摘要

纳萨尼尔•霍桑是美国十九世纪杰出的浪漫主义小说家，长篇小说《红字》是他的代表作。自1851年《红字》出版以来，人们从不同的层面对它进行了研究，研究成果十分丰富。但从色彩的视觉研究《红字》的论文还比较少。实际上，色彩的运用在《红字》中十分突出并取得了良好的艺术效果，对于刻画人物的心理和情感表达具有重要的作用。
本文试图从色彩在文学作品中的美学角度出发，旨在探讨《红字》中的色彩如红色、黑色、灰色、金色以及其他颜色的应用，分析色彩在人物塑造、主题表达、心理展现等方面的作用以及色彩组合的方式，进而阐述色彩达到的艺术效果。
文学中丰富的色彩世界，是一个有独特意义的审美新领域，发掘、探索色彩世界的审美特征，是研究文学价值的一个新视角。本文对《红字》中色彩现象的零星研究作一下系统的梳理，将对于文学的创作、审美鉴赏和理论建设都有着重要意义。

关键词：色彩，美学，艺术效果，红字

Abstract

Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the most prominent novelists of romanticism in 19th century, whose The Scarlet Letter is his representative work. Since the publication of The Scarlet Letter in the year of 1851, the research and studies in different aspects of have been very abundant, but comparatively rare in the angle of vision. Actually, it is the usage of colors in The Scarlet Letter that creates the great artistic effects and makes the significant contributions to the characterization and emotional expressions.
This thesis is trying to begin with colors in the literary works in the aspect of aesthetics, probes into the usage of colors, such as red, black, gray, gold and other colors, and analyzes the influences of colors on the characterization, expressions of themes, and showing of process of psychology, as well as the combination of colors in order to explain the artistic effects that colors make.
The world of colors in literature is a new aesthetic field, which owns the unique significances; the aesthetic study of the world of colors is a new angle of vision in the value of literature. This thesis will make coordination in the colors in The Scarlet Letter and it will make essential differences to the literary creation, appreciation of the beauty and construction of theories.

Key words: colors, aesthetics, artistic effects, The Scarlet Letter

1  Introduction
1.1 Major questions to be discussed
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is about sin and punishment centering on a love tragedy in Puritan New England. Hester Prynne was forced to wear a scarlet letter A standing for adultery after the birth of her daughter, Pearl, at the long absence of her husband, Roger Chillingworth. She refused to reveal her fellow sinner, the reverend minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, and lived isolated with Pearl. Because of her kindness to the townspeople, she finally gained people’s respect. Being the target of Chillingworth’s revenge, Dimmesdale became weaker and weaker, and died after his delayed confession of sin.