A Study Of Loneliness In The Scarlet Letter: The Determining Effect Of The Characters' Attitudes Towards Loneliness On Their Destiny

Hawthorne is a romantic novelist in the United States in the nineteenth century. He ingeniously integrates serious morality and history into extraordinary forms of artistic expression, and combines the talented imagination with outstanding language skills. He is a writer with unique personality and creative genius, hence, he has won a permanent fame in the world literature as well as that in Britain and America. The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, is Nathaniel Hawthorne's first major work which is generally recognized as a classic novel of American literature. It has also been regarded both as the first symbolic novel and as the first psychological novel. Colonial era two hundred years ago is the backdrop of The Scarlet Letter, yet the author means to reveal the cruelty of the law, the duplicity of the religion and the hypocrisy of the morals in American society of the 19th century.Since the publication of the novel, a lot of home and foreign scholars have focused on the studies about the writer, the multiple themes of the novel and writing styles, the novel's social and historical background and the novel's significance in society and literature. However, very few scholars have ever done a thorough research into the theme of loneliness in the novel. Actually, Hawthorne began to probe into the theme from the 19th century and he creatively used the symbols to express this theme in his works, especially in The Scarlet Letter. The novel has as its setting Puritan Boston during the mid-17th century. Hawthorne's unique way of narration indicates that American romance should apply to its Puritan conventions. The moralism and the strong desire to warn or admonish the world make The Scarlet Letter the greatest American classic in the 19th century. What Hawthorne most concerned about is the impact of sin on the moral, moods and mind of common people, especially on those who are involved in the complex affairs. From the characters in The Scarlet Letter, we can find that between the society and the loneliness exists the great tension, which is the core of Hawthorne's arts, as Marius Bewley pointed out. This is the main reason that the loneliness is chosen to be the theme of this thesis.This thesis has done a thorough research into the loneliness in the novel and different attitudes towards loneliness that result in different destiny. The thesis is to analyze the three characters'loneliness:Hester, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth. Hester is a lonely pursuer for love and her loneliness is embodied in the process of self-redemption; Dimmesdale is a lonely beggar for God's grace and the loneliness can be indicated by his self-torture; Chillingworth is a lonely revenge-seeker and the self-destruction is the embodiment of his loneliness. There are profound reasons for the three characters' loneliness. On the one hand, there are objective factors that come from the influences of religions:Puritanism and Transcendentalism. On the other hand, each character's loneliness has its own subjective causes. Both family and society are responsible for Hester's loneliness. In family, she lacks the love of her husband as well as of her parents. In society, she lacks the love of her lover-Dimmesdale, nor does she have the love of the people in town. Dimmesdale's loneliness lies in his hope of being forgiven by both God and Hester. Chillingworth is lonely because of his failure in marriage and career. Loneliness exists universally, the key is to take right attitudes towards it. There is much connection between attitudes towards loneliness and destiny in The Scarlet Letter:Hester Prynne's positive attitude towards loneliness leads to her rebirth; Dimmesdale's ambiguous attitude towards loneliness causes his misery; Chillingworth's negative attitude towards loneliness gives birth to the destruction of both Dimmesdale and himself. Furthermore, Hawthorne's religious view as well as his family life, to some degree, has influences on the characters. In conclusion, attitudes determine destiny, and positive attitude is always needed to make the world harmonious.