2018商务英语论文开题报告

　　题目 symbolism in the scarlet letter

　　选题依据及研究意义

　　the scarlet letter is an 1850 romantic work of fiction in a historical setting, written by nathaniel hawthorne. it is considered to be his magnum opus. set in 17th-century puritan boston, massachusetts during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of hester prynne, who conceives a daughter through an adulterous affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. throughout the book, hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt.

　　hawthorne is a famous romantic novelist of the 19th century, he was adept at using romantic imagination, symbolism, a plenty of moral subjective color and psychological analysis to explore the inner world of the characters and present the theme. in his masterpiece the scarlet letter, hawthorne makes full advantages of those language skills. most importantly, symbolism is throughout the whole novel and has varieties meaning. so, hawthorne is regarded as a pioneer of the modern symbolism literary. this thesis briefly focuses on analyzing those symbolisms in the scarlet letter.

　　symbolism is a kind of speech which depends on the inner link of two things, uses some specific images to present abstract concepts, thoughts and emotions. symbolism plays a very important role in literary writing. it brings a lofty significance to the article and makes the article have a subtle and profound theme.

　　this thesis concentrates on the application of symbolism in the scarlet letter, which is regarded as the major writing characteristic in the novel. we can find symbolism in the change meaning of “a”, in the symbol of the name of the characters, in the meaning of the scenes. it is no doubt that only by analyzing those symbolism in detail, can we have a overall sense of the theme and get a better understanding of symbolism.

　　选题的研究现状

　　the scarlet letter is the first novel of hawthorne, after the book advent in 1850, hawthorne became fame and recognized as the most important writer at that time. further, hawthorne called his “romance” as “psychological romance”, this is enough shows that hawthorne had paid much attention to psychological description, the reason why he attach much importance to psychological description is that: on one hand, he was affected by the times and religious, confused with the spirit and the soul, he thought since the soul have good and evil, love and hate, and have sins, they are should be revealed so as to punishing evil and promoting virtue, awarding love and suppressing hate. but on the other hand, people’s psychological depend on people’s behavior, if we not analyze the character’s psychological we cannot understand the inner of the character, we will inevitably seemed superficial. for readers who are accustomed to reading our traditional techniques to draw characters, they may feel the story rhythm is too slow, but he is the originator of the american psychological novels. after so many years, the book always under worship, the critics never stopped concerning about this novel. the scarlet letter is now recognized as an immortal masterpieces, hawthorne also received a high rating.

　　the scarlet letter is an 1850 romantic work of fiction in a historical setting, written by nathaniel hawthorne. it is considered to be his magnum opus. set in 17th-century puritan boston, massachusetts during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of hester prynne, who conceives a daughter through an adulterous affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. throughout the book, hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt.

　　in domestic, many scholars have deeply researched the scarlet letter, some analyzed it’s theme from the perspective of the society background and story structure, some focus their research on how women pursuing marriage and amour under that society setting, some scholars pay attention to the symbolism used in the novel, but, a majority of scholars put main energy on analyzing the psychology, character, image of the hero and heroin in the scarlet letter, by analyzing the humanity of the three main characters, we can understand the abominable influence on humanity resulted from puritanism.

　　in our country, there are many works about researching the scarlet letter. for example, hawthorne’s feminist thought reflected on hester prynne written by cheng shuhua. paltiel guli isaac’s work from chinese feminist literary criticism perspective view hester prynne’s image in the scarlet letter.

　　foreign scholars have a longer history in researching hawthorne, in the early 1836, parker benjamin published the first article made commence on hawthorne’s works on the new england journal. in 1932, randall stuart edited and published hawthorne’s american diary, this pushed the research of hawthorne to a higher climax. at that time, the research began to involve hawthorne’s beauty theory and political point. in 1976, american established “research institute of hawthorne” especially, pay attention to hawthorne’s romance principle.

　　some have suggested that the scarlet letter is far too descriptive, to the point that the words loose meaning, and the reader is desensitized to the message that the author is trying to convey. this also causes the book to lose pace, and turn off readers to reading hawthorne’s work entirely. which is somewhat a pity, considering hawthorne was quite the author in writing short stories, and poems. perhaps he felt he need to write a book on the subject because it was personal, however, many feel it is a short story with the length and pace of a great tome.

　　hawthorne’s works really are good, but some did find that this book did use too many words when just 1 or 2 would have been sufficient. methinks that’s more a result of romantic style than it is his individual word choice. the excess of words can be found in other books of that era, like frankenstein (particularly percy’s edit) --maskedsheik, 6 january XX (utc).

