Hawthorne’s representative works mainly include four romances: The Scarlet Letter, The House of The Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun, three short stories collections: Twice Told Tales，Moss from an Old Manse, and The Snow-Image and Other Twice Told Tales, and two collections of children’s literature: A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys and Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys.来~自^吹冰论+文.网www.chuibin.com/

In the19th century, the American economy has stepped into a new stage, and people’s life was changing vehemently. The science also made such a great progress that some scientists began to reject dementedly to limit and finitude, and they had the crazed, blasphemous belief that one can do anything if one puts his to it (Pfister, 2008: 579). But some other people, like Hawthorne, explicated their concerns and critique of this scientific obsession. They believed that “nations or inpiduals which cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the realities of frailty and failure – that this is what we all start from, and where we all return – are feeble indeed” (Pfister, 2008: 579).

Furthermore, the 19th century is also the time of American culture renaissance, all kinds of new ideas and opinions have found their expression there. At the same time, Americans longed for breaking away from the bondage of Europe in many a field, especially in literary field. Nathaniel Hawthorne is not except from the influence of Puritanism, Transcendentalism and Mysticism which were very popular at this time. The 19th century’s dramatic change in America, the American culture renaissance as well as many other things provided the backdrop for Hawthorne’s The Birth-Mark.