红字中的圣经原型 红字和圣经
时间：2019-03-30 03:20:15 来源：柠檬阅读网 本文已影响 人 
摘 要：纳撒尼尔·霍桑对对故事的原型塑造非常在行，他有着美国最伟大的小说家和说书人的赞誉。他生活在文艺复兴时期，基督教对他的写作风格有很大的影响，这种影响和他有一个基督教家庭的背景事分不开的。在他的小说里有许多例如亚当、夏娃、撒旦等人物还有正义和邪恶之间的斗争等等圣经原型，所以红字也是一部了解圣经的必不可少的作品。
关键词：原型；影响；家庭背景
Abstract:Nathaniel Hawthorne was good at making archetypes. He was called the most accomplished American storyteller and novelist. He is one of the writers in American Renaissance on whom Christianity has a huge influence. The impact which the Bible makes may be dated back to his family background. He was born in a puritan family. Puritanism has a strong influence on him. There are many archetypes in this novel, such as the archetypes of Adam, Eve, Satan, scapegoat, the battle between good and evil and so on. The Scarlet Letter also is indispensable to understand the Bible well if one wants to have a good command of western literature.
Key word:archetypes, influence, family background
THE BIBLICAL ARCHETYPES IN THE SCARLET LETTER
The scarlet letter is seen not as romance but as myth-the story of man and woman in a fallen human world .The Bible begins with the story of Adam and Eve, who were expelled from the Garden of Eden for eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The experience of Hester and Dimmesdale recalls of Eve and Adam because in both cases, sin results in expulsion and suffering. But it also results in knowledge-specifically, in knowledge of what it means to be human.
As for Hester, she was expelled to the outskirts of Boston .In this sense, Hester has been expelled from her paradise like Eve who is driven out of the Paradise God provides. She sins, and "according to traditional Puritanism, this act shuts her off forever from Paradise."
As the sin of Eve results in her knowledge of good and evil, Hester""s sin leads to knowledge though it leads to isolation and anguish at once, Shamed and alienated from the rest of the community, Hester grows intellectual and becomes contemplative. She speculates on human nature, social organization, and larger moral questions
Unlike Hester who is damned by society, Dimmesdale is damned by himself. Therefore, for the most part, he suffers from a spiritual ostracism because he remains fully a part of the society, continuing to preach sermons and maintaining his congregants"" respect. Furthermore, as a great servant of God, he is obligatory to tell the truth. Thus, seven years of hypocrisy is especially hard on him. His inability to confess his sinful act of passion causes him great anguish and self-hatred. Hester belongs to the figure of this archetype of scapegoat. "The figure of a typical or random victim begins to crystallize in domestic tragedy as it deepens in ironic tone. We may call this typical victim the pharmakos or scapegoat. Hester sins through passion which is regarded as evil by traditional Puritanism. Yet passion is one of human""s natural traits.
The people of the community, like their harsh ancestors whose portraits hang in the governor""s mansion gaze with harsh and intolerant criticism at the pursuits and enjoyments of living men. And Hester""s pregnancy makes her sin self-evident as she has been left alone for a long stretch of time. Puritans consider adultery to be immortal ,the vilest of the vile and the blackest of the black.
Indeed, Hester becomes a scapegoat ,on whom all the sins of the community can be laid ,and the public nature of her punishment makes he an object for voyeuristic contemplation; it also gives the townspeople , particularly the women ,a chance to demonstrate-or convince themselves of -their own piety by condemning her as loudly as possible. Rather than seeing their own potential sinfulness in Hester, the townspeople see her as someone whose transgressions outweigh and obliterate their own errors.
In this novel, the Black Man dwells not in the forest, but in the village as a man form of Chillingworth. Evil, in its most poisonous form, is found in the carefully plotted and precisely aimed revenge of Chillingworth, whose love has been perverted. Among the characters, Roger Chillingworth embodies Satan, the devil.
First, his name Roger Chillingworth reflects his evil character .The name "Roger Chillingworth" conveys the implications of rogue and chilliness. The pronunciation of his first name, Roger, is similar to "rogue".
Secondly, the description of Chillingworth""s countenance and the way he behaves brings home to the readers the fact that he is the embodiment of Satan. From his first appearance Roger Chillingworth is described in demonic terms.
Thirdly, the imageries in the novel lend force to the fact that Chillingworth belongs to the figure of the archetype of Satan.Hawthorne is a writer who "thinks in picture". He relies heavily on the appeal to the sense of vision through the creation of the visual images by which Hawthorn conveys his judgement of good and evil. There are images of color, of light and shade, and of flower etc.Chillingworth is connected with the serpent imagery, the imagery of black or dark and unnatural flower and vegetation symbolizing evil. The implication of Chillingworth""s name, his countenance, his behavior and the imagery all illustrate the evilness of Chillingworth. In this sense, he is the embodiment of Satan. The archetype of the Bible also reflects on Pearl, Hester""s daughter. She is the embodiment of an angel and is depicted as nature""s child. She is an object of natural beauty. She makes the letter A for herself , a green one, but not as scarlet as her mother""s A .These seem to show that the letter A is in fact natural. Besides, Hawthorne has adopted another Biblical archetype, that is, the archetype of the saint. Hester belongs to the figure of this archetype.
To sum up, The figure of the archetype due to the fact that she bears the sins of both the townpeople and her fellow-sinner Dimmensdale. The archetype of Satan ,to which the Chillingwirth belongs .The evocative meaning of his name ,his countenance, the way he behaves and his doom all reflect his devilishness.He bears the strong resemblance to Satan.
Bibliography：
[1] Abel, Darrel. Hawthorne""s Dimmesdale[J].Nineteenth-Century Fiction,Sep., 1956.
[2]Crew, FredericC.The Sins of The Fathers: Hawthorne""s Psychological Theme[M.] New York:Oxford University Press,1958.
[3]Daniel,Clay.TheScarletLetter:Hawthorne,Freud,and the Transcendentalists[J].American Transcendental Quarterly,Mar,1986.
作者简介：杨璐（1982.9-），女，西安外事学院成教院基础教研室。
