看红字又不免热泪盈眶..
The prison door:
But on the one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.(to symbolize some sweet moral blossom that may be found along the track)
分析：Beside the scaffold, Hawthorne juxtaposes the prison--"the black flower of civilized society"--with the wild rosebush, a "sweet moral blossom" symbolizing the "deep heart of nature."
Hester at her needle:
Hester选择留下的原因:
Here, he said to herself, had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and work out another purity than that which she had lost; mire saint-like, because the result of martyrdom.
But it is not recorded that, in a single instance, her skill was called in aid to embroider the white veil which was to cover the pure blushes of a bride. The exception indicated the ever relentless vigor with which society frowned upon her sin.
To Hester Prynne it might have been a mode of expressing, and therefore soothing, the passion of her life. Like all other joys, she rejected it as sin.
The spot never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with daily torture.
The governor's hall:
Pearl, looking at this bright wonder of a house, began to caper and dance, and imperatively required that the whole breadth of sunshine should be stripped off its front, and given her to play with.
you must gather your own sunshine. I have none to give you!
The Elf-child and the Minster:
The child finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison-door.很有趣的描写，孩子急了乱说话，但这看似无心的描写实则有可能揭露了一种道德层面的意义，与开头的监狱边上的野玫瑰相呼应。
...and therefore seeming to imply in us something truly worthy to be loved...
Mr. Dimmesdale: "...It was shallow view that the disclosure of human thoughts and deeds, then to be made, is intended as a part of the retribution. No; these revelations are meant merely to promote the intellectual satisfaction of all intelligent beings. And I conceive, moreover, that the hearts holding such miserable secrets as you speak of will yield them up, at that last day, not with reluctance, but with a joy unutterable."
Another View of Hester:
She never battled with the public, but submitted, uncomplainingly, to its worst usage; she made no claim upon it, in requital for what she suffered; she did not weigh upon its sympathies. Then, also, the blameless purity of her life during all these years in which she had been set apart to infamy, was reckoned largely in her favor.
Such helpfulness was found in her- so much power to do, and power to sympathies- that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength.
the world's law was no law for her mind.
Hester and the Physician:
In a word, old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man's faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil's office.
Hester and Pearl:
Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart!
The Pastor and his Parishioner:
But, now, it is all falsehood!- all emptiness!- all death!
“Alas, what a ruin has befallen you!” said Hester, with the tears, gushing into hr eyes. "Will you die for very weakness? There is no other cause!"
It was the last expression of the despondency of a broken spirit. He lacked energy to grasp the better fortune that seemed within his reach.
A Flood of Sunshine:
For years past she had looked from this estranged point of view at human institutions...The tendency of her fate and fortunes had been to set her free...
The minister, on the other hand, had never gone through an experience calculated to lead him beyond the scope of generally received laws...
And be the stern and sad truth spoken, that the breach which guilt has once made into the human soul is never, in his mortal state, repaired.
The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter:
"Hester Prynne,' cried he, with a piercing earnestness, "in the name of Him, so terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace, at this last moment, to do what- for my own heavy sin and miserable agony- I withheld myself from doing seven years ago, come here now, and twine your strength about me! Your strength, Hester; but let it be guided by the will which God has granted me..."
The Conclusion:
It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object. Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance, and the other in a dusky and lurid glow.
"on a field, sable, the letter A, gules."