英语论文网

Church was the cornerstone of the 17th century life in New England. Everything was very strict and everyone was expected to follow the laws. It was against the law not to attend church—where men and women sat on opposite sides through long services. The Puritan lifestyle was restrained and rigid: People were expected to work hard and repress their emotions or opinions. Individual differences were frowned upon. Even the dark, somber Puritan dress was dictated by the church

D.    Hawthorn’s family backgroun

As one of the most influential Romantic novelists in America in the 19th century, “Nathaniel Hawthorne’s works mostly describe the people’s mental attitude, thought contradiction and life tragedy under Calvinistic pressure by the cruel clericalism domination in the colonial period. Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. Salem, his hometown, has ever been the place where Puritanism forces are rampant and several generations of his ancestors are fanatic Puritans; therefore, the rich Puritanism thought from his family has deep-rooted effect on Hawthorne. Because Puritanism itself owns the complicated state that positivism and negativism are coexistent, Hawthorne has doubtful or religious attitude to Puritanism. Hawthorne is inclined to conservation in political thought, and holds pessimism for future. On one hand, he assails Puritan criminal behaviors such as religious fanaticism and impermissibility to heresy; on the other hand, he takes the religious basic creed as the criterion to cognition and judgment.” [2](P65) The contradictive mentality is typically and deeply represented in his masterpiece “The Scarlet Letter”. His family was of Puritan belief for generations and had been prominent in the area since colonial times. Hawthorne knew Bible very well and went to church frequently. When he was four, his father died on a voyage, but maternal relatives recognized his literary talent and financed his education. As a boy he went to the East Salem Church, which was described as “on the verge of Unitarism”. During his study in the Bowdin College, among his classmates were many of the important literary and political figures of the day: writer Horatio Bridge, future Senator Jonathan Ciley, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and future President Franklin Pierce. These prominent friends supplied Hawthorne with government employment in the lean times, allowing him time to bloom as an author. Later, when he served as a Consul in England, he attended services at a Unitarian church in Liverpool. But, it could not be more typical for a Puritan that he could not get along with the religious rituals and ceremonies, like, for example, funerals. He simply had these Puritan aversions that already caused the Puritans to split from the Anglican Church. He simplely wanted to have a small regular income that would allow him to forget everything, which was not important to him.

The rich lore of family and local history provided much of the material for Hawthorne’s works. The majority of his works takes America’s Puritan past as its subject, but The Scarlet Letter uses the material to the greatest effect. Hawthorne perhaps chose this dark subject to convey his contempt for Puritanism. He indicates that his main purpose is to picture a way of “life” in the Salem Custom House, the satirical本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。