关于霍桑作品的基本主题.doc

关于霍桑作品的基本主题abstract：nathaniel hawthornes whole life is perplexed by human beings sin and evil. his deep-rooted consciousness of puritanism is shown in his works, and these extraordinary works have a similar theme, namely, the process from the original sin to redemption. in the first part of this paper, the author discusses the basic theme represented in hawthornes short stories including young goodman brown, the ministers black veil, egotism or the bosom serpent, roger melvins burial and his masterpiece the scarlet letter. moreover, the author summarizes discrepancies among these five works although they have a common subject of sin. the second part focuses on the reasons why nathaniel hawthorne chooses such a basic theme. hawthorne is a descendant of the puritans and lives in a puritan town, so the puritan heritage plays a large part in his life and literary works. and the theme is influenced by his family life as well as his own hermit life. furthermore, the frequent recollection of his sinful ancestors urges hawthorne to set such a gloomy basic theme. and the last reason is to moralize people to get away from sinful behavior. in the last part of this paper, the author illuminates the significance of hawthornes basic theme. the whole paper is aimed at helping readers to better understand and appreciate hawthornes works.key words: basic theme, sin, expiation, redemption, puritan, calvinism论文摘要:纳撒尼尔霍桑是美国19世纪影响最伟大的浪漫主义小说家，同时又是一个深受新英格兰清教传统影响的作家。他多以加尔文教派的善恶观念来认识社会和整个世界，几乎倾其一生致力于探讨人性中的罪恶这一问题。他的作品反应了他根深蒂固的清教主义思想，因此很多作品都表现了一个相似的基本主题原罪-赎罪-救赎。该论文的第一部分以霍桑的五部作品为例 -好人布朗、胸中的蛇、教长的黑面纱、罗杰麦文的葬礼、以及最著名的红字来探讨他的上述基本主题，并归纳出这五部作品的精神意义。论文的第二部分通过霍桑家乡的所在地，家庭背景，和霍桑祖先的行为分析了霍桑选择这一主题的原因和清教徒迫害异端的事件对霍桑的思想所产生的深刻影响。而在最后一部分，论文阐释了霍桑这一基本主题的社会意义和人文意义。霍桑的作品中渗透着加尔文教派中关于“原罪”、“彻底堕落”等教义的观念”，略显隐晦难懂，本论文的目的在于帮助读者更好的理解和欣赏霍桑的作品及其意义。论文关键词： 基本主题 原罪 悔罪 救赎 清教 加尔文教 . introductionnathaniel hawthorne is a great brilliant american writer full of inspiration and talent. he is honored as one of the best and most important novelist of america in the 19th century and “the greatest imaginative genius since shakespeare” (w.j long, 392). nevertheless, many readers, while appreciating his excellent artistic techniques, find his works very difficult to understand. the obstacles, as far as i am concerned, are probably due to hawthornes basic theme which is related with calvinism; therefore it is necessary to deeply explore it. i believe that the result of the exploration will help the reader to understand this great genius more deeply and to appreciate his works better. the basic theme of hawthornes writingsaccording to christianity, ever since adam and eve are deceived by satan into eating the fruit and expelled from the garden of eden by god, evil has entered the world, and human beings are doomed to carry the burden of sin. deeply influenced by christianity, hawthorne puts the calvinism idea of original sin and depravity into his works. in many of his short stories and romances, hawthorne presents a central theme of original sin, together with an accompanying theme of the hunger for confession and expiation. his works make us realize that people are born sinful and everyone has some secret guilt and sin hidden in heart, that sin exists everywhere in the world, and that human life is a suffering journey of self-redemption. by citing the following works of hawthorne, i wish to fully display his basic theme of sin-expiation-redemption. a. young goodman browndisillusionment in faithnathaniel hawthornes best short story young goodman brown tells readers the story of the disillusionment in faith, which could be comprehended in two aspects: the disillusionment of the hero browns faith of his own, and that of his faith in others. goodman brown is an honest young man in peoples eyes, but is later seduced by evil. he once goes to attend the witches sabbath, but there he finds out some guilty secrets of other people. he meets all the respectable, reputable, and pious persons of the village including the lady of governor, wives of honored husband, excellent fair young girls, and church members of the village famous for their especial sanctity. to his greater surprise, he even sees his newly married wife, the pure and sweetest faith. therefore, brown realizes the evil of others and can not believe in good in himself and in others. in the story, hawthorne creates a “dark figure” to tell brown, or rather the readers the following words:“there are all whom ye have reverenced from youth. ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank from your own sin, contrasting it with their lives of righteousness and prayerful aspirations heavenward. yet here are they all in my worshiping assembly. this night it shall be granted you to know their secret deeds: how hoary-bearded elders of the church have whispered wanton words to the young maids of their household; how a woman, eager for widows weeds, has given her husband a drink at bedtime and let him sleep his last sleep in her boson, how beardless youths have made haste to inherit their fathers wealth; and how fair damselsblush not, sweet oneshave dug little graves in the garden and bidden me the sole guest to an infants funeral. by the sympathy of your human hearts for sin ye shall scent out all the placeswhether in church, bedchamber, street, field, or forestwhere crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot. far more than this, it shall be yours to penetrate, in every bosom, the deep mystery of sin, the fountain of all wicked arts, and which inexhaustibly supplies more evil impulses than human power can make manifest in deed.” (cowley 65)in this story, attending the sabbath could be actually considered as “a spiritual journey for exploring the truth of human world”(wang 3), which is filled with sin and guilt. and we can also conclude that the path in the forest symbolizes a dark journey of brown to meet the deep