The narrator frequently uses this word throughout the romance, and its various occurrences enable us to shape a definition that corresponds to his personal use of symbols. From this starting point, I would like to show how Hawthorne stages the interpretative process within The Scarlet Letter, and how this provides keys for the reader on how to read them.
A Foreshadowing Symbol “Symbolism exists to adorn and enrich, not to create an artificial sense of profundity.” -Stephen King When stories are being written by any author there is a story line and for any story worth reading there is an underlying story line as well. Authors imbed symbols and other underlying meanings to intensify the plot(s) by telling another story as well. Symbolism is the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities or meaning attributed to natural objects. In "Sweat," the most apparent symbol in the story is the title. It is also mentioned in the story, "Looka heah, Sykes, you done gone too fur.
James Joyce’s “The Boarding House” tells the story of two women - Mrs. Mooney and her daughter Polly - who, for their own gain, force Mr. Doran into marriage through deceit and manipulation. Despite being hard-working and devoted to his religion, Mr. Doran finds himself with a dilemma: remain unmarried, forced to live with his sin and risk losing his job and social standing; or, by marrying a woman from a lower social class, sacrifice his freedom in order to repair the wrong committed. Ultimately, either choice serves as a strong punishment for his sin. On the other hand, Mrs. Mooney and Polly, whose conduct throughout the story is far more morally repugnant than Mr. Doran’s, only stand to benefit from their sins. In this sense, “The Boarding House” is about the discrepancy between how men and women are judged morally, particularly within the scope religion.
Hamlet is angry with Ophelia and in rage, he tells her that her beauty is dishonest and that he did love Ophelia once and at the same time, he never did. He then tells her that she should enter a nunnery instead of breeding sins i.e. having children. This is known from the lines, “Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a / breeder of sinners?
Demi Zapata Petersen 6 1/22/10 Scarlet Letter Essay Prompt: In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, his characters are more than just people in a novel; they portray a deeper meaning and contribute to the theme. Analyze his rhetorical strategies, how the strategies are conveyed through the use of his characters and events, and how his characters reveal deeper insight into the theme. Nathaniel Hawthorne is a renowned author and praised for his novel, The Scarlet Letter, which is filled to the brim with objects, events, and characters with deeper meanings, mirrored scenes, and characters living in a pool of iron, all playing a part in the novel’s themes. The characters play a vital role, meaning they are the core of the novel. With the characters, themselves being contradictions and representations of hidden meanings, they also demonstrate how society and nature can flood people’s inner minds and coat their original thinking with a layer of enlightenment.
Mansfield directly blames the male characters as the cause of the problem. Many believe that her views on marriage were affected by the fact that her own marriage was unsuccessful. The female characters always know that something is not right. “Oh, but you must have been thinking of something!” By using ‘oh’, a sense of suspicion is conveyed to the readers, instantly convincing that the male character did something wrong. Mansfield often uses a male character to do the wrong deeds in a story since she believes that a man is a woman’s destroyer.
When she is abandoned by her husband and her family gets involved in financial difficulties, so she cast herself on the mercy of Alec and becomes his mistress. To relieve misfortune of her family, she sacrifices herself. Second, though Tess possesses some strong personalities, her character is still impacted by old morality. Tess knows clearly that she is the victim because she is seduced by Alec. But ,she always regards herself as a sinner and when someone speaks ill of her, she even thinks she destroys the purity of nature .