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Set in 17-century Puritan Boston, Massachusetts, during the years 1642 to 1649, The Scarlet Letter tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair with a minister named Dymmesdale and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. It has a tragic ending that Hester keeps alone in her later life and Dimmesdale dies after finally making public the affair with Hester. Readers and scholars tend to ascribe to the darkness of the church and the severe control of Puritan concepts.
There are many incidents related to extreme religious beliefs happened all over the world. In the early months of the year 2015, India suffered a lot from continuous high temperature. A Hindu tribe killed a man to pray for rain. In their opinion, using a man’s life as a sacrifice could please their god. In November, 2015, ISIS attacked Paris and killed over one hundred innocent people. When they raked to the crowd, they shouted out their slogan aloud: “ For Syria, For Allah.”
The following research questions guided the study:
a. Will extreme religious belief provide people with happiness?
b. Will there be another ending for Hester and Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter?文献综述
The study consists of six parts: introduction, literature review, reflection on the ending of The Scarlet Letter, examples of extreme religious belief in real life, modern evaluation of Puritanism and religion, and backing to the fiction. The introduction part introduces what the study will research, the background, significance and the organization of the study. The literature review presents scholars’ research achievements of The Scarlet Letter and religious beliefs. Reflection on the ending of The Scarlet Letter sorts out the relationship between Hester, Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale, analyzes their personalities, and the reason of Dimmesdale’s death. Examples of extreme religious belief in real life shows us three typical instances of extreme religious belief. Modern evaluation of Puritanism and religion explains the pros and cons of Puritanism and extends the scope to all kinds of religion, then analyzes the status of religious belief in modern society. Backing to the fiction systematically concludes the reason of the tragic ending, and imagines another potential ending of the work.