　　contrary to what some believe, this is a good book, i think it is fine in the methods of descriptions, though i will agree that at times you do get bored with it. then again, every book has it’s less interesting parts. if you like to figure out symbolism or you like to see how people react in certain situations, psychology, it is interesting. or you might read it due to the simple fact that it is required for school. irrelevant of whether you guys think that this book is good or not, the criticism section needs references. perhaps including articles of literary critics, or some other documented criticism of the novel, just saying “this is a good book” doesn’t negate the need for such a section, and saying “some have suggested” is bordering on weasel words. let’s use actual citations, not our own opinions. although i personally agree that this book sucks, i agree with the comment above. if the article contains any opinions (which is debatable whether it should), they must be balanced, and be from credible sources. (wikipedia: describing points of view).

　　most reviewers gave hawthorne’s novel high praise at the time of its publication. evert a. duyckinck, one of the most influential critics of his day, called the tale a “psychological romance”, a study of character in which the human heart is anatomized, carefully, elaborately, and with striking poetic and dramatic power. he also praised hawthorne’s departure from the overly ornate writing style popular at the time, which displayed “artifice and effort at the expense of nature and ease.” duyckinck’s review was supported by most western scholars.(wikipedia: neutral point of view)

　　拟研究的主要内容和思路

　　the scarlet letter is regarded as the first symbolism novel in american literature. we can find symbolism throughout the whole novel and have varieties meaning, such as the symbol of “a”, the symbol of the character’s name, the symbol of different scenes, only by analyzing those symbolism in detail, can we have a overall sense of the theme and get a better understanding of symbolism. this thesis mainly involves following topics:

　　1. introduction on hawthorne and the scarlet letter.

　　1.1 introduction on hawthorne.

　　1.2 introduction on the scarlet letter.

　　1.3 introduction on the theme of the scarlet letter.

　　2. introduction on symbolism.

　　2.1 definition of symbolism.

　　2.2 characteristics of symbolism.

　　2.2.1 polysemy

　　2.2.2 uncertainty

　　3. the usage of symbolism in the scarlet letter.

　　the symbol of “a”.

　　3.1.1 “a” stands for “adultery”

　　3.1.2 “a” stands for “alienation”

　　3.1.3 “a” stands for “able”

　　3.1.4 “a” stands for “angel”

　　the symbol of the characters.

　　hester prynne

　　arthur dimmsdale

　　roger chillingworth

　　pearl

　　the symbol of the scenes.

　　the scaffold

　　the jail and the tomb

　　the valley

　　4. conclusion

　　研究的创新点及重、难点

　　this thesis lays the emphasis on analyzing symbolism used in the scarlet letter. as we all known, the scarlet letter is regarded as the first symbolism novel in the american literature, there are varieties of symbolism in the story, such as the symbol of “a”, the symbol of the characters name, the symbol of different scenes.

　　among them, it is difficult to understand the symbol of “a”, because “a” varies constantly with the development of the plot, and they are often emerged in the critical period of the plot’s development.

　　besides, this thesis is on the unique position to reveal the symbolism of the scenes, which is very innovative. throughout the whole novel, there are different scenes, carrying different meanings, though they have profound symbolism, they rarely be discussed. this thesis trying to make up for the shortage in this aspect.

　　研究进程安排

　　december 20-january 16: posing questions of the research and collecting materials

　　january 17-february 28: analyzing the materials and writing an outline

　　march 7-march 27: completing the first draft and seeking the supervisor’s advice

　　march 28- april 10: refining the paper according to supervisor’s suggestions

　　april 11- may 8: finalizing the thesis based on the set requirements

　　主要参考文献

　　[1] brown, gillian. “hawthorne, inheritance, and women’s property”, studies in the novel 23.1 (spring 1991): 107-18

　　[2] brodhead, richard h. hawthorne, melville, and the novel. chicago and london: the university of chicago press, 1973

　　[3] chang yaoxin. ed. a survey of american literature [m]. nankai university press.1990

　　[4] george mcmichael, ed. 1985, concise anthology of american literature (second edition)[m]. maemillan publishing company new york, 181.

　　[5] perry,r.b. puritanism and democracy [m]. newyork:vanguard press.1944.

　　[6] 霍桑.霍桑作品集——红字[m].周晓贤,邓延远译,杭州:浙江文艺出版社，1995

　　[7] 霍桑.红字 [m]. 熊玉鹏，贾文渊，贾文浩译，太原：北岳文艺出版，XX

　　[8] 李儒寿. 《红字》女主人公海丝特·白兰性格特征探析.武汉大学学报(人文科 学版)， XX

　　[9] 任晓晋，魏玲.《红字》中象征与原型的模糊性、多义性和矛盾性.外国文学研究，XX