《水浒传》和《红字》皆被赞誉为世界上伟大的文学著作，给世人留下了有关道德、伦理等方面的影响。众所周知，《红字》主要集中在通奸罪这一重要的伦理问题上，反映了最真实的社会、宗教法则以及女主角海斯特.白兰的个人品质。事实上，尽管《水浒传》以赞颂梁山好汉为主题，但是其中一个最具代表性的一个故事则是关于潘金莲通奸害死武大的故事。通过分析海斯特和潘金莲的故事，笔者发现，她们有着相似的人生经历，然而在人生选择上却不相同。因此这两个文学形象非常值得进行比较，由此读者可以对二者有一个更好的理解。 潘金莲被施耐庵塑造成一个消极的形象。尽管她坚持寻求自身的权利，但是其选择实现梦想的方式却打破了人类道德的基础，这使她变成了一个消极的女性形象。同潘金莲相比，海斯特也持着追求真爱的梦想，但不同于潘金莲的是，当面临相似的通奸罪问题时，海斯特选择了一个正确的方式来实现自己的追求，给读者留下了一个积极的印象。这两位有着相似经历却对生活作出不同抉择的文学女性也使当代读者对她们产生了不同的评价。基于这种现象，本文将进行潘金莲和海斯特之间的对比分析，找出二者的相同之处和不同点。 本文分为三大部分。第一部分为引言，介绍有关霍桑和《红字》中海斯特的故事，以及施耐庵和潘金莲的经历。第二部分和第三部分主要谈论潘金莲和海斯特之间的相似之处和不同。最后，第四部分回顾了前文的要点，并得出进一步的结论,即海斯特和潘金莲对待相似的命运悲剧时的不同选择和态度，导致了她们不同的人生结局。因此通过对两个相似的文学人物的细节性对比，可以使我们更全面地理解两部作品和角色。

Outlaws of the Marsh and The Scarlet Letter are both praised as the great classical works in the world, which give people deep influences concerning morality, ethics and so on. It’s known that The Scarlet Letter mainly focuses on the important ethical problem— adultery, which reflects the most authentic social and religious rules and the heroine Hester Prynne’s personality. Actually, adultery is also talked a lot in many chapters of Outlaws of the Marsh although the novel’s theme is phrasing heroes of Mount Liang, and the most representative story is about that Pan Jinlian commits adultery and kills Wu Da. By analyzing the stories of Hester and Pan Jinlian, it is easy to find that they have some similar life experience meanwhile there are some differences between their choices to life. Thus, the two important literary images are worthy to be compared, so that readers can have a better understanding about them. Pan Jinlian is created as a negative image by Shi Nai’an. She insists on pursuing her rights, but the methods she chooses to realize her dream breaks the basic human morality, making her get a negative female image. Compared with Pan Jinlian, Hester also has the dream to have her true love. But different from Pan Jinlian, Hester chooses a right way to realize her pursuit when facing the similar adultery, leaving readers a positive impression. The two literary females who have similar experience but make different choices for life have made modern readers have different comments on them. Basing on this phenomenon, this paper is trying to make comparison between Pan Jinlian and Hester, presenting the similarities and differences between them. This paper could be divided into four parts. The first is introduction, which talks about Hawthorne and Hester’s experience in The Scarlet Letter. Then, Shi Nai’an and Pan Jinlian’s experience will be talked. The second part and the third part mainly discuss the similarities and differences between Pan Jinlian and Hester. Finally, the fourth part reviews the previous demonstrations and draws a deeper conclusion that Pan Jinlian and Hester’s different choices and attitudes to the similar tragedy of fate cause the differences of their life’s ending. Thus by making a detailed comparison between the similar literary images, we can acquire a more comprehensive understanding of both the works and characters.