mystery of original sin. from the angle of original sin of puritanism, this journey makes him agony because he finds the darkness and sin in the deep heart of human beings. from the moment he decides to leave his wife, faith, brown betrays his faith. moreover, while he looks at his wife and other people around him with suspicious sight the next morning, the innocent brown changes completely into another person, gloomy and unbelieving. though this young man is still called goodman brown, the readers know there in no good man in reality and that everyone is sinful.b. the ministers black veilrevelation of sinhawthornes “the ministers black veil” is regarded as one of the earliest and greatest american short stories. like many of hawthornes stories, the nature of secret sin and humans fallen nature are the main theme, while this story is specially focused on the revelation of sin in peoples heart. the young respectable minister one day suddenly puts a black veil on his face and continues to wear it until he dies. though severely criticized, he never explains why he does so. yet the author gives the readers a hint that he starts to wear the black veil on the day a young girl in his parish dies, leading the reader to realize that the minister has some secret guilt connecting with the dead girl. at the last moment of his life, the minister says to the people around him, “why do you tremble at me alone? tremble also at each other! .when the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from eye of his creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which i have lived, and die!” (hawthorne 181) mr. hoopers deathbed remarks show that he intends the black veil to symbolize the secret sin which all men “loathsomely treasure up” in their hearts. (wan 3)mr. hooper reveals his sin by wearing a veil for a life long time, and the sins of people in his parish are revealed by feeling frightened of hoopers veil, because only those people who hide their sins deeply in their hearts would be afraid of the sight of mr. hooper behind his veil. on the wedding, “his frame shudderedhis lips grew whitehe spilt the untasted wine upon the carpetand rushed forth into the darkness” (hawthorne 180). his behavior arouses awareness of the majority of people present at the wedding that it is inevitable that everyone is a sinner even including the minister himself. thus hooper tears away peoples wrong illusion of a priest who is absolutely a holy representative of god. he seems to tell the villagers that “to err is human; to forgive is divine”. hooper goes to great lengths to reveal his sin instead of beautifying himself just because he has discovered “the earth, too, had on her black veil” (hawthorne 181). while many readers consider hooper a coward, i prefer to see him as a relatively honest man. even his hidden sin to that young lady is true, the action of coming to the ladys funeral still shows his gut and repentance of what he does. his confession of his sin through wearing the black veil lasts for a life-time long, which presents his honesty. the wearing of the veil, in my point of view, does not indicate that the minister despairs of his own and his congregations salvation. on the contrary, it is motivated by his hope for peace of mind in the afterlife: “it is but a mortal veilit is not for eternity!” (hawthorne 181) compared with those who keep their sin secret in heart, mr. hooper has the willingness to remedy his mistake, which is more admirable and venerable. c. egotism, or the bosom serpentperceptivity on sinsanother example, the short story egotism or the bosom serpent also clearly shows hawthornes black theme. he provides a very powerful insight into the self-obsession known as egotism. the hero roderick elliston is estranged from his wife, and from then on, a singular gloom spreads over his daily life. he believes that there is a live serpent in his bosom perpetually gnawing him. it leaves him only when he is able to meet his wife again and forgets his obsession with his own ills. actually the snake is the symbol of peoples innermost sinful consciousness. as all people are sinful, they have snakes in their hearts, too. since roderick himself keeps the guilty and sinful sense in his bosom, he has a better perceptivity of the sins committed, and he can seek out his own disease in every breast. when he meets an individual who for thirty years has cherished hatred against his own brother, he immediately perceives that there is a serpent in the mans heart which is gnawing him, too. when he encounters an ambitious statement, he affirms that the gentlemans serpent must be of the species of the boa constrictor, “for its appetite is enormous enough to devour the whole country and constitution.” (pearson 1110) once he assures “a close-fisted old fellow, of great wealth, but who skulks about the city in the guise of a scarecrow, with a patched blue coat, brown hat and mould boots, scraping pence together and picking up rusty nails” (pearson 1110) that his serpent is a copper-hand, and has been generated by the immense quantities of that base mentality with which he daily defiles his fingers. on another occasion he tells an envious author, who depreciates works which he could never equal, that “his snake is the slimiest and the filthiest of all the reptile tribe but is fortunately without sting” (pearson 1111). he warns a fair young girl that she cherishes a serpent of the deadest kind within his bosom, and a few months later, the poor girl dies of love and shame. he makes two ladies, “rivals in fashionable life, who tormented one another with a thousand little stings of womanish spite” (pearson 1111), understands that each of their hearts is “a nest of diminutive snake which does quite as much mischief as one great one” (pearson 1111). in this way, he makes his own serpent, if he really has one in his bosom, the type of each mans fatal error, or hoarded sin, or unique conscience, and strikes his sting so unremorsefully into the sorest spot, which nearly everybody indeed possesses.d. roger melvins burialretribution of sinspeople often say what goes around comes around. hawthorne is interested in what would happen to people after committing sins. therefore, retribution of sins becomes the inseparable parts of his gloomy theme. he once says: “the mere facts of guilt are of little value except to the gossip and the tipstaff; but how the wounding and wounded souls bear themselves after the crime, which is one of the needful lessons of life.”