The symbolic meaning of Pearl in the Scarlet Letter文献综述

 2022-09-08 11:59:08

Literature review of the symbolic meaning of Pearl in The Scarlet Letter

Introduction

The Scarlet Letter is regarded as the masterpiece of Hawthorne. Since the publication of the, it has attracted great attention from critics and readers domestic and foreign. Scholars in the literature circles have done many researches on the work. The topics of the book are various, so the studies made of it are diversified, too. In the research perspective, the western scholars had a variety of opinions and constantly developed a multi-level connotations of The Scarlet Letter. In our country, attention from Chinese translation and foreign literature studies rose at about in 1950s. Especially in recent 20 years, studies about the book came into a throng. According to the data compiled by Liao Man(2015), critics and readers paid much attention to the topics as following: the use of an important writing style—symbolism, discussion about the mythical and religious prototypes, the opinions for the feminism appearing in the work, the images of the wildness and forest ,contradiction in the authorrsquo;s thoughts for the Puritan thoughts and Calvinism and son on. All of the researches made contributions to a more deep understand of the Hawthornersquo;s masterpiece—The Scarlet Letter. Because of the limitation of my ways, the literature views that I get mainly from the CNKi in China. So I will present my literature review mostly based on the comments of critics in our country. I will divided it into five parts. They are studies on symbolism in The Scarlet Letter, studies on Hawthornersquo;s childhood, studies on the image of Pearl, studies on Hawthornersquo;s position for the feminism and at last, the conclusion.

Studies on the Hawthornersquo;s childhood

Since the topic of the work is about an adultery affair, many scholars will take the authorrsquo;s experience into consideration. They hold the view that The Scarlet Letter is a reflection of Hawthornersquo;s life, to some extent.

Hawthorne, born in 1804, is the descendent of a long line Puritan ancestors. His father and mother fell in love with each other and married after 5 years. However, his mother gets premarital pregnancy which is against the creeds of Puritanism. And according to Nina Baymrsquo;s record(1992), there was little time for the family to be together since his father was a ship master. Women in that period were subordinate to men, and the mother and her children were badly treated. So Hawthorne leads an unhappy life at that time. After they get out from the family, Hawthorne was given much attention and care from his uncle. Robert is like another father but Hawthornersquo;s feelings to the man are varied.(Shi, 2003). He loves the man but at the same time hates his strictness. On his opinion, it is his uncle who wants to control his life. The contradiction in his feelings to Robert is obvious, which I suppose to be true. However, from my point view, it is more than that. His mother, a poor woman have no rights to decide how to educate her child in spite of leaving the family. And Hawthornersquo; childhood is an also a reflection of femalesrsquo; low position of that period.

Nina(1992) pointed out that although Hawthorne is the only boy in his family, he did not get proper care and attention because he is the result of unmarried pregnancy. After the death of Hawthornersquo;s father, her motherrsquo;s decision to leave the family is also a symbol of the struggling of females for freedom.

Studies on Hawthornersquo;s position for feminism in The Scarlet Letter.

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