紅字英文版讀書報告
紅字英文版讀書報告
篇一、紅字英文版讀書報告
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a classical novel in American literature in the 19th century. Since the first Chinese translation of The Scarlet Letter appeared in the 1950's scholars and readers in this country have shown an ever-increasing interest in his works. Its immortal enchantment lies in not only its condemnation of the negative impact of Puritan society on people's spirit, but also its affirmation of goodness. The novel aims at criticizing severely Puritanical asceticism, suggesting Hawthorne's further thinking over the "original sin" "good and evil" "soul salvation" "total depravity" by analyzing the four main characters in the novel. The novel concerns the consequence caused by the sin and people's attitude towards sin rather than the sin itself. He believes man can do good deeds to get rid of evil in his heart.
The introduction of the author:
Hawthorne was born in 1804, the town of Salem, Massachusetts, a decline of family. His Puritan ancestors had participated in the persecution of heretics was an event. Hawthorne's father was a captain, in his death at age 4. 1821, because of Hawthorne relatives is funding into the Institute of Hakata. He graduated from the school in 1825. Back to the Salem Town he works in writing. Hawthorne's short stories are mostly drawn from the New England history or real life, focusing on the fate of humanity and human problems. "The Scarlet Letter" was written in 1851.
A reasonable description of marriage by the young woman bound for the
Calvinists are guilty of adultery was prohibited public display, exposed the system was under the rule of colonial politics and religion in some of the darkness. 19th-century novel reveals the era of capitalist development, the United States Code, the law of social cruelty, religious deception and moral hypocrisy.
The story is followed like this:
The protagonist of the novel was a young woman named Hester who was punished to wear the scarlet letter “A” to signify that she was an adulterer.Her husband,Chillingworth,was a scholar much older than her.He sent her to America but he himself failed to arrive.While waiting for her husband,Hester fell in love with a local young minister named Dimmesdale.She had an affair with him and later gave birth to Pearl.Although she was shamed publicly on the town scaffold,she still refused to reveal her lover’s identity.In order to punish her,people forced her to wear the scarlet letter.Since then,she and her daughter Pearl lived in a cottage at the edge of the forest and was alienated by the rest of the community.However,this put her in a special position to observe and think about the society.Her lover,the young minister,lacked courage to confess his sin publicly,felt guilty and tormented himself both mentally and physically.And this gradually ruined his health.At the same time,Chillingworth disguised himself as a doctor and stayed in Dimmesdale’s home.For the sake of revenge,he tried very hard to find out
the connection between the minister’s anguish and Hester’s secret.Later,Hester revealed Chillingworth’s true identity to Dimmesdale and asked him to escape to Europe together.While the plain was destroyed by wicked Chillingworth.In the end,Dimmesdale confessed his adultery with Hester in his last sermon.He tore away his ministerial garments and revealed his breast,on which there was a same mark as the scarlet letter.People were totally shocked and the minister fell onto the scaffold and died.After his death,Chillingworth was left with no object for his revenge,he wasted away and soon died.Later,Hester and Pearl disappeared.This made the story of scarlet letter grow into a legend.Many years later,Hester suddenly returned to the town and resumed her charity work.Until the time of her death,she still wore the scarlet letter on her breast.Whereas,it was no longer the symbol of shame but the symbol of able and angle.
The analysis of the novel:
The Scarlet Letter also has literial and symbolic meanings,and its meaning shifts as time goes by.Originally,it intends to mark Hester as an adulterer,it’s a symbol of shame.But at the end of the story,it becomes a powerful social identity of Hester.She changed the meaning of the scarlet letter in people’s mind through her own effort: accepting the assigned identity and reconfrigurating it with quiet perseverance and inner strength.The main characters of the novel that the author figures
elaborately all have special functions.Hester,the heroine of the novel,is an intelligent,strong-willed and kind-hearted young woman who accepts her sin bravely and finally changes her unfair fate.Dimmesdale,an admirable and respectful minister of the town people,functions mainly as a contrast to Hester. Toward their sin,Hester chooses to accept it and reconfigurate herself.While Dimmesdale doesn’t dare to confess it publicly,it makes him feel guilty and suffer endless physical and spiritual torment,death is the only thing that can relieve him.Through the different fates of Hester and Dimmesdale,we can see the central idea that the author wants to present to us,namely ,the relationship between sin and humanity.Sin stands for the social-defined identity of people,while humanity is our self-defined identity.The way in which the society defines a person is often at odds with the way that individuals define themselves.In fact,sin itself is both guilty act and an act of affaction,it's a problematic combination of love and evil. Through the connection and conflict of sin and humanity,we understand the moral strength of human beings. Understanding of the novel:
From the story, we can see that the heroes live a "rather-die-than-live" life, and understand the meaning of living and death in Hawthorne' mind that is to living is to suffering and to atone for crimes while to die is to get relief from sins and rebirth in other world. In our society, the term “evil” has been replaced by terms such as
“madness” or “insanity”.People seem to feel the need to understand the minds of perpetrator of evil acts. In a society without a single and solid morality system , we human beings are endowed with exceptional freedom in conscious and behaviour, but we should also take more responsibility for ourselves and the others in the society.
