Chapter 31 "The Scarlet Letter"

Let us now go immediately to the nineteenth century.That era produced three giants: Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Edgar Allan Poe.If I had to name three talented American writers, I would choose these three without hesitation.But I am not going to talk about them here.My knowledge of American literature is limited, and the length of this article is also limited, so what I want to talk about is the most American works in American literature. This is what I am interested in, and I think this is what readers are most interested in.So I'm not going to do it in chronological order.In order to avoid repeated emphasis, I declare in advance that the books I am going to talk about are those books that I think are very readable in one or some aspects.Anyone who does not read these books will be a loss, but any educated person who has read them will benefit and be happy.

Recently, I re-read it and have to admit that I got very limited gain and enjoyment from it.I don't think it's wrong to give exact judgments, so I must point out that in the past forty years there have been at least half a dozen far better novelists in America than Hawthorne.It's just that prejudice and the fact that they haven't died make us ignore them.But it is a masterpiece after all, and I don't think any American who has read some works will miss it.As far as I am concerned, the preface, entitled "Customs," is much more interesting than the main text, and is charmingly written with lightness and humor.For a novel to attract people, it must first be believed to be true.If you instinctively feel that characters are behaving irrationally, then the novel loses its charm and the novelist loses the hearts of readers.At the beginning of the story, Hawthorne encountered a problem.Why did Hester Prynne stay in a place where she was humiliated and lived to the end of her life, when she could go anywhere freely?Hawthorne's reason for this is that Hester's love for Arthur Dimmesdale was too great to stay where he was, even with the stigma attached to her. (Fortunately, the Puritans are not unreal. They are not only devout, but also very realistic, and Hester would not give birth to a child for no reason without her husband. Without this tone, Hawthorne would not be able to write this story.) However What makes people wonder is, why didn't Hester escape to a faraway place and give birth to a child secretly?If the lovers were inseparable, and they could easily go to Europe afterwards, why not elope in an emergency?People thought that Roger Chillingworth was dead, so they could be legally married like Franklin and the respected Miss Rhett.Hawthorne does not have the ability to create a living character.Chillingworth is just a mass of flesh full of malice, not a flesh and blood soul, and Hester is just a beautiful sculpture.When Pastor Dimmesdale decided to elope with his lover and anxiously wanted to know the exact departure time of the ship he was on, he had the appearance that a real person should have.There is also a human touch to the detail that he prepared his Election Day sermon and hoped to leave after speaking.I recommend you to read it (and read it again if you have already), not for the story but for the beautiful and haunting rhetoric.Hawthorne formed his own language style by integrating the strengths of the masters of the eighteenth century.A sentence like this, "His heart is by no means cold and heartless, he can't even shake the fluff off the wings of a butterfly", has a very Stern feeling.I think Stern himself would love it too.Hawthorne has a keen sense of music and excellent technique, and can create exquisite and beautiful sentences.He has the ability to write a sentence that is half a page long and has a series of clauses, which can be read sonorously, with a balanced rhythm and crystal clearness.His writing is magnificent and complex.His prose has the simplicity and complexity of a Gothic tapestry, but there is no pomp and monotony.His metaphors are always meaningful, his similes are appropriate, and his words fit the artistic conception.Different styles have prevailed in different times, and the murakano style of prose that is beloved today may well lose its luster in the future.At that time readers may be looking for a more formal and refined way of writing, and if so, writers will gladly learn from Hawthorne how to form a sentence out of half a dozen words, how to combine modesty and insight, how Write articles that are both pleasing to the eye and to the ear while being informal.