Abstract：Nathaniel Hawthorne, an extraordinary eminent American writer of fiction, wrote a lot of well-known novels. The Scarlet Letter, is one of his most famous novels, the background of which setting in Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony during the years from 1642 to 1649. It tells the story of Hester Prynne, who gives birth to a daughter because of an immoral affair but struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne, taking out of the life of the Puritan past and showing a characteristic American literary in puritan styles, probes themes about legalism, evil, and compunction. The Scarlet Letter is also an elaboration of the fact which the author discloses the different psychology of Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth and Pearl. This thesis tries to analyze this novel by probing the psychological degradation and social degradation in this novel, mainly based on the theory of the eco-criticism. We do hope that this thesis could boost the further study of Hawthorne’s works. In addition, it has the goal to raise the ecological awareness into every literary work we read. 

This thesis consists of four parts: the first part gives a brief introduction to the research background, previous researches on Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter. Then it demonstrates the research question, research methodology and purpose, significance of the thesis. The second part is theoretical framework. This part mainly presents the definition of eco-criticism. What is more, it introduces the application of eco-criticism in literature analysis. The third part is the main body of the thesis. It analyzes this novel from two aspects: social degradation and psychological degradation. The fourth part is the conclusion. It concludes that eco-criticism can provide a theoretical guidance for human beings to establish a harmonious relationship with nature.

Keywords: Nathaniel Hawthorne; The Scarlet Letter; eco-criticism; psychological degradation; social degradation

精神危机的救赎——《红字》的生态批评研究

摘  要：纳撒尼尔·霍桑是美国作家，写了很多著名小说。其中《红字》是他最著名的小说之一。《红字》的故事围绕清教徒展开，是发生在十七世纪的美国马萨诸塞州的恋爱悲剧。小说女主人公海丝特不是因为爱情嫁给医生奇灵渥斯。婚后她与牧师丁梅斯代尔发生婚外情并产下女儿。在社会舆论的重压下，海斯特被当众惩罚，戴上标志“通奸”的红色A字示众，仿佛永远被钉在耻辱柱上，但仍不愿说出孩子的亲生父亲。之后她独自一人抚养女儿，通过劳动，努力过出忏悔的和有尊严的生活。书中，作者霍桑从过去清教徒的生活和特征展现美国清教徒风格的文学主题，探讨法律，罪恶和自我忏悔。有许多学者研究过此作品，主要是从寓言叙事体或象征等角度来剖析的。此篇论文立足生态批判角度研究《红字》，从社会生态和精神生态两方面来分析，试图揭示小说中的生态思想，提倡与自然建立和谐统一的关系。希望本文能推动对霍桑作品的进一步研究，也希望把生态意识融入到我们所读的每一部文学作品中。

此篇论文结构清晰，共有四部分。第一部分介绍论文的研究背景，对作者霍桑及他的作品作了简单介绍，还介绍了了本篇论文的研究目的，研究意义及研究问题和研究方法。第二部分主要介绍了生态批评文学理论。第三部分是论文的主体部分，主要从社会退化与精神退化两个角度来分析小说。第四部分是论文的结论部分，总结全文，指出本篇论文的不足之处，希望生态批判理论能为世界的和谐统一关系提供理论指导。

关键词：纳撒尼尔·霍桑；红字；生态批判；心理退化；社会退化