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1、 A Comparative Study of the Heroines Characters in The Scarlet Letter and The Thorn Birds Author: Supervisor: A ThesisSubmitted as a Partial Fulfillment ofthe Requirements for the Degree of B.A. in EnglishSchool of Information and EngineeringFuyang Teachers College, Anhui Province May, 2013 学位论文 红字与
2、荆棘鸟的女主人公形象比较分析 指导教师姓名 职 称 讲 师单 位 阜阳师范学院信息工程学院专业名称 英语教育 申请学位级别 学 士学位授予单位 阜 阳 师 范 学 院2013年5月A Comparative Study of the Heroines Characters in The Scarlet Letter and The Thorn Birds Abstract Nathaniel Hawthorne is a world-famous American writer in the 19th-century, and Colleen McCullough is a well-know
3、n Australian woman writer in the 20th-century. Their representative works, The Scarlet Letter and The Thorn Birds, have been enjoying enormous popularity since their publication. By analyzing the two heroinesHester Prynne and Meggie Cleary, the thesis finds that they have something different and som
4、ething in common. The full text is divided into four parts. The first part briefly introduces Nathaniel Hawthorne and his work The Scarlet Letter, Colleen McCullough and her work The Thorn Birds. The second part makes a detailed comparison of the two heroines through their characters. In this part,
5、the author first gives a brief introduction of Hesters and Meggies characters and then makes an analysis of their differences and similarities through their attitudes towards love, marriage, religion, and maternity. Two reasons are given to explain why they are different. One is their authors differ
6、ent personalities and backgrounds. The other is heroines different family backgrounds. The third part describes the enlightenment of Hester and Meggie on modern women. The last part is conclusion. From the practical point of view, Hester or Meggie, they have infinite charm, positive attitudes toward
7、s love and marriage, and the female consciousness or feminism that reflect in life. All that is worth thinking and studying in depth by our modern women, expressing our own personal worth, and then living out the wonderfulness.Key words: The Scarlet Letter; The Thorn Birds; characters; enlightenment
8、; feminism红字与荆棘鸟的女主人公形象比较分析内容摘要纳撒尼尔霍桑是十九世纪美国著名的作家，而考琳麦卡洛则是二十世纪澳大利亚杰出的女性作家。她们各自的代表作红字与荆棘鸟自出版以来受到读者和文学评论者的广泛关注和欢迎。本文从各个角度分析了两部作品各自的主人公海斯特白兰和梅吉克利里，从而发现了她们的一些共同点和不同点。全文共分为四部分。第一部分简要介绍了霍桑和他的作品红字，考琳麦卡洛和她的作品荆棘鸟。第二部分对两位女主人公的性格做了详细的比较。该部分首先对两部作品中的女主人公海斯特和梅吉各自的性格做一个简要分析，然后从她们各自对婚姻爱情、宗教信仰的态度以及各自的母性光辉这三方面分析二人性格
9、的异同点。接着从这两部作品作者个人思想生平、女主人公家庭背景两方面分析产生二人性格不同的原因。第三部分从女性主义角度讲述了两位女主人公的性格特点对当今社会女性的启示。最后一部分结论。从现实性的角度看，不论是海斯特还是梅吉，她们有着无限魅力，积极的爱情婚姻观，以及生命中折射出的女性意识或女性主义，都很值得我们现代女性去深入的思考学习，更好发挥个人价值，进而活出精彩人生。关键词： 红字； 荆棘鸟；性格；启示；女性主义A Comparative Study of the Heroines Characters in The Scarlet Letter and The Thorn BirdsThes
10、is StatementHester Prynne and Meggie Cleary are similar in their characters. They have pursued love persistently, and never give up. The comparison presents the improvement of womens position and female consciousness with the passage of time.OutlineI. IntroductionII. Comparison Between Hester Prynne
11、 and Meggie ClearyA. Comparison Between Hesters and Meggies Characters 1. Their Attitudes Towards Love and Marriage 2. Their Attitudes Towards Religious Asceticism 3. Their Attitudes Towards Maternity B. The Reasons for the Differences Between Hester and Meggie 1. Their Authors Different Personaliti
12、es and Backgrounds2. Their Different Family Backgrounds III. The Enlightenment of Hester Prynne and Meggie Cleary on Modern Women A. The Definition of Feminism B. Feminism Reflected in Hester and Meggie C. Enlightenment on Modern WomenIV. Conclusion A Comparative Study of the Heroines Characters in
13、The Scarlet Letter and The Thorn BirdsI. Introduction Nathaniel Hawthorne and Colleen McCullough are two famous novelists. Although they lived in different times and different countries, their works, The Scarlet Letter and The Thorn Birds, have some similarities in the two heroinesHester Prynne and
14、Meggie Cleary. They share similar experiences: both of them have been in love with a priest. On the process of pursuing love, Hester and Meggie are consistent, independent and thoughtful. They also have some differences. After understanding their precious spirits, our modern women will learn a lot.N
15、athaniel Hawthorne is one of the most powerful romantic novelists in the 19th century in the United States. Herman Melville in his article Hawthorne and His Mosses in 1805 regarded him as an equal of William Shakespeare (http:/www.eldritchpress.org, 05.3.2013). The Scarlet Letter is one of the most
16、famous novels of him. It was written in 1851. This novel made Hawthorne the leader of American novelists in the 19th-century. This novel tells a story of a Puritan woman named Hester Prynne. For the guilt of adultery, she is punished to wear a scarlet “A” on her breast. This beautiful young lady com
