Abstract: This essay argues that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850) incorporates a threatening non-reproductive ideology from nineteenth-century print culture into its seventeenth-century setting, casting the birth of its famous protagonist’s daughter in relation to abortion’s alternative and the book’s own composition in relation to nothingness. It is through the subject of abortion, which circulated with high visibility in advertisements and other printed material in antebellum New England cities, that The Scarlet Letter’s attention to such concepts as adultery, birth, life, and citizenship finds new and ironic force. Hester Prynne’s characterization as her community’s scapegoat, moreover, aligns with reports about the scandalous midwife-abortionist Madame Restell that circulated in the press throughout the 1840s.

中文翻译：

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这件猩红色的布：纳撒尼尔霍桑的堕胎

摘要：本文认为，纳撒尼尔·霍桑 (Nathaniel Hawthorne) 的《红字》(1850) 将 19 世纪印刷文化中具有威胁性的非生殖意识形态融入其 17 世纪背景，将其著名主人公女儿的诞生与堕胎的替代方案和本书的自己对虚无的构成。正是通过在战前新英格兰城市的广告和其他印刷材料中以高知名度传播的堕胎主题，红字对通奸、出生、生活和公民身份等概念的关注找到了新的讽刺力量。此外，Hester Prynne 被描述为她所在社区的替罪羊，这与 1840 年代在媒体上流传的有关可耻的助产士堕胎主义者雷斯特尔夫人的报道一致。