论文总字数：33368字

摘 要

纳撒尼尔.霍桑是十九世纪美国浪漫主义文学的杰出代表，也是美国文学的奠基人之一。《红字》是他的代表作，一经发表就在美国文学界引起了广泛关注，同时也被认为是世界文学的经典之一。

霍桑是一位在思想上充满矛盾的作家，一方面他笃信基督教的道德观，认为人性本恶，人皆有罪。但另一方面他又反对清教对人性的扼杀，并认为人只有诚心忏悔，才能得到最后的救赎。

本文以神话原型批评为理论基础，对《红字》中所体现的主要圣经人物原型和圣经结构原型进行了全面的分析。在人物方面，小说中的三位主人公（海斯特、丁梅斯代尔、和齐灵渥斯）分别体现了圣经中夏娃，亚当和撒旦的人物原型。在结构方面，霍桑在宏观的圣经悲剧结构原型中穿插了一个U型的圣经喜剧结构原型，这一悲一喜的结构原型分析最为鲜明地反应了霍桑的复杂而矛盾的宗教观。

关键词: 《红字》 宗教观 神话原型批评

1. Introduction

1.1 Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) is lauded as the pioneer of psychological novel in American Romanticism. He plays an inestimable role in the literary world and enjoys high prestige as the greatest American novelist in the first half of the 19^th. Hawthorne was born in a declining family with long Puritan tradition in Salem. After graduation, he devoted himself to the writing career. Throughout his life, he created more than one hundred stories and novels, among which, four representative novels were being universally praised: The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance (1852) and The Marble Faun (1860). On the basis of his family background, he was shaped into a writer whose mind is full of contradiction. On the one hand, he criticized religious fanaticism and church hypocrisy; on the other hand, he was fettered by the tradition and recognized the world with Calvinistic concept of good and evil. So his creations center on common themes of “sin”, “evil” and “redemption”, which have exerted profound influence on the world literature. Among all of his works, The Scarlet Letter, as an incarnation of his literary ideology and writing techniques, which enjoys highest reputation in his literary career, and has striking repercussions for the American literature.

The plot of The Scarlet Letter is quite understandable and moving. The protagonist, Hester Prynne is sent to New England first by her husband, an old scholar. While waiting for her husband, she commits adultery with the minister, Dimmesdale. As a result, Hester is asked to wear a scarlet “A” (“A” standing for adulteress) on her breast. As she bore the public humiliation on the scaffold with her daughter on arm, her husband determines to find out who her lover is with a fake name. Since adultery, Dimmesdale imposes mental and physical torment on himself, making his health begin to fail day after day, at that time, Chillingworth recommends himself as a disguised physician to look after Dimmesdale. Being in such close contact with Dimmesdale, Chillingworth suspects that Dimmesdale is the child’s father and begins to cruelly torture Dimmesdale. While Dimmesdale withers mentally and physically, Hester tries her best to help others without asking any rewards, though she still suffers severely criticize from time to time. Finally, Hester gets people’s forgiveness, Dimmesdale chooses to reveal the truth publicly and dies on Hester’s arm. Seeing Dimmesdale’s death, Chillingworth gives up his will for revenge and leaves Pearl a substantial fortune.

As a whole, the novel explores various layers of moral philosophy, the evil and human nature against the background of the colonial life in New England, making The Scarlet Letter become an immortal work to Hawthorne.

1.2 Need for the study

The aim of the paper is to analyze the Biblical archetypes enclosed in The Scarlet Letter for the following reasons.

Practically speaking, archetypal criticism can provide numerous inspiration for the scholars. It is worth mentioning that the ingenious use of Biblical archetypes and images makes The Scarlet Letter an immortal work. Thus the interpretation of The Scarlet Letter exerts great practical significance on the following two aspects: first, the archetypal analysis of work is the key for readers to have in-depth understanding of this novel; second, the “displacement” of biblical archetypes in the work enriches the cultural connotation and enhances the artistic appeal of the novel.

Theoretically speaking, the archetypal interpretation can give scholars more hints at studying The Scarlet Letter from new research perspectives. From now on, they may pay more attention to Hawthorne’s strong bible complex between the lines with the writing technique of archetypal criticism. Last but not least, readers can have a comprehensive understanding of The Scarlet Letter and the literary achievements Hawthorne has made as a literary master.