17、es to Boston, and lives there. Originally, her old and ugly husband Chillingworth will come to Boston after her, but this husband has not shown up for many years. During this period of time, Hester Prynne has been in love with the local priest Dimmesdale, and has a girl named Pearl. Although she fac
18、es the terrible punishment, she refuses to bring her lovers name to light because she wants to protect him. Then Chillingworth comes back after several years, and he finds out the truth. He starts to revenge to Dimmesdale, and stops Hester from eloping with Dimmesdale. Yet, as the story develops, He
19、ster and Dimmesdale become sympathetic figures, while Chillingworth is a devil at last. The Thorn Birds is a novel written by Australian woman writer Colleen McCullough. In Western literature, The Thorn Birds has been called “Australias Gone With the Wind ”. Colleen McCullough is also a neuropatholo
20、gist, so the description of womens love mentality is touching and exquisite. This novel had been designed for four years. After making a lot of research, Colleen McCullough started to write this work. The plotline of this story is the love entanglement between the heroine Meggie and Father Ralph. Th
21、is work describes the story through three generations of Clearys. Meggie has loved Ralph since she is ten years old. But Ralph is a priest who can not get married with her. Although he loves her, he cant accept Meggies love. After Meggies aunt Mary dies, Ralph accepts the large inheritance and leave
22、s Drogheda. He is going to achieve his dream to be a cardinal. Meggie is frustrated, then she marries Luke who looks like Ralph, but there is no love between him and Meggie. After they marry, Luke does not care of Meggie at all, he only cares of money. And he thinks that child is his burden. When Me
23、ggie is giving birth, Luke is not at her side. Then Meggie takes a rest in Matlock Island, Ralph visits her. During this time, Meggie gets Ralphs love and carries his baby. After the marriage with Luke breaks up, Meggie returns to Drogheda with her two children. When her son Dane grows up, he also c
24、hooses to be a priest, and then dies. In Meggies mind, Dane is the love that she gets from Ralph. So the death of Dane is a great blow for her. Although Meggie cant get what she wants, and has a tragic life, her great spirit is worth learning. II. Comparison Between Hester Prynne and Meggie Cleary A
25、. Comparison Between Hesters and Meggies Characters 1. Their Attitudes Towards Love and Marriage Hester is the protagonist of The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne endows Hester with multiple identities, a Puritan who commits adultery, a wife who has betrayed her husband, a lover of priest, a mother of an i
26、llegitimate child. Hester Prynne is born in an English downfallen baronage. When she is young and knows nothing about love, her family has married her to a husband who is an elderly, almost deformed scholarRoger Chillingworth. Some years later, the husband has sent her alone across the ocean to the
27、Massachusetts Colony, intending to follow Hester as soon as he can put his departure, but his ship has never been heard of again. Hester, a young, attractive lady, has lived quietly in Boston until the time of her “disgrace”. During this period of time, young, handsome and talented Reverend Arthur D
28、immesdale appears in front of Hester. Quenchless love has been fired. The strongest feelings in her heart awake her. They have fallen in love and have a baby. When Hester first meets Chillingworth in prison, she says to him, “thou knowest that I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any”(
29、Hawthorne 63). Hester starts to understand which man is her true love. And for this true love, Hester chooses the brave struggle to win the path to happiness. Even she has suffered the criticism, ridicule, misunderstanding, and insult. In the face of these, Hester has never shaken the yearning and p
30、ursuit of love. In order to protect Dimmesdale from being insult, Hester stands up bravely, bears all the pain alone. In Hesters mind, marriage without love can not bind her all the life. True love is worth pursuing.Meggie Cleary is the protagonist of the novel The Thorn Birds. Since she is a child,
31、 she has yearned for marriage and children. She is born to be an indomitable person, this character is starting to show when she is a child. In love, Meggie has a similar unfortunate love with her motherFee. Fee wants to get love from another womans husband, and Meggies persistent pursuit is the man
