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3.2.2 Feminism 10
4 Analysis of the Realistic Significance of the Tragic Color in The Scarlet Letter 12
4.1 Function of Religion in Real Life 12
4.2 Necessity of Mental Health 13
4.3 Importance of Adaption to the Society 14
5 Conclusion 16
Bibliography 18
1 Introduction
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer. He was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts. He later changed his name to "Hawthorne", adding a "w" to dissociate from relatives including John Hawthorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials. Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1824, and graduated in 1825; Hawthorne anonymously published his first work, a novel titled Forshaw, in 1828. He died on May 19, 1864, leaving behind his wife and their three children.
Much of Hawthorne's writing centers on New England, many works featuring moral allegories with a Puritan inspiration. His fiction works are considered part of the Romantic Movement and, more specifically, dark romanticism. His themes often center on the inherent evil and sin of humanity, and his works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity. The Scarlet Letter was declared a classic almost immediately after its publication in 1850, and it has stayed in print and in favor ever since. It has been hailed both as the first symbolic novel and as the first psychological novel (even though it was written before there was a science called psychology). But what really secures the place of The Scarlet Letter in the literary history is its treatment of human nature, sin, guilt, and pride--all timeless, universal themes--from a uniquely American point of view.
In the decades that followed the American Revolution, the United States struggled to distinguish itself culturally from Europe. There was a sense that if the United States were to become a great nation, it needed to have its own artistic traditions, not transplanted imitations of European models. Hawthorne rose to this challenge. The scarlet letter is set in the mid-seventeenth century in a puritan colony on the edge of an untamed forest still inhabited by Native Americans. The landscape is wholly American. In the book, Hawthorne manages to put his finger on several thematic elements that came to define the American national identity: the effects of the strict religious morality, the long struggle against a vast frontier, the troubled relationship between white settlers and Native Americans. These issues were just as relevant in Hawthorne’s day as they were in puritan times, and the way Americans and the United States government addressed these issues shaped the development of the nation.
What is perhaps even more remarkable about this 150-year-old story if that its characters face the same moral struggles as readers in the twenty-first century. In puritan Massachusetts, morality was strictly legislated and church and state were one and the same. Although church and state have been separate legally since the bill of rights was ratified in 1791, issues of morality, personal freedom, and public life are still hot topics of national debate. In puritan colonies, sinners were often branded with a hot iron and put up on a scaffold for public mockery. We no longer use actual branding irons on the people whose moral failings we condemn. But modern media are far more effective than scaffolds for holding people up for public scrutiny, and the American public's readiness to judge the sins of others remains just as strong as it was 350 years ago. Modern readers will see much of themselves in the characters of The Scarlet Letter.
This thesis is intended to conduct a study on the causes of tragic color in The Scarlet Letter and the realistic significance of the tragic color. At that time, Puritanism is in a vogue. The tragic color is mainly caused by the religion. What is the function of religion: to save the people and to help them get the freedom of spirit but not to oppress human natures. Nowadays religions sometimes are used by the minority to achieve their goal which is not for sake of human happiness but to satisfy their evil desire. Religions should be treated objectively and rationally. This is the realistic significance of the tragic color in the perspective of religion. The character is another reason for the tragic color in this novel. All this is what the researcher intends to explore in this paper.