2. Literature Review

2.1 The archetypal criticism

Archetypal literary criticism is a type of critical theory that analyzes an essay by concentrating on recurring myths and archetypes in the narrative, symbols, images, and character types in literature, especially archetypes behind them and to employ such archetypes to the interpretation and evaluation of the literary works. The word “archetype”, according to Jung, was much used in ancient Greek, ache means “root” and “origin”, while types represents “pattern” or “model”. Archetype began to come into scholar’s literary creation in the late nineteenth century, referring to the recurring literary phenomena such as motifs, themes, and native designs. It now takes on the archetypal criticism, to interpret the structural principals behind the archetypal myths and rituals in the tales of different cultures.

The archetypal criticism opens a new view for the literary research, enabling readers to find out the nature of literature. With the great influence of archetypal criticism, many writer’s works are all endowed with new horizon, meaning and fame. Meanwhile, many critics are all inclined to apply the theory to analyze the literary works. As we all know that Hawthorne delicately injects his complicated religious view into The Scarlet Letter, so it is a great choice to study The Scarlet Letter with the theory of archetypal criticism. This study will explore from prototype theory to analyze the Biblical archetypes of the three main characters and its structure, through which can make both readers and critics have a new and comprehensive view for the immortal work.

2.2 Previous studies of The Scarlet Letter

After its publication, The Scarlet Letter enjoys a variety of literary criticism from an army of critics and scholars both at home and abroad.

Since the twentieth century, Hawthorne and his works, especially The Scarlet Letter have arrested a high degree of attention in western country. Many critics set out to review and interpret The Scarlet Letter from different aspects. Most of the analyses are about the imagery and metaphor, one good case in point is how they explicate the underlying meanings of the letter A, Pearl and the forest, for example, they hold that the letter “A” is a symbol of sin, then becomes the embodiment of the ability. Some reviewers took another method to reveal Hawthorne’s paradoxical and ambivalent religious belief that reflected in the novel, for example, Richard H. Fogle’s typical study (1952), Hawthorne’s Fiction: The Light and the Dark, well illustrates the equivocalness of Hawthorn’s inner world by following the connection between the light and the dark. In addition, critics inclined to utilize the theory of psychoanalytical criticism to study Hawthorne’s work from the following two special aspects; first, applying Freudian terms such as ego, id and superego to analyze the inner world of the protagonist; and then Frederick Crews (1966) points out a view:“a proto psychoanalytic stance towards his characters’ obsessions”, which makes Hawthorne more contemporary. In his book The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne’s Psychological Themes, Crews reaches a conclusion that Hawthorne’s characterization foresees the findings of Freudian psychoanalysis. In Re-reading The Letter: Hawthorne, the Fetish, and the Romance, Joanne Feit Diehl (2005) indicates that the novel, to a large extent, shows Hawthorne’s oedipal feelings. Darrel Abel (1988) is a critic who advocates the combination of formalist with the artistic structure, Abel’s work, The Moral Picturesque, fully exhibits the prolonged conflicts in The Scarlet Letter.

Some scholars analyze The Scarlet Letter based on the theory of feminism, Mary Suzanne (2014), in her study, Gender and the Writer’s Imagination, believes that Hester is the typical representative of feminism, who stands out to break the shackle of the old tradition , but also holds that Hester is filled with ambivalence in his mind.

In China, since the 1950s, when the first translated version was published, Chinese scholars have become much more familiar with The Scarlet Letter and have begun to make various comments on it. Many scholars study this novel through the view of symbolism, believing that the whole article contains much symbolic significance, such as the image of the prison, rose and the scarlet letter A. Jin Xiaolin(2004) analyzes the ambiguous, systematic and metaphorical trait of the symbolism used in the novel. Some critics interpret The Scarlet Letter on a viewpoint of feminist criticism. Ji Zheng and Meng Xueqing (2004) point out that Hawthorne advocates the tradition of the male dominated society through presenting Prynne’s harsh experience after committing adultery with Dimmesdale. While several scholars analyze the work from the prospective of the post-structuralism, including Zhang Hairong (2005), he explicates Pear’s mental process based on Freud’s and Lacan’s theory. Archetypal criticism is also involved in the study of The Scarlet Letter, for instance, based on Carl Jung’s archetypal theory, Zhao Wen qiong(2011) deems that Prynne is the archetypes of Eve and Dimmesdale is the embodiment of Adam in the Bible, which foreshadows their future.

Through the above depiction, we can easily find out that various perspectives have been employed in the study of The Scarlet Letter, which provides us with many fine aspects to appreciate the novel. Nevertheless, a few critics have ever done special research on The Scarlet Letter from the angle of the archetypal criticism. Therefore, this paper is going to make a detailed analysis of the biblical archetypes that wrapped in the novel, which endeavors to offer a new and comprehensive view for readers to appreciate the masterpiece.

