Nature 大自然

But at night, brother Howlet, far over the woods,Toll the world to thy chantry;Sing to the bats‟ sleek sisterhoodsFull complines with gallantry:Then, owls and bats, cowls and twats,Monks and nun s, in a cloister‟s moods,Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry!霍桑的小说多采用象征手法, 要归因于他思想中神秘主义的影响, 正如英美文学评论家朱虹所说:“在霍桑的作品中, 最常见的一个现象就是:由于作家的主观精神的照射, 客观事物既是它自己, 同时又是别的什么。

这种观点决定了霍桑在创作中不对客观事物作真实的描摹, 而是借象征去揭示客观事物背后的隐秘含义。

(一)“红字”的象征意义按照霍桑的“内在的堕落”观, 人人心中皆有罪, 罪恶无所不在。

在长篇小说《七个尖角阁的房子》中, 他还曾宣扬人类罪恶代代相传的观点。

在他看来, 人们只有坦诚地面对它, 把最丑恶的东西暴露出来, 才能超脱“罪恶”, 获得新生。

海丝特就是如此, 她以超人的毅力熬过漫长的七年, 最终使红字从耻辱转化为美德的标志。

对海丝特而言, 红字是佩戴在身上的, 是暴露在外面的“罪恶‟; 对丁梅斯代尔而言, 红字是隐藏在内心的, 同样是“罪恶”的象征。

首先丁梅斯代尔的英文全名是Arthur Dimmesdale, 名字的首字母 A 已暗示出红字, 而且名与姓的首字连起来就是AD, 隐含着他所犯的通奸罪(Adultery)。

其次,丁梅斯代尔一直隐瞒罪责, 但内心极度痛苦, 常常捂住胸口, 表明红字暗藏在心。

在小说的结尾, 牧师终于走上刑台, 向世人坦白罪孽, 他撕开胸前的衣裳, 红字终于显露。

此时作者故意含糊其辞, 牧师胸前的红字似乎是他因为悔罪而烙上去的印迹, 又好象是上帝为惩罚他而打上的耻辱的标记。

霍桑运用这样的象征手法比直接描述悔罪更加具有艺术震撼力, 红字“所象征的…罪人‟以一种直接的近乎物质的力量冲击读者, 引起思想感情上的震动。

” 可以说“红字”含蓄而深刻的象征意义, 形象而有力地衬托出小说所揭示的罪与罚的主题, 是整部小说最富意味的象征物。

(二) 人物的象征意义其中三个主要人物海丝特代表悔过的罪人, 丁梅斯代尔代表半悔过的罪人。

而齐灵渥斯则代表真正的罪人。

海丝特坦然承认罪责, 将象征罪恶的红字永远佩戴在胸前。

她热心助人, 勤俭度日, 最后得以超脱。

她的形象正代表霍桑的观点: 面对罪恶, 必须诚实, 要“把你最坏的东西袒露出来。

” 所以海丝特代表悔过的罪人, 而丁梅斯代尔则不同, 他没有勇气承认罪责, 但内心的负罪感使他倍受折磨、痛不欲生, 最终在做完最后一次极富感染力的布道之后, 拉着海丝特与珠儿的手一起走上刑台, 袒露胸前的红字, 在死亡中完成解脱。

丁梅斯代尔经历了由隐瞒到承认罪责, 直到获得灵魂解脱的过程, 所以他代表半悔过的罪人。

小说中另一个人物——齐灵渥斯本是受害者, 最后变成害人者, 代表真正的罪人。

他身体畸形, 两眼闪着幽光, 脸上现出狞恶的神态。

罪恶的毒液侵蚀了他的灵魂, 使他丧失了人性, 变得如同魔鬼。

他以医生的身份接近丁梅斯代尔, 假装关心, 暗中刺探其内心的秘密。

“他象一名探寻黄金的矿工,掘进这可怜牧师的心; 或者宁可说, 像一个掘墓人掘进一座坟墓。

”对齐灵渥斯而言, 生活的全部意义在于追踪仇敌, 雪恨复仇。

丁梅斯代尔死后, 他的目的达到了, 此时“他的全部精力和体力,即他的全部活力和智力, 似乎立刻消失殆尽; 以致他全然枯萎了、凋谢了, 几乎从人的视界里消失了, 就像一顶连根拔起的野草在太阳底下晒蔫了。

