Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 — 1864)

Lecture 5: Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804—1864)

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804—1864)

Hawthorne’s Works: The Scarlet Letter (1850) The House of the Seven Gables (1851) The Blithedale Romance (1852) The Marble Faun (1860) Twice-Told Tales (1837, 1851) Mosses from an Old Manse (1846, 1854) “Rappaccini’s Daughter” “The Birth-mark” “Young Goodman Brown”

Hawthorne’s Literary View: • He repeatedly complains about “the poverty of materials” in America. • He believes that romance is the predestined form of American narrative. He makes a distinction between novel and romance in his Preface to “The House of the Seven Gables”. • He is haunted by his sense of sin and evil in life, therefore we see “black vision” in his works.

Hawthorne's thematic concerns • (1) his "black" vision of life and human beings: his concern with human sin and evil

Hawthorne's literary world is a most disturbed, tormented and problematical one mostly because of his "black" vision of life and human beings. He rejected the Transcendentalists' transparent optimism about the potentialities of human nature. Instead he looked more deeply and perhaps more honestly into life, finding in it much suffering and conflict but also finding the redeeming power of love.

According to Hawthorne, "There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity." A piece of literary work should "show how we are all wronged and wrongers, and avenge one another."

So in almost every book he wrote, Hawthorne discusses sin and evil. In "Young Goodman Brown," he sets out to prove that everyone possesses some evil secret. Its hero, a naive young man who accepts both societies in general and his fellow men as individuals worth his regard, is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and becomes thereafter distrustful and doubtful.

"The Minister's B1ack Veil" goes further to suggest that everyone tries to hold the evil secret from one another in the way the minister tries to convince his people with his black vei1." The Birthmark" drives home symbolically Hawthorne's point that evi1 is man's birthmark, something he is born with.

(2)Hawthorne's view of Puritanism: • Hawthorne's view of man and human history originates, to a great extent, in Puritanism. He was not a Puritan himself, but he had Puritan ancestors who p1ayed an important role in his life and works. He believed that "the wrong doing of one generation lives into the successive ones," and often wondered if he might have inherited some of their guilt.

This sensibility 1ed to his understanding of evil being at the very core of human life, which is typical of the Calvinistic belief that human beings are basically depraved and corrupted, hence, they should obey God to atone for their sins.

(3) his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter • Hawthorne's remarkable sense of the Puritan past, his understanding of the co1onial history in New England, his apparent preoccupation with the moral issues of sin and guilt, and his keen psychological analysis of people are brought to full display in his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter.

theme: This novel, together with some other of Hawthorne's work, assumes the universality of guilt and explores the complexities and ambiguities of man's choices. It is marked by a depth of psychological and moral insight seldom equaled and never surpassed by any American writer.

In this particular nove1, Hawthorne does not intend to tell a love story nor a story of sin, but focuses his attention on the moral, emotional, and psychological effects or consequences of the sin on the people in general and those main characters in particular, so as to show us the tension between society and individuals. " To Hawthorne, everybody is potentially a sinner, and great moral courage is therefore indispensable for the improvement of human nature, as is shown in the The Scarlet Letter.

The structure and the form of his writings are always carefully worked out to cater for the thematic concern. He was a skillful craftsman with an impressive sense of form. Hawthorne was also the master of a classic literary style that is remarkable for its directness, its clarity, its firmness and its sureness of idiom.

With his specia1 interest in the psychologica1 aspect of human beings, there isn't much action, or physical movement going on in his works and he is good at exploring the complexity of human psychology. So his drama is Thought, full of mental activities. Thought propels action and grows organically out of the interaction of the characters, as we can find in The Scarlet Letter.

symbolism • The symbo1 can be found everywhere in his writing, and his masterpiece provides the most conclusive proof. The scarlet letter "A" is the central symbol of The Scarlet Letter, with which Hawthorne proves himself to be one of the best symbolists.

As a key to the whole novel, the letter A takes on different layers of symbolic meanings as the plot develops. At the beginning of the novel Hester was discovered to have committed adultery and was punished to wear a scarlet letter "A" made of cloth at her bosom and the letter symbolized her sin-"adultery".

Then when Hester became gradually accepted by the community through her honesty and hard work, it stands for Hester's intelligence and hard work-"able". At the end of the novel the symbol has evolved to represent the high virtues of Hester-"angelic".

So the letter changes from a symbol of sin to a symbol of ability and at last of the high human virtue. By using Pearl as a thematic symbo1, Hawthorne emphasizes the consequence the sin of adultery has brought to the community and people living in that community.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 — 1864)