3. An Archetypal Analysis of The Scarlet Letter

3.1 An archetypal analysis of the characters

3.1.1 Hester—the archetype of Eve

In Bible, Eve is supposed to live with Adam in Eden happily. But because she cannot resist the temptation of the serpent and eats the forbidden fruit, hence she can tell between good and bad, for which she is expelled from the Eden and loses all beautiful things of life. After quite a series of affliction and repentance, Eve finally gets salvation from God. It is obvious that the whole life track of Eve is from paradise, degradation, hardship and salvation.

In The Scarlet Letter, Hester goes through the same life process as Eve does, falling into sin, self redemption from sin, and then be saved. Hester came from a noble family, she is so beautiful and attractive that she married a knowledgeable scholar, after marriage, her husband(Chillingworth) determined to move to the new land which signifies freedom and blessedness with Hester, but he was delayed by some other things in Europe, so Hester was being sent to New England first, she should have lived a cozy life in the worldly paradise if she had waited for her husband. However, just like Eve, she eats the “forbidden fruit”, commits the original sin, thus being dislodged from the paradise, suffering public humiliation as well. However, instead of escaping, she decides to stay and begins the long as well as lonely atonement life in a solitary little cottage. She holds that the scene of her guilt and “earthly punishment” has been here, and the “torture of her daily shame” will eventually “purge her soul” and work out “another purity than that which she had lost, more saint-like” (Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, 80). For this belief, She sturdily and silently bears all kinds of harsh treatment and living predicament, trying to atone for sins with good deeds, such as do needlework and embroidery for the poor free of charge, yet the whole process is rather painful for she still encounters severe criticism from the people whom she often aids, but Hester keeps showing benevolence to the people with practical actions with each passing day. Finally, she gets her soul purified and achieves her salvation. People begin to recognize Hester in a different way and turn to her for help and comfort. The meaning of the scarlet letter “A” is also endowed with different interpretation, some people hold that it is the abbreviation of “Ability”, while scores of people believe that it becomes the symbol of “Angel”.

To a great extent, Hester is saved by herself through devout repentance, just as Eve, who is eventually forgiven by God.

3.1.2 Dimmesdale—the archetype of Adam

Just like Hester who embodies the archetypes of Eve, Dimmesdale reflects the archetype of Adam.

Adam is one of the most important figure in Bible. Before being driven out of the Eden, Adam is spiritually rich and lives happily with Eve, he could have been immortal physically and mentally, but he commits the original sin by being tempted to eat the forbidden fruit and is expelled from Eden, at the same time, he loses all of wonderful things, such as God’s favor, the happy and powerful life. Luckily, in the end, Adam gets redemption from God through pious confession. From this perspective, he goes through the same life trace like Eve: paradise-degeneration-suffering-salvation.

We can also find Adam’s shadow in Dimmesdale. From the very beginning, Dimmesdale was regarded as a holy person with eloquence and great religious fanaticism, many people take his words as the voice of an angel touching deep heart. He could have lived in his divine paradise, but just like Adam who eats the forbidden fruit, Dimmesdale violates the doctrine of the God, committing adultery with Hester, thus falling from his soul heaven and suffering endless pain.

Unlike Hester who is excluded out by the whole community and leads a hard life with her daughter. Dimmesdale’s sufferings and anguish mainly from his inner heart, though he still enjoys admiration from his community, he constantly blames and punishes himself physically and mentally. No matter how regretful he is, he just dares not to stand out to admit his sin and continues to preach, which makes him a coward and selfish person, so while atones one sin, he makes another hypocrisy. Except from his own inner torment, he also has to bear with the torture from Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, who secretly impose great pain on Dimmesdale spiritually and physically, so as to force Dimmesdale to tell him the truth. Gradually, Dimmesdale grows weaker due to a series of physically ill and mentally torture. All of these painful suffering are the result of his sexual crime. After long period of struggling, Dimmesdale courageously stands on the scaffold, confessing his crime in front of his community on the Election Day, at that time, he feels released for getting rid of Chillingworth’s torture and self-condemnation. Finally, he dies with peace of mind, believing that he has got salvation from God through his sincere revelation.

Just as Adam, Dimmesdale experienced the process from being with God to being driven out of the Eden for crime, then suffering numerous pain, making confession publicly, finally getting salvation from God.

