美国文学nathanielhawthorne.ppt

Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Minister’s Black Veil
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804—1864)
One of the great American writers of the eenth century who used Puritan styles of rhetoric to create a distinctive American literary voice.
Life experience
born July 4, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, the son of a sea captain who died when he was four years old.
While attending Bowdoin College in Maine, Hawthorne became friends with Franklin Pierce, who later became the fourteenth president of the United States.
. During the administration of President Pierce (1853-1857), Hawthorne served as American Consul(领事) in Liverpool, England, and this opportunity enabled him to travel extensively in Europe.
Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, in Plymouth, New Hampshire on a trip to the mountains with his friend Franklin Pierce
Hawthorne’s Outlook in Life
He held a dark vision of human nature.
Evil is at the core of human heart.
Evil educates.
Achievement is possible only under the impact of and by engagement with evil—tragic rise born of the fortunate fall, like the Chinese saying: A fall in pit, a gain in wit.
Major works
The Scarlet Letter (1850) ,
The House of Seven Gables (1851)
Twice-Told Tales (1837, 1842)
The House of the Seven Gables
The Scarlet Letter
In Puritan New England, Hester, the mother of an illegitimate child, wears the scarlet “A” for years rather than reveal that her lover was the saintly young village minister, Dimmsdale. Her husband, Roger Chillingworth, proceeds to torment the guiltstricken man, who confesses his adultery before dying in Hester's arms. Hester plans to take her daughter Pearl to Europe to begin a new life. Toward the end of the dark romance Hawthorne wrote: "Be true! Be true!
The prevailing themes in Hawthorne’s fictions
Original sin or secret guilt;
The impossibility of eradicating sin from the human heart
Alienation and solitude
The conflict between lighthearted and somber attitudes towards life
Hawthorne’s writing style
Parable and romance