The Scarlet Letter is based on a love tragedy in Boston from 1642 to 1649 in New England under the colonial rule of Puritanism in North America in the 7th century. The first act of the story takes place in front of the town prison. The central figure in this scene is a beautiful young woman, Hester Prynne. Pearl, a three-month-old baby girl in her arms, stood on the scaffold, waiting for the Calvinist (Puritan) regime, which is a combination of politics and religion, to announce her verdict in public. So, who is the female criminal on trial? What crime did she commit? A few years before the story begins, Prynne, who was born in a poor aristocratic family in England, married a deformed old scholar. After their marriage, they decided to move to Boston, Massachusetts. When passing through Amsterdam, the Netherlands, my husband stayed because of something, and my wife came to Boston alone and lived in Boston for nearly two years. In the meantime, there is no news of her husband. It is said that he was captured by Indians on his way here, and his life and death are unknown. Living alone, Hester Prynne fell in love with the local priest Arthur Dimmesdale and gave birth to the baby girl. Obviously, she committed one of the ten commandments of Christianity, namely adultery, which was not allowed by Puritanism. She was put into prison, and the court found her guilty. She stood on the guillotine for three hours, humiliated in public, and wore the red letter A (the first letter of adultery in English) for life as punishment. The authorities repeatedly forced her to name her accomplice in adultery, but she flatly refused. On this day, her missing husband just arrived and witnessed this scene. Only Prynne recognized him among the people present. To hide their relationship, he changed his name to Roger Chillingworth. At this time, the young and respected Reverend Dimmesdale, the accomplice of Prynne, also met Prynne in his cell as a doctor that night. He asked her to promise not to reveal his true identity, and he was determined to pursue her accomplice to avenge himself. He soon became suspicious of Dimmesdale and used it as an excuse to establish a close relationship with him. The priest's conscience was condemned, but he didn't have the courage to admit his sins, and his health went from bad to worse. Not long after, Chillingworth moved to Dimmesdale and shared a house with him. The apparent reason is to better observe his condition and give him better treatment. In fact, this is to torture him and weaken his energy and physical strength. Finally, Hester realized Chillingworth's evil plot and proposed to the priest to elope with Pearl, escape from the colony and build a new life in Europe. Pearl was seven years old at this time. For seven years, Hester has been deeply in love with this priest, and devoted this love to raising Pearl and serving social welfare undertakings. Although she lived a very poor and lonely life, she also won the sympathy and love of the villagers. When she met the priest in the forest, she expressed her feelings for him, took off the scarlet letter and threw it into the stream to show her determination. The priest, however, was bound by Puritanism and thought elopement was a crime, which aggravated the crime, so he hesitated, but finally reluctantly agreed to leave after praying to celebrate God's Choice Day. Hawthorne arranged his escape on the day of choice for a purpose. He wants to explain the Calvinist doctrine through the priest's mouth, that is, a sinner cannot be redeemed according to his own will, and the salvation of the soul depends entirely on God's "choice". At the same time, Hawthorne insisted on performing his last duty on this day through Dimmesdale, which further exposed his hypocrisy and religion. He tried his best to finish his beautiful sermon. Then, he took to the streets with the town dignitaries and celebrities. When he passed the market, he grasped Hester and Pearl's hands tightly and walked with them to the guillotine. Seven years ago, Hester was humiliated in public with Pearl and the scarlet letter in her arms. Seven years ago, he pretended to persuade Hester to tell her accomplices, but concealed his crimes. Now he stood on it and finally showed his guilt. He collapsed on the stage and died because of fatigue. At this point, Chillingworth, who took revenge as his sole purpose in life, ended his plot and died of depression a year later. Before he died, he made a will and left his property to Pearl. Pearl went to Europe with her mother, married a noble and lived a beautiful life. Hester returned to Boston and continued to do good deeds. When she died, a red A was engraved on the tombstone. For such a story, critics and readers will naturally ask many questions: what is the theme of this novel? What kind of character is the heroine Hester Prynne? What do you think of the other three main characters in the novel-Dimmesdale, Chillingworth and Pearl? What does the letter A mean as the scarlet letter of the title and the central clue of the book? What is its moral? What are the main artistic features of this novel? Is it symbolism or psychological description analysis? How to treat the ending of the novel? Is The Return of Prynne a brilliant stroke or a failure? Is The Scarlet Letter a romance or a novel? What's the difference between them? Such problems are too numerous to