Red Letters · Bedside Lamp. 4: English Learning Reader

Author: Wang Ruoping, et al. (Editor-in-Chief)
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-04-01
Features: This series of readers is written by American authors and composed of 3,300 of the most commonly used words. The language is modern, authentic, and standard. It is pure and easy to understand. You can learn English deliciously without flipping through a dictionary while lying in bed. The novels feature people, their eating, drinking, excretion, sleep, emotions, desires, and the complex relationships between individuals, as well as the conflicts and harmonies between people and nature or society. This series selects 50 outstanding literary works from abroad that are worth reading in a lifetime. Reading these works not only helps master English but also accumulates Western culture and improves personal taste and cultivation. The Scarlet Letter is a long novel by the 19th-century American Romantic writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. It was written in 1851. The novel depicts the protagonist, Hester Prynne, and her husband who move from England to Boston, which was still a British colony at the time. On the way, her husband is captured by Native Americans. After arriving in America alone, Hester is forced into pregnancy by a young minister due to financial hardship. This incident is considered a great sin by the hypocritical Puritan society of the local area. Authorities arrest Hester, put her in prison, parade her through the streets, and force her to wear a red letter "A" (Adultery: Adulteress) for life and stand on a scaffold for trial. The governor personally presides over Hester's trial, and the minister of her church, Arthur Dimmesdale—a man publicly regarded as a moral paragon who seduced Hester—hypocritically pressures her to reveal the name of her lover. However, Hester chooses to bear the shame alone and refuses to confess. In her isolated and humiliated circumstances, Hester lives a life of solitude and resilience, relying solely on needlework for a living. Her only pillar in life is raising her daughter, Pearl, whom she treats as a precious jewel. Hester's spirit of enduring humiliation, taking the blame for others, and unwavering determination deeply moves and torments Dimmesdale, leading to his eventual collapse in health. Meanwhile, Hester's husband, Roger Chillingworth, who has been secretly investigating the truth while in hiding, has learned the truth while treating Dimmesdale and seeks to destroy him. To escape, Hester and Dimmesdale plan to take Pearl and flee to a place "where no white man's foot has ever trod" on the day the new mayor takes office. However, this plan is discovered by Chillingworth, and their escape fails. As a result, on the day the new mayor takes office, Dimmesdale, along with Hester and Pearl, ascends the scaffold. He confesses to seducing Hester and dies in Hester's arms. Hester is thus freed and takes Pearl to live elsewhere. Several years later, Pearl grows up, establishes her life, while Hester returns to Boston alone, still bearing the red letter "A." Through her "noble morality and spirit of helping others," Hester transforms the scarlet letter into a symbol of virtue and honor until her death. The novel is set in the colonial America of over two hundred years ago, but it exposes the cruelty of the legal codes, the deception of religion, and the hypocrisy of morality in 19th-century capitalist America. The protagonist, Hester, is portrayed as an embodiment of noble morality. She not only moves Dimmesdale, who is two-faced, but also influences a society filled with sin. As for her husband, Chillingworth, the novel depicts him as a shadowy figure obsessed with uncovering secrets and revenge. He serves only as a plot device in the story. The novel frequently employs symbolism, with characters, plots, and language all rich in imaginative and subjective elements. It often prioritizes the psychological and intuitive aspects of its characters. Therefore, it is not only a masterpiece of American Romanticism but also considered the pioneering work of American psychological fiction.