Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), one of the great American novelists, has great impact on the literature of America as well as the whole world. He was born in Salem and graduated at Bowline College. After the initial period of anonymity, Hawthorne attained great accomplishment as an author of short stories, romances, essays and children’s books. In his lifetime, he created many influential works including some long fictions such as The House of the Seven Gables, The Marble Faun, The Scarlet Letter and several allegorical stories: The Great Stone Face, Young Goodman Brown, and The Ambitious Guest. Among all these works, The Scarlet Letter is frequently regarded as the most important work of Hawthorn’s as the well as greatest novel in American literary history.
    It’s believed that the production of The Scarlet Letter has a close relation to Hawthorn’s family history. William Hathorne, the author’s great-great-great-grandfather, was a Puritan who was an important member of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and held many political positions including magistrate and judge, becoming infamous for his harsh sentencing. And Hawthorn’s great-great-grandfather, Judge Hathorne presided at the notorious Salem witch trials and was put under a curse by the husband of one of the convicted witches. Having learned about this, Hawthorne added the “w” to his surname, in effort to dissociate himself from his notorious ancestors. From this, we can obviously find Hawthorn’s hatred to Puritan relentless principles and severe punishment, which is apparently presented in his works as well, especially in The Scarlet Letter, which is a tragedy happened in a Puritan society.
    This novel creatively interprets the heroine Hester who lives under the oppression of the seventeenth Century New England. But she struggled bravely and did not yield to the pressure of Puritan Ethics. She is the brave model fighting for love, against unreasonable marriage system. But in this work Hawthorn’s aim is not only to sing the praises of the newborn of the heroine. Many scholars have interpreted the heroine Hester Prynne The Scarlet Letter as a new feminist warrior who had suffered much misfortune and finally gained a new born. While reading the novel carefully it can be found that although the surface meaning of the novel supported this view, yet under the appearance of implication there was another meaning: Hester suffered in the contradiction between reality and ideal and  after a brutal blows of fate finally caved in accepting the trial of the Puritan society, from which we can see the main reason causing Hester’s tragedy is the dual personality of the hero and heroine.
II. Hester’s Dual Personality Lead to the Tragedy
2.1 A Sinner in Puritan’s Eye
    At the beginning of the story, came our heroine, Hester, with her baby out of the prison. She was taken to the scaffold, where she suffered public ignominy because she had an adultery affair with the clergyman Dimmedale and became pregnant. She was punished to wear a scarlet A on her bosom to proclaim her shameful adultery. This was because that in the puritan’s eye. She had broken the holy Ten Commandments, Hester was an unpardonably wicked sinner not only to her husband, but also to the whole Puritan society. She was given a chance that if she spoke out the name of her adulterer, she might avail to take the scarlet letter off her breast. But Hester, for her beloved lover, refused firmly without any hesitation. At the same time, her whole life could not get others sympathy and compassion. As described earlier, the mother and her daughter only stayed in a log cabin which located in the suburbs of Boston after they out of jail, because this was their only choice, or they had no abilities choose. And the mother and her daughter only rely on sewing to make a living. They were social outcast, were those who “respectable” women and ignorance of the children’s punching bag. In the face of others insult and abuse, Hester and her daughter began to whimper and accept. When somebody had difficulties, she would reach out her hands to help others. Helping the poor, even sewing clothes for the dead. Finally, people around this down were no longer so unkind for them, but she still could not take off the robe embroidered with a scarlet letter which as a symbol of shame, and others still do not want to get close to them. Gradually, she changed her original charm, enthusiasm, generous and kind disappeared, only left indifference, mean and vulgar, even her a beautiful head of hair was obscured by a ugly hat. Hester's daughter Pearl who was supposed to be a lovely angel was an illegitimate daughter, so Pearl became the most direct punishment for Hester. 《红字》中的女性悲剧分析(2):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_35008.html