mention. Since the publication of The Scarlet Letter, there have been different opinions between readers and critics of various schools. There are countless critical articles or monographs about The Scarlet Letter, which is at least one of the best in the history of American literature. With the rapid development of modern literary theories and critical methods, the research and comments on Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter have become more active and in-depth. What feminist criticism, what Freud's critical method, what new historical view, what new cultural theory and so on are all used to analyze and comment on The Scarlet Letter. It is impossible for a translator to introduce the views of various schools in detail in a preface, let alone give a satisfactory answer to the above questions. As many critics have pointed out, Hawthorne is a writer whose thoughts are full of complex contradictions. The historical period in which he lived was a period of rapid development of American capitalist economy, and social contradictions were increasingly intensified. He was puzzled by this change. Influenced by his family and social environment, he took a conservative position in politics, and his world outlook was also intertwined with strong Puritanism (Calvinism), Transcendentalism (Emerson's self-help philosophy) and Mysticism. The complexity and contradiction of his thoughts are reflected in his creation, which is vague, colorful, hidden and elusive. As far as the theme is concerned, what moral or religious views does Hawthorne advocate in The Scarlet Letter? Some critics believe that according to the historical background and story provided by the novel, Hawthorne is trying to express the Puritanism doctrine, that is, man was created by God, but Adam was born guilty because of his original sin, and he should be punished. To be saved, all the characters in The Scarlet Letter are guilty because of God's leniency, but everyone has different attitudes towards sin and different results. For example, Hester openly admitted her sins, practiced penance, and finally turned the symbol of evil on her chest into a symbol of virtue, becoming a saint and an "angel"; Dimmesdale hid his sin, was tortured, exhausted his energy and talent, finally got up the courage to repent, died after being rehabilitated morally, and became a martyr; Chillingworth began to try to expose evil, but he was bent on revenge, hurting others and himself, and turned himself into a demon and a real sinner. Some critics believe that Hawthorne expresses his views on evil through the experiences of the main characters in the book, and discusses who is the real sinner and what is the root of evil. This is the so-called "evil theory". However, some critics believe that the theme of the work is embodied in the image of the heroine Hester. She is a strong example of resisting the unreasonable marriage system and striving for true and beautiful love. Her pursuit of freedom, happiness and pure love represents Hawthorne's romantic ideal. Some people think that the Pearl expresses the concept of "natural person" and that the natural existence of human beings is the premise of moral existence. The natural part that people are born with is real, while the spiritual part is potential, which needs personal efforts and opportunities to cultivate and develop. There are many people who analyze The Scarlet Letter, especially the heroine Hester, as to whether it is feminist or Freud's point of view. The above list is only a few different views on the theme to enlighten readers' thinking, but we can also see the rich and colorful ideological connotation of The Scarlet Letter. For another example, Hawthorne left the symbolic meaning of the scarlet letter A for readers to interpret. Interestingly, the authorities punished Hester for wearing the word A for life, apparently referring to her adultery and humiliating her. However, the word "adultery" has never appeared in The Scarlet Letter. On the contrary, Hawthorne said through someone else's mouth that A might stand for "capable" and "admirable". Some critics think it stands for "amorous", "art", "advanced" and even "America", and so on. Symbolic things abound in The Scarlet Letter, such as the wild roses in front of the prison, and the scaffold erected under the eaves of the church as "church accessories" and so on. These profound symbols fully show Hawthorne's originality and skill in using symbolic analogy, and he is worthy of being a pioneer of symbolism in modern literature. Limited by space, there are only one or two examples above to discuss the theme and symbolic meaning of The Scarlet Letter, but they can somewhat confirm Professor George Perkins' evaluation of Hawthorne and his Scarlet Letter: "Few novelists who write in English can express as much as The Scarlet Letter in so few words ... Few people can use symbolism so eloquently in their prose as Hawthorne does. They also remind us of a passage in Melville's Hawthorne and his Moss in the Old House: "The depth of a critic cannot be measured by his guide line alone. To test such a writer, it is not enough to use your brain alone, but also to use your heart. You can't understand greatness only through observation and investigation. You can't see anything from him except intuition. You don't have to jingle. You can tell it's real gold by touching it. "