32、 who serves God, a priest. The difference is that Meggie has never become indifferent and yielding because of the unfairness of fate. That is the difference between Meggie and her mother. Meggie boldly pursues love faithfully. For her priest Ralph, Meggie has no regrets. In the first line of the nov
33、el, Colleen McCullough writes: There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage br
34、anches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out- carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of g
35、reat pain Or so says the legend. (McCullough 1)Meggie proceeds without hesitation as well as Hester. “I love Ralph from the age of ten”(McCullough 438). Meggie is looking for Ralph all her life, although she knows that Ralph belongs to God, the identity of priest is the obstacle between them. And th
36、e love between each other is pain. After Meggies aunt Mary dies, Ralph accepts the large inheritance and leaves Drogheda. He is going to achieve his dream to be a cardinal. Meggie is frustrated, then she marries Luke who looks like Ralph, but there is no love between him and Meggie. After they marry
37、, Luke does not care of Meggie at all, he only cares of money. And he thinks that child is his burden. When Meggie is giving birth, Luke is not at her side. Then Meggie takes a rest in Matlock Island, Ralph visits her. During this time, Meggie gets Ralphs love and carries his son. After the marriage
38、 with Luke breaks up, Meggie returns to Drogheda with her two children. After a lifetime of struggle, then her son Dane converts to God as a priest. It declares that Meggie loses the love again, because she thinks that Dane is the love that she gets from Ralph. For love, Meggie is a brave and strong
39、 woman. Lack of love makes Meggie and Lukes marriage break up. The marriage is just Meggies comfort, because Luke looks like Ralph. And she wants a child to fill the vacant of life. Marriage is the final adscription of a woman. While Meggie views marriage not as the adscription but as properties of
40、the pursuit of love. So we can see that Meggie Cleary is a woman that pursues love without hesitation. Although Hester Prynne and Meggie Cleary all move towards a tragedy finally, they pursue freedom and independence, bravely believe that they have the power and right to pursue love, dare to fight a
41、gainst fate, all these are shining points of life. And they are eternal. 2. Their Attitudes Towards Religious AsceticismThe Scarlet Letter and The Thorn Birds all reflect the conflicts between religion and love, attack the nothingness and hypocrisy of the religion. Catholicism and Calvinism all ask
42、people to be obedient. Hester lives in North America colonial society in the 17th century. In that time, theocratic religious thought dominates society. Suffocating religious spirit plays on the minds of people. Although Hester knows Dimmesdales identity, she still loves him. This kind of behavior i
43、tself is resistance to God. As Judith Fryer says, “she is his most perfect Eve, combining sensuality with an ethereal essences. Like Eves, Hesters crime was not really in tempting Adam, but in disobeying God the Father”(Fryer 79). Standing in the trial stage, facing the local officials and priest, s
44、he refuses to name the father of the child, also doesnt want to confess to God. When she wears the scarlet letter which represents the shame on the scaffold, she accepts the punishment of God calmly. When the judge and the church force her to give the name of babys father, she chooses to take the bl
45、ame and shame all alone. Hester firmly answers, “It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony, as well as mine”(Hawthorne 21). Wearing a scarlet “A”, Hester lives away from the crowd. She works hardly, silently resists the secularity, and resists the churc
46、h. But her inner desire is to get rid of the scarlet letter, free of the scarlet letter, she does not give up resisting God. After seven years of pain, Hester and Dimmesdale meet in the forest. She tells Dimmesdale that the only way to escape her ex-husband is to return to the UK. “Let us not look b
47、ack,” answered Hester Prynne. “the past is gone! Wherefore should we linger upon it now? See! With this symbol, I undo it all, and make it as it had never been!” So speaking, she undid the clasp that fastened the scarlet letter, and, taking it from her bosom, threw it to a distance among the withere
48、d leaves. (Hawthorne 183)Here, Hesters resistance to the scarlet letter and its alleged sin is so obvious. However, the scarlet letter and its iniquity are imposed on her by God and the patriarchal society. In the process of confronting fate and religion, Hesters female consciousness is awakening. The awakening of her feminine consciousness is not complete, sometimes even is unclear and contradictory. In
