《红字》读后感
《红字》是美国小说家霍桑最杰出的代表作,也是整个美国浪漫主义小说中最有声望的权威作品之一.小说的故事发生在十七世纪中期加尔文者派统治下的波士顿,作者从当时的社会现状入手,通过一个感人的爱情故事悲剧来揭露当局对人们精神,心灵和道德的摧残.
海丝特*白兰是一个在婚姻上遭到不幸的女人,年轻美貌,却嫁给了身体畸形多病的术士罗杰*齐灵沃斯,夫妻间根本谈不上爱情,后来,罗杰又在海上失踪,杳无音讯,白兰孤独的过着日子.这时一个英俊有气魄的青年牧师,亚瑟*丁梅斯代尔闯入了她的生活,他们真诚的相爱了,度过了一段隐私但热烈的爱情生活.不久,白兰由于怀孕的隐情暴露,以通奸罪被抓,在狱中生下了女儿小珠儿.
按照当时的教规,白兰只有交代奸夫的姓名才能获得赦免,否则将受惩罚.然而执行审讯任务的却正是他的情人.白兰宁愿独自忍受任何惩罚,为了把她和丁梅斯代尔之间的爱情深深地埋在心中,她坚强的挺住了.
海丝特*白兰受到了惩罚,她必须终身穿着一件绣着红色A字的外衣.字母A代表"通奸(Adultery)"一词.白兰带着小珠儿离群独居,在郊外偏僻的茅舍中过者孤寂的生活.而用心险恶的前夫罗杰发现了丁梅斯代尔的反常表现,利用牧师痛苦和矛盾的心情,不断地折磨他,终于丁梅斯代尔在他即将升为主教的前夕,当众宣布了自己的秘密,丁梅斯代尔向周围的人们展露了这首爱情的颂歌.当他把自己的胸衣扯开时,一个猩红的A字烙在他的胸前.他在自己的爱人身边离开了人世.
海丝特*白兰,他坚强,有毅力,对爱情忠贞不渝.虽然被统治者认为有罪,但她是清白的,纯洁的.她的精神不断上升,成为真,善,美的化身.她的举动是对封建政权与教权压迫下的爱情,人权和自由的充分肯定.
丁梅斯代尔最初与白兰产生了炽热的的爱情,虽然他一度退却了,为自己能够隐蔽的安慰,但内心的痛苦并没有因他的安全而平息,相反,越来越强烈.他与白兰的约会,他在枷刑台上的自我忏悔,他们的逃跑计划,以及最后的公开演说,都成为了丁梅斯代尔向着爱情的祭坛一步步走近的脚印.最后他扯开上衣,人们见到了烙在他胸口的红色A字.这个A字实际上是烙在他的心上的,这是爱情的升华.
作者用蔷薇花象征美与善,用监狱象征死亡,用一道光,一只鸟……象征丁梅斯代尔与白兰之间的爱情的结晶——小珠儿,使作品充满着一股迷人的魄力.
在作品的最后,在白兰和丁梅斯代尔合用的墓碑上刻着这样一句话:"一片墓地上,刻着血红的A字."这句话不可谓不意味深长.
第二篇：红字读后感
Some words about the scarlet letter
杨湘云 06151207 外国语学院
Set in seventeenth-century Puritan Massachusetts, the novel centers around the travails of Hester Prynne, who gives birth to a daughter Pearl after an adulterous affair.The scarlet letter contains some important themes.
The most theme is the sin. Hawthorne's generative image for the novel was that of a woman charged with adultery and forced to wear the letter A upon her clothes, but upon wearing it, decided to add fancy embroidery as if to appropriate the letter as a pride. Hester, a knitter by trade, sees the letter as a burden laid on by society, an act of community-enforced guilt that she is forced to bear, even though it seems to make little difference for her private thoughts. Dimmesdale, however, as the town minister, wears his own scarlet A burned upon his flesh, since it is the community's rage he fears the most. Thus we see the difference between a woman who has made peace with the crime, publicly confesses, and endures the suffering the community imposes, and a man who imposes his own punishment because he cannot bear to reveal the crime to the community.
After Hester is publicly shamed and forced by the people of Boston to wear a badge of humiliation, her unwillingness to leave the town may seem puzzling. She is not physically imprisoned, and leaving the Massachusetts Bay Colony would allow her to remove the scarlet letter and resume a normal life. Surprisingly, Hester reacts with dismay when Chillingworth tells her that the town fathers are considering letting her remove the letter. Hester's behavior is premised on her desire to determine her own identity rather than to allow others to determine it for her. To her, running away or removing the letter would be an acknowledgment of society's power over her: she would be admitting that the letter is a mark of shame and something from which she desires to escape. Instead, Hester stays, refiguring the scarlet letter as a symbol of her own experiences and character. Her past sin is a part of who she is; to pretend that it never happened would mean denying a part of herself. Thus, Hester very determinedly integrates her sin into her life.Dimmesdale also struggles against a socially determined identity.
Another important theme is the forgiveness. It is embodied by Chillingworth, who seems the arbiter of moral judgment in the story, since Dimmesdale--the minister and the supposed purveyor of righteousness--is himself tainted
as a party to the crime. Chillingworth is surprisingly forgiving of Hester's crime. We sense that he understands why she would forsake him. After all, he is deformed, he is older, he has not been nearby, while she is beautiful and passionate. Indeed, we get the feeling that Chillingworth's self-loathing allows him to forgive Hester, but this attribute also increases the relentlessness and rage with which he goes after Dimmesdale. In Dimmesdale, he sees the vigor and passion which Hester desires and which he himself does not possess. He's out to suck Dimmesdale of his life force, not just to punish the minister for the crime of fornicating with his wife, but also to symbolically appropriate Dimmesdale's virility. And as the novel continues, Chillingworth seems to grow stronger while Dimmesdale seems to weaken. That pattern continues until Dimmesdale dies in an act of defiance, his public demonstration of guilt, which essentially leaves Chillingworth stripped bare of his power to punish or forgive.
Though we sense a dark and gloomy atmosphere in the reading, it’s really a novel worth reading. Not only about the elaborate language, but also the profound themes.