作者：英文：Nathaniel Hawthorne（纳撒尼尔. 霍桑）名称：The Scarlet Letter (红字）
主要内容：Written by Nathaniel Hawthorne and published in 1850, the year in which the Clay Compromise postponed the American Civil War, The Scarlet Letter is a romance set in the years from 1642 to 1649, when Puritans were fighting the English civil war over the ultimate meaning of England, and Puritans in the Boston of Hawthorne's story were attempting to label Hester Prynne. A woman taken in adultery, she must wear the letter A on her chest for all to see, yet she surrounds it with beautiful stitching, so that it advertises not only her shame, but also her skill as a seamstress. She refuses to name her lover, the Reverend Mr. Arthur Dimmesdale; keeps her word not to reveal the identity of her husband, now calling himself Roger Chillingworth; and raises her daughter, Pearl, on her own, living at the edge of town, near the wild forest and the open sea.
As its title suggests, the book is about labeling, about the Puritan and later the American desire to eliminate ambiguity, to get the meanings right. The tale shows that even so simple a label as the first letter of the alphabet is full of burgeoning meanings dependent upon changing contexts. After Hester's competence and usefulness to the community become evident, some think the letter stands for "able." When an A appears in the sky at Governor John Winthrop's death, they think it stands for "angel." Since historical Puritans convicted of adultery were made to wear the letters AD on their sleeves, critics have noted that these are Dimmesdale's initials and concluded that the A also represents Arthur. Anne Hutchinson of the Antinomian Controversy is explicitly mentioned in the text, so the letter also represents Anne and Antinomian. Readers may well conclude that the A can mean almost anything, even America, where we still struggle to reinscribe the labels that others put on us.
中文：《红字》取材于1642---1649年在北美殖民地新英格兰发生的一个真实的来的恋爱故事。赫斯特普林是一个善良聪明美丽的英国女孩，不幸嫁给了一个畸形丑恶的老年医生罗杰。他们在移居北美途中，罗杰被印第安人掳走，普林到波士顿过寡居生活。她与当地青年牧师阿瑟相识、相爱。还生下了私生女珍珠。后来政教合一的当局把普林母女投入监狱，罚她胸前永远带着红A字（英文通奸adultery。强迫他胸前带红A 手抱幼女，在邢台上公开示众，受其屈辱。尽管如此，普林还是没有在受刑台上供出阿瑟，为了保护自己深爱的人她忍受了巨大的痛苦。罗杰也来到示众大会上，认出当众受辱的少妇就是自己的妻子。他以医生的身份，到监狱为普林母女治病。想尽办法查出妻子的“同犯”。普林出狱后带着女儿住在城外的小茅屋里，靠自己的针线活为生。并为各类人士制作衣服，在当地很有名气。七年过去了，她以自己顽强的意志，出色的工作，崇高的品德，使自己胸前的A 字从一个耻辱的象征变成真善美的标志。赢得了众人的尊敬和爱戴。
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