(The) Scarlet Letter에 나타난 죄의 문제 = (A) study of sin represented in the Scarlet letter

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Nathaniel Hawthorne succeeded in analyzing the sense of guilt in human mind with sharp imagination through his puritan thoughts. By raising the issue of the religious tradition of puritanism, Hawthorne was interested in understanding human morality, religious faith, and will. He expressed those things in his works.
Hawthorne, the representative of Puritan literature and a pioneer of American Renaissance, was more interested in the effect of sin on the human mind than the cause of it.
Hawthorne's material depicted the ethical view of life of his Calvinistic New England ancestors, and his tales are almost always filled with allegories with morality.
He interpreted sin as the basic concept of Calvinism influencing the Puritans in New England rather than as sin in the strictly theological notion.
Hester and Dimmesdale committed adultery, which was one of the worst sins to the Puritans in the early colonial days of America. Two heroes and one heroine in The Scarlet Letter suffered from these sins.
Hawthorne described Hester as a good woman who was oppressed by an obsessed society rather than as a shameful sinner and Dimmesdale as a spiritual winner who was so courageous as to confess his sin openly and then die.
Chillingworth would have burned up all his energy in revenging himself on Dimmesdale. He commits an unpardonable sin not so much for the revenge itself as for relentlessly destroying human heart. We cannot find generosity, love, and honesty in him. He led himself to destruction by his deep-seated inhuman attitude.
According to the Bible, man must realize that he is a sinner before God and feel the need of his salvation in order to be saved by the grace of the crucified Jesus Christ.
Through the novel, Hawthorne seems to tell us that we can overcome and be pardoned for the most dark sin by true penitence, sympathy, and love. The purpose of this thesis is to depict this by studying the three major characters focusing on the nature of their respective sins.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 목차
• Ⅰ. 서론 = 1
• Ⅱ. Hawthorne의 생애와 청교도주의 = 5
• Ⅲ. 주요인물들의 죄의 문제 = 12
• 1. Hester Prynne = 15
• 2. Arthur Dimmesdale = 28
• 3. Roger Chillingworth = 41
• Ⅳ. 주홍글자 ‘A’의 상징 = 52
• Ⅴ. 결론 = 57
• BIBLIOGRAPHY = 60
• ABSTRACT = 63