”在霍桑笔下, 齐灵渥斯的行为无异于亵渎神灵, 比起牧师的罪, 他犯了更大的罪, 成了真正的罪人。

除了这三个主要人物外,《红字》中其它人物也有各自的象征意义。

珠儿是海丝特与丁梅斯代尔的私生女, 本是罪恶的结晶, 但霍桑把她比喻成一只鸟、一朵花或者一片阳光。

她活泼而又倔强, 充满野性, 可以说是希望与活力的象征。

贝灵汉总督则是统治政权的象征。

“他的相貌这么刻板严厉, 加之垂暮之年,鹤发鸡皮”。

[4] (P94) 他有权主宰新英格兰居民的命运, 让海丝特终生佩戴红字, 永世受辱。

当他发现珠儿不敬神, 便决意要剥夺海丝特对女儿的抚养权。

总之, 总督有无上的权威, 以神自居, 是当时政教合一的统治者的象征。

(三) 场景的象征意义选择场景与渲染气氛也是烘托主题的重要手段。

《红字》中刑台就是最重要的场景之一, 显然经过作者精心设计, 具有暗示主题的作用。

刑台本是处决犯人的地方, 在《红字》中象征对罪恶的惩罚。

小说中刑台出现了三次, 分别在故事的开头、中间与结尾, 是串起整部小说的重要线索。

第一次在第二章, 海丝特胸前佩戴红字被押上刑台示众三小时。

这时小说刚刚拉开序幕, 是海丝特受到宗教戒律惩罚的开始之日。

刑台第二次出现在小说的第十章《牧师夜游》。

丁梅斯代尔由于隐瞒罪孽, 内心十分痛苦, 以致于面色苍白, 身躯开始萎缩, 于是夜游似地来到刑台, 忏悔罪孽。

虽然没有受到宗教戒律的公开惩罚, 但在刑台上默默接受它对自己心灵的鞭笞。

刑台第三次出现在小说结尾, 当时新英格兰正举行盛大的庆典, 丁梅斯代尔在作完布道以后, 走上刑台, 坦白罪过, 最终接受惩罚。

刑台可以说是构成整部小说的框架, 同时又从另一个侧面暗示了“罪与罚”的主题。

除刑台这个主要场景外, 其它场景也有各自独特的象征意义, 比如监狱与墓地。

由于霍桑小说的主题以揭露人人心中皆有的“恶”为主, 并且带有神秘主义色彩, 所以小说中常常出现监狱与墓地一类的场景。

《红字》以监狱为开篇, 以墓地结束, 这两个场景在小说中多次出现。

小说一开始就有这样一段话,“新殖民地的创建者们, 不管他们原先计划建立的是什么样的人类美德与幸福的乌托邦, 一定会在处女地里圈出一块做墓地; 另一块修建监狱”, 并把监狱比喻成“文明社会的一朵黑花”。