篇二、紅字英文版讀書報告
A Book Report of The Scarlet Letter
By Lan Jianlong, 2010
The Scarlet Letter is written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, an American novelist, and was published by Shanghai Translation Press in 1989.
The story is set in Boston in the 17th century .At that time, the City Fathers moved to New England, and built the houses, the churches as well as the prisons with their own hands. They brought the customs and religion of old England with them, and strong bias towards women.
The gist of the story is as follows: Hester Prynne is the female protagonist in this novel. She is a young, beautiful and gentle woman –a perfect woman in people’s eye. However, she married Roger Chilingworth, an old misshapen man, who is also a doctor. She feels no happiness at all. Several years later, her husband was lost on the sea, so with nobody accompanying her, she had to live a lonely life. Just like the flaming fire in the night, a young, energetic priest named Arthur Dimmesdale, came into her life. They fell in love with each other, and they spent a period time of life full of passion and true love. Soon Hester found that she became pregnant. Owing to this, she was arrested and gave birth to a little girl in the prison. At that time, only would she tell the public the name of the adulterer, could she got rid of the imputation. As we know, a priest would be blamed and punished badly if he does something that is forbidden by God. In order to protect his high position and good reputation, she accepted the shame, wore the scarlet letter, which referred to shame, and stood alone under the scaffold in the public. The person who questioned Hester happened to be Mr. Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale himself had a pure heart--he may couldn’t help crying out that he was the adulterer, but at last he didn’t bring himself to admit his guilt. To him, the letter was a combination of guilty, misery and evilness. From that day on, he had printed the letter A in his mind .Hester’s former husband Chilingworth came back someday and he decided to take revenge on the priest. He pretended to be the priest’s doctor and friend,
but his real intention was to gnaw his heart with endless guilty. His revenge lasted for seven years. And finally, Mr. Dimmesdale couldn’t bear the misery hidden deep in his heart, and he told the townspeople, who always thought highly of him, that he was the very man. Standing under the scaffold, he became strong enough to do the thing that he failed to do seven years ago. He pulled open his shirt for them to see the scarlet letter on his chest. No one had ever put the letter on his chest, but they saw the red-hot “A” blazing up. He felt his life was lies, emptiness and death. Luckily, he got a clear conscience in the end.
After reading this novel, I begin to understand the western culture and the religion in the 17th century. Here I can only give you my own view instead of the common view. I just analysis the characters in this story as follows, because of the limitation of the number of words. The Scarlet Letter offers an extraordinary insight into the norms and behavior of the 17th century in American Puritan society. The basic conflicts and problems of its main characters, however, are familiar to readers in the present. The female protagonist, has borne a child out of wedlock and has been jailed for over three months and sentenced to wear a symbol of her adultery, a scarlet “A” on her dress at all times. It concerns about the moral, emotional and psychological effect of the sin on people in general. It’s not simply a love story or a story of sin. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the scarlet letters to symbolize the harshness of Puritan society, showing how they brand sinners for life.
The story happened in Boston about 200 years ago. It narrates love affairs between three persons. Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester’s husband, Who called himself Roger Chillingworth. He is an old doctor. Hester does not love him at all. Another man is a young minister, Dimmesdale, who has a high position among ministers and is highly respected among his people in town. Hester and Dimmesdale love each other. But their love is forbidden in that time. It is sinful. Due to this, Hester is punished by society with a letter A on her chest, which considered an evil, a shame.
In this novel, the mainline seems to be around the letter A. Hester is brave enough to face the cruel reality. She is always with a mind of courage. She has been alone with her child for so long, with little communication. Shame!
Hopelessness! Loneliness! Hester has to wear the letter A day after day, seven years as for punishment and ill fame. When a woman has lived through a difficult experience, her character changes a great deal. If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she survives, the tenderness will leave her .Hester’s charitable deeds and quiet humility have earned her a reprieve from the scorn of the community. The letter on her chest represents her work on earth, always helping others, without expecting any thanks. Never afterwards, does that scarlet letter leave her chest. The townspeople no longer view the letter as a punishment, but rather as representing her great strength and bravery and thy say it means “Able”. But Arthur Dimmesdale, his sin against Hester and Pearl is that he will not acknowledge them as his wife and daughter in the daylight. He keeps his dreadful secret from all those under his care in the church for seven years for fear that he will lose their love and will not be forgiven. He is too weak to admit his sins. He suffers from mysterious heart trouble, seemingly caused by psychological distress. What’s worse, he is an advisor to the townspeople about their sins. After Mr. Dimmesdale’s death , no one changes more in appearance than Roger Chillingworth. All his strength and energy has been used to harm his patient. This unhappy man has made his aim in life to add to the suffering of the young minister. When the evil old man no longer has such a purpose, the devil takes him back to the hell. It is a curious subject of observation, however, whether hatred or love are not of the same place. Each takes a great deal of emotion from one person. The two feelings seem basically the same, expect that one is smiled upon by God, while the other is worshipped by the devil.
Before reading the book, I didn’t know what the writer would say
about an ordinary letter “A”. But after reading, I have learnt that you should be brave enough to show your guilty, or it will be worse to hide it in mind. It is like a snake keeps biting your heart and won’t make you feel better until you speak your mind.
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