3.1.3 Chillingworth— the archetype of Satan

In The Scarlet Letter, it is obvious that Chillingworth takes all typical characteristics of Satan.

As an archetypal character who is opposite to God, Santa represents ambition, darkness, evilness, temptation and fall. He disguises himself as a serpent to tempt Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, which directly causes the fall of the mankind. Although he has achieved his purpose, he himself suffered painful punishment. From then on, Santa is regarded as the potential enemy of man’s kindness.

Chillingworth vividly resembles Satan as the following two parts. First, he takes after Santa in his figure which is misshapen and ugly, the very detailed depiction of his ugly appearance brings home to the readers the fact that he embodies Satan. Apart from that, he also resembles Santa in the evil character. Chillingworth marries a young and attractive lady, whom he just want to live with in his whole life, so he tries to win Hester’s heart but ends with tragedy. His wife, Hester not only gives birth to the little Pearl with Dimmesdale but also bears resent for Chillingworth, which signifies the beginning of Chillingworth’s inhumane revenge. Once Chilliingworth knows that Hester doesn’t love him at all, his heart is filled with jealous and hatred, and cruelly changes into a demon by devoting himself to merciless revenge to punish Dimmesdale. Just as jealous Santa who loves Eve but cannot possess her, which drives him into endless avenge.

Owing to Chilliingworth’s failure to put up with the humiliation at all, he hides his true identity as Hester’s husband to poke his nose into Heater’s private life, even pretending to be minister’s physician, which aims to pry into Dimmesdale’s inner heart instead of curing the minister. After knowing the fact that Dimmesdale endure with the struggle between desire and pure soul, Chilliingworth tries hard to test Dimmesdale, even afflicts Dimmesdale by inducing him to take wrong medicine and making him feel more ashamed about his sin, thus exacerbating his ill condition. Just like Santa hides himself as a serpent and tempts Eve to eat the forbidden fruit to against the God’s will, thus causing the fall of the mankind.

To a large extent, Chilliingworth is the portrait of Satan, making his evil dream come true, but ends up his life in the doom.

3.2 An Archetypal Analysis of the Narration

3.2.1 The U-shaped narration

From The Scarlet Letter, we can easily conclude that the narration of the life process of Dimmesdale and Hester applies the biblical archetype of the U-shaped structure. The U-shaped model in the Bible is the treachery of Hester and Dimmesdale being followed by a fall into catastrophe and restriction, which in turn is followed by repentance, then by a rise to the same height from which the fall began. Hester and Dimmesdale’s entire life experience can be called as a divine comedy, which first begins with a life in the paradise, then commits a crime, followed by a series of hardship and punishment, finally gets salvation through confession.

At the very beginning, like Eve and Adam, Dimmesdale and Hester lives in the paradise happily. But since Hester doesn’t like her husband any more, she wants to have true love with Dimmesdale, as a result, she commits adultery and severely breaches the Puritan principle, for which she is expelled from the paradise and publicly condemned to wear, as a symbol of her shame, the scarlet letter A. From then on, the town people shun Hester even badly humiliated her because of her sin, so that she is cast out the whole community and has to live with her daughter alone in a remote cottage. Just like Eve, after eating the forbidden fruit, she was driven out of Eden for violating God’s will. Tough as is her living condition, she still chooses to stay and devotes herself to helping the community asking for no rewards. Gradually, people see Hester differently with her selfless giving, they come to read the scarlet as “Able” or “Angle” rather than the evil meaning it was originally intended to stand for. After suffering a series of humiliation and misfortune, Hester obtains the salvation spiritually in the end.

Dimmesdale aslo undergoes the similar U-shaped life experience, he is such a respectable minister who lives in the paradise at the very beginning that everyone in the community admires him and takes his words as the voice of angel. But when he comes across Hester, he cannot resist the passion and commits adultery with Hester. After that, although Dimmesdale still enjoys high prestige among the town people as a priest, he deeply aware that his behavior is a severe profanation to the God’s will and to his divine career, but he dares not to stand out to publicly admit his sin out of fear and cowardice, so he just choose to bear the inner struggle instead, he constantly whips himself physically and makes self condemnation spiritually. With each passing days, he becomes so weak that makes the town people astonished. After a long period of torture from himself and Chillingworth, Dimmesdale cannot stand the painful life any more, so he courageously makes godly confession on the scaffold in front of the public, at that moment, he gets rid of Chillingworth’s control and receives final forgiveness from the God.

So it can be easily concluded that both Hester and Dimmesdale’s life process reflect the U-shaped structure in the Bible.

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