接着齐灵渥斯在监狱里与海丝特碰面, 丁梅斯代尔的住处就紧挨着一片坟地, 而齐灵渥斯则经常在墓地里采集草药。

可以说在霍桑笔下, 监狱与墓地象征着罪恶的滋生地。

小说中还有一个场景是小溪。

海丝特与丁梅斯代尔在溪畔相聚, 珠儿在小溪的另一边, 任凭海丝特怎么呼唤, 珠儿怎儿也不愿意跨过小溪。

这时“敏感的牧师说道, “这条小溪是两个世界的分界线。

(珠儿) 是一个不准跨过小溪的小精灵”。

小溪象征着罪恶与纯洁的分界线。

除了场景的选择, 作者对明暗色彩的运用也有独特的象征意义。

海丝特第一次被押上刑台示众是在一个阳光明媚的上午。

光明可以使罪恶昭然天下, 所以明亮象征对邪恶的暴露。

与此相反,丁梅斯代尔隐瞒罪责, 在一个漆黑的夜晚走上刑台, 独自忏悔, 此时黑夜象征着黑暗掩藏罪恶。

在小说的结尾, 当丁梅斯代尔再一次走上刑台, 勇敢地公开承认罪责时, 又是在白天。

小说再一次暗示光明可以暴露丑恶的灵魂。

霍桑对明暗色彩的选择真可谓用心良苦, 其象征意义同样深刻。

总之,《红字》运用多重象征, 正如一面面放置在不同角度的镜子, 从不同的侧面暗示主题, 并赋予主题以具体的形象, 避免了直接描述的直露和浅薄, 从而使整部小说的含义更含蓄、更丰富, 令读者难以忘怀。

