A comparative study of symbols between A Dream of Red Mansions and The Scarlet Letter

A Dream of Red Mansions has always been regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of realism in Chinese classical novels, while The Scarlet Letter is regarded as the first American symbolist novel, both of which successfully use symbols to express the author's certain feelings and ideas. This paper attempts to make a preliminary parallel comparative study of these two novels with symbols as the starting point of investigation, in order to explore the different symbolic meanings of their similar symbolic ontologies in different historical, religious, philosophical and cultural contexts. The text is divided into four chapters: Chapter one is the introduction, which firstly gives a brief introduction to the two works, A Dream of Red Mansions and The Scarlet Letter. The second, third and fourth chapters are the main body of the article. Based on the different historical, religious, philosophical and cultural backgrounds of China and the West, this paper provides a comprehensive comparative analysis and interpretation of the similarities and differences in the symbolic meanings of the main characters' chest ornaments, settings and the color red in the two novels. Chapter five is the conclusion, which summarizes the main contents of this paper. It is hoped that the research in this paper will provide some references and suggestions for the study of these two novels and provide some references for the study of the application of symbolism in novels.