(w.j. long 402) thus he emphasizes retributions. in order to expiate his sin, the sinful character must suffer and bear all the punishment, which could be summarize as retribution. in this story, hawthorne creates a plot that reuben survives after the war, but he cannot feel at peace because he has not buried roger melvin as he promises, moreover, when he recovers, he does not have the courage to tell dorcas, malvins daughter and reubens fiance, that he leaves her father to die, even though it is malvins wish. many years later, when reuben and dorcas son is already a grown boy, their family travels through wilderness. at a rest, reuben and his son wander into the forest separately. at a certain moment, reuben hears something in the bushes and shoots, thinking it might be a deer, but it turns out that he has killed his own son. as he observes the terrain, it is obvious that this is the same place where he leaves roger malvin. in the story, god punishes reuben by killing his son, which is a didactic plot, aiming at persuading people to avoid committing sins. however, in real life, punishment often comes from the sinners inner soul. it is self-punishment. the person who commits a crime or who himself thinks he does so is bitterly tortured by his own conscience. he condemns himself so hard that he will try all ways to punish himself, to clear the ignominy, and to expiate the sin. w.j. long clearly expresses this meaning in his book about american literature, saying hawthorne “makes man his own judge, punishing himself in his life instead of awaiting sentence at the final judgment”. (w.j. long 405)with this in mind, the reader can easily understand why in “roger melvins burial”, after unwittingly shooting his only son to death, reuben bourne feels relieved. thats because he regarded the tragedy as a punishment to himself. although he feels he deserves no censure for leaving his father-in-law when he is dying, “concealment had imparted to a justifiable act much of the secret effect of guilt.” (pearson 1132) therefore, reuben experiences in no small degree the mental terrors which punish the perpetrator of the undiscovered crime. he at times almost imagines himself a murderer. the unbearable suffering makes him long for a punishment. by killing his son, reuben symbolically kills himself. his son is a valuable sacrifice. the american professor estes once tells me that hawthorne thinks the only way people save themselves from guilt is to sacrifice themselves. thus, by making such a tremendous sacrifice, reubens sin “was expiated, the curse was gone from him, in the hour, when he had shed blood dearer to him than his own” (cowley, 101). the tragedy finally releases him. he trusts that “it was heavens intent to afford him an opportunity of expiating his sin.” (cowley 97)e. the scarlet letterredemption of sinsin the first chapter, the prison-door, of the scarlet letter, hawthorne says “the founders of a new colony, whatever utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognised it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.” (hawthorne 3) these words clearly illustrate the secret sin, one of the themes most focused on in this work. in this story, each of the three main characters, hester, dimmesdale, and chillingworth, has his or her own secret sins. hesters sin is not revealing the identity of her sexual partner, pearls father. likewise, reverend dimmesdales secret sin is committing adultery with hester. moreover, roger chillingworth, hesters husband, is guilty of violating another humans heart and soul. all of these characters wish to confess their sins to lay down the burden of guilt off their shoulders, but only one of them is truly able to get redemption. hawthorne makes hester a heroine and survives to a tranquil old age just by expiating her offence. she wears the scarlet letter a, somewhat willingly, for the purpose of confessing her sin, of meditating and of reforming herself. on this point, mark van dorens comments about hester, in my interpretation, agree with hawthornes original intention. doren says that she is “heroic in size and strengthalthough she came to be puritanisms victim, she never surrendered the integrity of her soul. neither did she complain of her fate. her fate was to waste her life, yet we do not feel in the end that her life was wasted. rather it is known, she is immortal.” (w.j. long 406) each character has a secret sin that he or she wishes to confess and each of those sins affects the character that commits that sin as well as other characters in the story. though they are all sinners, dimmesdales sins stands out more boldly than that of hesters or chillingworths, for he has committed not just the sin of adultery, but also that of dishonesty as well as cowardice, and his first sin with hester leads him to commit other sins.unlike the sins of hester and dimmesdale, roger chillingworths secret sin is more severe. while the sins of the other characters are sins against society, chillingworths sin is a sin against another persons heart and soul. once chillingworh discovers the true identity of his wifes lover, he spends most of the rest of his life trying to get revenge on dimmesdale. prying away, piece by piece, at dimmesdales already guilt-trodden soul, chillingworth is a large factor