象征手法的成功运用使霍桑成为现代象征主义文学的开创者之一, 也使《红字》成为美国第一部跨国界、赢得世界声誉的文学名著。

The Great GatsbyGatsby‟s life follows a clear pattern: there is, at first, a dream, then disenchantment, and finally a sense of failure and despair. In this, Gatsby‟s personal experience approximates the whole of the American experience up to the first few decades of 20th. America had been “a fresh, green breast of the new world”, had “pandered to the last and greatest of all human dreams” and promised something like “the orgiastic future” for humanity. Now the virgin forests have vanished and made way for a modern civilization, the only fitting symbol of which is the “valley of ashes,” the living hell. All of the descriptions of the chara cters‟ life and the power of money denote the vanishing of the great expectations which the first settlement of the American continent had inspired. The hope is gone; despair and doom have set in.It is a symbolic story of Gatsby‟s illusionary dream s and wishes; a signal to go ahead, to “beat on against the current”; the persistent attempt to recapture and relive the past and to regain the lost love. The fact is that the dream is itself an illusion, which can never come true, for “his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it, he did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity.” The illusion that money and wealth can bring back the past and relive it is doomed to break. Here lies the great ness of Gatsby‟s single-minded devotion to the “golden” girl, his illusionary dream to recapture the past and regain the lost love. But to a broader sense, the symbolic significance goes beyond that, it is also symbolic of the belief in American dream that hard work and discipline will bring success and wealth which equal happiness or even everything. Unfortunately, money has nothing to do with happiness, and wealth sometimes even brings about disasters. The destiny of Gatsby is proof of that, with a determ ination to win back Daisy‟s love, which has already belonged to the past, Gatsby engages himself to some shady activities in order to earn enough money, because he believes that Daisy left him just because he was poor. When he gathers enough money, he begins to spread dazzling parties with the forlorn hope that Daisy may drop in some time. Disaster comes with his big money, he is then killed. The tragedy is doomed to happen. There is no escape, and the best way out for Gatsby is death.Gatsby is a ro mantic representative of the “Idealistic Materialism”, which only belongs to American. Idealistic or “non-material” materialism means that “materialism is raised to a romantic ideal, a kind of glowing expectation of some vague and magic …happiness‟ to be o btained through materialism itself. This is the core of the paradox.Fitzgerald‟s greatness comes from his understanding of the polarities of the American Dream. On one hand, he firmly believes the greatness of the dream; on the other hand, he distinctly recognizes the hopelessness of it. The firm belief is followed with even firmer despair. His life and work not merely dramatizes the age of the 20s, but also dramatizes the culture of America. Both he and his protagonists are indulged completely into the superficially florid American Dream. They together savored the gaiety of dreaming, lost of disillusionment and melancholy of cracking up, their personal experience echoing the development of American Legends. They affirm thegreatness of the incessant quest and experience the mental agony for the lost of greatness. This paradox of America is not only embodied in his work, but also embodied in himself.A Rose For EmilyIn this story, Faulkner‟s strong condemnation of the values of old tradition emanates from the pathetic life story of the central character, Emily Grierson dominated by her father and restrained by his rigid ideas of social status, she has been prevented from getting married during his lifetime, and therefore after his death she is left alone and penniless. Her dependence on her father continues even after he dies. By delineating Miss Emily‟s tragedy, Faulkner offers a strong denunciation of the morals of his own southern culture. Yet in “A Rose for Emily”, we can sense the underlying acclaim of the standard and moral values found in the South which have been destroyed by commerce and machinery. In spite of Emily‟s insanity and grotesque actions, Faulkner chooses “A Rose for Emily” as the title of this story to show his admiration for Miss Emily who is a symbol of “tradition, duty and care; sort of hereditary obligation”. In addition, that Faulkner depicts Emily as dignified, valiant and literate; her serf as loyal and staunch; Colonel Sartories, generation as sympathetic and considerate is also a revelation of his applause of the glorious past which contains “the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and piety and sacrifice.”In “A Rose for Emily”, we can feel that part of the emotional and psychological thrill and invol vement is that the style is adapted to the subject. First, Faulkner‟s handling of time in his story is most noteworthy. The displaced chronology undoubtedly allows the narrator to tell the story in the most dramatic way and also to fill in adequate background details, but it is also a way in which one of the themes — denunciation of the sins and evils of the southern culture — can be illustrated and strengthened by the structure itself. The interruption of chronological order denotes the moral confusion and social depravity of the southern tradition. Emily is in agonizing conflict, with herself, with modernization, and with the past forces that lie beyond her control. In order to dissipate her inner tensions, she clings to her father‟s memory and refuses to change. Emily‟s house, in the narrator‟s eyes, marks the declining and disintegrating values of the South. In spite of all her eccentricities, not to mention her serious mental illness, she is never laughed at or treated with contempt or disgust by the narrator. Instead her struggle to assert her will has something courageous and heroic which serves to remind us of courage, honor and pride that Faulkner acclaims. In “A Rose for Emily”, and his entire Yoknapatawpha saga, Faulkner penetrates deeply into the p sychological motivations for man‟s actions and investigates man‟s dilemma in the modern world throughout his fictional world, we profoundly sense his inner conflict and his combined feeling of love and hatred for the South. Although his novels often contain a two-faceted motif which compounds the condemnation of the sins and evils of the South and a compliment of its great and noble qualities, they are structurally sound as being pitched in too high a key.The color-symbols in The Great GatsbyThe vitality and beauty of F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing are perhaps nowhere more strikingly exhibited than in his handling of the color-symbols in The Great Gatsby. We are all familiar with "the green light" at the end of Daisy's dock—that symbol of the "orgiastic future," the limitless promise of the dream Gatsby pursues to its inevitably tragic end; familiar, too, with the ubiquitousyellow—symbol of the money, the crass materialism that corrupts the dream and ultimately destroys it. What apparently has escaped the notice of most readers, however, is both the range of the color-symbols and their complex operation in rendering, at every stage of the action, the central conflict of the work.The central conflict of The Great Gatsby, announced by Nick in the fourth paragraph of the book, is the conflict between Gatsby's dream and the sordid reality. As we shall see, the color-symbols render, with a close and delicate discrimination, both the dream and the reality—and these both in their separateness and in their tragic intermingling.Now the most obvious representation, by means of color, of the novel's basic conflict is the pattern of contrasting lights and darks. Gatsby, Nick tells us, is "like an ecstatic patron of recurrent light." His imagination has created a "universe of ineffable gaudiness," of "a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty"—a world of such stirring vividness that it may be represented now by all the colors of the rainbow (Gatsby's shirts are appropriately "coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, with monograms of Indian blue"), now simply by light itself, by glitter, by flash. In his innocence, Gatsby of course sees only the pure light of the grail which he has "committed himself" to follow. The reader, however, sees a great deal more: sees, for example, the grotesque "valley of ashes," "the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it"— the sordid reality lying beneath the fictions of the American dream of limitless Opportunity and Achievement.If for a time "the whole front" of Gatsby's mansion "catches the light," if the house, "blazing with light" at two o'clock in the morning, "looks like the World's Fair," the reader understands why it comes to be filled with an inexplicable amount of dust everywhere and why "the white steps" are sullied by "an obscene word, scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick." Fair and foul is the intermingling of dream and reality; as Nick observes in Chapter VIII, there is a "gray-turning, gold-turning light" in the mansion, and the moral problem for the young Mid-westerner is to prevent himself from mistaking the glittering appearance for the true state of things.The light-dark symbolism is employed with great care. It is not accidental, for example, that Daisy and Jordan, when they are introduced to the reader in the first scene of the novel, are dressed in white. In this scene, in which almost all of the color symbols are born, Nick tells us that "the only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house."White traditionally symbolizes purity, and there is no doubt that Fitzgerald wants to underscore the ironic disparity between the ostensible purity of Daisy and Jordan and their actual corruption. But Fitzgerald is not content with this obvious and facile symbolism. White, in this early appearance in the novel, is strongly associated with airiness, buoyancy, levitation. One is reminded of the statement in Chapter VI that for Gatsby "the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing." Daisy and Jordan seem about to float off into the air because they are—to both Gatsby and Nick—a bit unreal, like fairies (Daisy's maiden name is Fay); and they are in white because, as we learn in Chapter VII, to wear white is to be "an absolute little dream":THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS1. How does the title affect your reading of and response to the poem?2. What is the poem about?The different Negro societies were present since the first days of the early civilizations.The word river was used to symbolize the paths of each society and their geographical locations in the world, namely the Euphrates, the Congo, the Nile, and the Mississippi. The names represent the different times in history and the geographical location of each society mentioned in the poem.With all simplicity, the poem is a powerful message to the reader as well as a summary of the history of the Negro.3. What makes the poem interesting to read?Simplification was the key to the poems appeal.It contributed to the appeal of the title and the message the author wanted to send to his readers. Hughes used his words and ideas carefully to elaborate his poem, but the way he simplified thousands of years of history in only ten lines of poem was the most significant attribute to his work.This simplification was clear in lines six and seven. These two lines give a brief idea of the social and cultural changes that the Negro underwent, but Hughes didn‟t have setup the poem in a formal manner nor describe the transition to capture the reader attention.4. Who is the speaker? What role does the speaker have in the poem?Another interesting characteristic about the poem is that it doesn‟t have only one speaker; it has millions. Hughes surprised the reader once again with another simplification. This time he combined the voices of millions of individuals from the different societies in one single voice telling a story. This story captured the different moments in history lived by each society. The first societies described their freedom and innocence when they said, I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. Then, a new society described its moments of glory when it ruled the world; I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. The new generation, however, didn‟t tell a beautiful story as the others did. But the outcome was one of hope, I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to/ New Orleans, and I‟ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. This particular line described the fall to slavery and the new freedom achieved with the Emancipation Proclamation, by Abraham Lincoln, on April 16th, 1862. The pronoun I in each sentence to represented each society as a whole, not as individuals. Again, the careful use of simple words in the poem was effective to describe to the reader what Hughes wanted to express in the voices of each society.5. What effect does the poem have on you as a reader? Do you think the poem intended to have such effect?The poem has given the reader a new perspective towards the Negro and its culture, as well as the difficulties that they have endured for centuries. The author‟s intention was to create the same reaction in the readers. He wanted the readers to understand the circumstances that led to the fall of the ancient societies who ruled the world at one point, and visualize the new perspective born with the new generations born with the Emancipation Proclamation. I‟ve known rivers:/ Ancient, dusky rivers., is the voice of the new generations describing the history of their forefathers to the readers, and when Hughes wrote, My soul has grown deep like the rivers, he wanted to tell the reader that the culture of the Negro is as strong as the river currents, and that each river in the poem represents the different Negro cultures and their influence in the world today. These two lines summarize the poem, and one could say that they are part of the closing statements of an essay.6. What is distinctive about the poets use of language? Which words especially contribute to the poems effect?The most distinctive characteristic about the poem was the use of simple words to express its complexity. Even with the use of simple words, the ideas presented by Hughes were carefully put on paper so the reader would be able to capture the message Hughes wanted to send. When he wrote and I‟ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset, Hughes described the new beginning in lives of the Negro when Abraham Lincolns freed the slaves. The word muddy not only represented the muddy waters of the Mississippi, but also the uncertain moments in the history of the Negro. Bosom was chosen to symbolize the hearts of the slaves, and turn all golden in the sunset was the new feeling of freedom as well as the new life the Negro would have from that moment on.。