Nathaniel Hawthorne(1804-1864) Image Courtesy Library of Congress

1. Nathaniel Hawthorne(1804-1864)Image Courtesy Library of Congress

2. Key Dates: Hawthorne in Context Consider the classic American works published in a five-year period with the United States seventy-five years old: • 1850 – Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter Emerson’s Representative Men • 1851 – Melville’s Moby-Dick • 1852 – Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin • 1854 – Thoreau’s Walden • 1855 – Whitman’s Leaves of Grass

3. Key Facts about Hawthorne • Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on July 4, 1804, into a family that had long been in the area: One ancestor had come over in 1630 and another presided over the Salem witch trials. • In 1825, he graduated from Bowdoin College, where he became friends with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Franklin Pierce (later to become the 14th president of the United States). • After graduation, he spent the next twelve years in his mother’s Salem home developing his literary skills. He called this period his “twelve dark years” in an effort to create a legend of a gloomy, solitary existence. • In truth, he visited friends and frequented local taverns; he took summer tours taking advantage of an uncle’s stage-line business; and he found himself interested in long, sensational murder trials.

4. Key Facts about Hawthorne • Hawthorne, however, did develop a fascination for introspection, morbidity, and the dark side of existence. Thus, those years were more psychologically than socially dark. • In 1837, Hawthorne published Twice-Told Tales, a collection of short stories that he had published in magazines. Sales were slight. • Beginning in 1839 and until 1849, he worked at the Boston Custom House through political connections. • In 1841, he spent seven months at Brook Farm, the Transcendentalist utopian community. • 1842, he married Sophia Peabody and they settled in Old Manse, the home of Emerson’s ancestors and Emerson himself when he wrote Nature in 1836.

5. Key Facts about Hawthorne • With sales of his writings still meager, he returned to Salem and took a job as a surveyor in the Custom House in 1846. That same year, he issued a collection of short stories, Mosses from an Old Manse. When the Democrats were defeated in the 1849 election, Hawthorne lost his position in the Custom House. He began work on The Scarlet Letter. • Published in 1850, The Scarlet Letter was an immediate success, bringing Hawthorne fame and profit. • Now at the height of his powers, Hawthorne published major works, The House of the Seven Gables (1851) and The Blithedale Romance (1852).

6. Key Facts about Hawthorne • In 1852, Hawthorne wrote The Life of Franklin Pierce. When Pierce, his college friend became U.S. president, he rewarded Hawthorne by making him consul at Liverpool (1853-1857). The appointment gave Hawthorne a chance to tour England and Europe. In 1860, Hawthorne published the allegorical novel The Marble Faun, inspired by a year in Italy. • Hawthorne returned home in 1860. His last years were marked by anxiety over financial worries and the Civil War. • Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864 while on a walking tour.

7. Key Issues: Hawthorne and the Puritans • Hawthorne’s best work was inspired by the Puritans. Consider The Scarlet Letter, “Young Goodman Brown,” “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “The Maypole of Merry Mount,” and “Ethan Brand.” • The Puritans gave Hawthorne artistic material from which he could speculate about the psyche and the effects of the past on the present. • Hawthorne presents the Puritans as dour, gloomy, narrow-minded, and “dismal wretches” (ATIL, p. 1336). • For Hawthorne, the Puritan ethos represented a censorship of the imagination. • Hawthorne’s portrait of the Puritans is harsh and not completely accurate. The Puritans did try to enjoy life; they liked colorful clothes; they took pride in well-kept homes; and they liked to take a drink, although they despised the drunkard.

8. Key Issues: The Subconscious Mind • Hawthorne is concerned with internal struggles and dilemmas, and what lies beneath the conscious mind. • Internal forces often pull his characters in two directions. • While Emerson calls on individuals to “trust thyself” and listen to their inner voice, Hawthorne seems to respond with a question: which inner voice do I listen to? • In “My Kinsman, Major Molineux,” Robin Molineux seems to be looking for his uncle’s residence – and he is. But is he subconsciously trying to subvert this intention? What does Hawthorne mean, for instance, by Robin’s “instinctive antipathy” to authority (ATIL, p. 1303)? • Consider Wakefield who leaves his wife on a “whim-wham” (p. 1321) – remember Emerson’s “whim” in “Self-Reliance” (p. 936). Wakefield’s motives seem inscrutable.

9. Key Issues: Sin • Hawthorne is interested in the psychological aspects of sin, not the act of sinning or the sin itself. He focuses on the effects of the sin on the sinners and on those close to the sinners. • Hawthorne investigates the effects of inherited sin, hidden sin, and the consequences of exposing sin. • The Scarlet Letter is a novel about sin. Consider the effects of the sin on Hester and Pearl; consider Dimmesdale’s struggle with hidden sin, and the corruption of Chillingworth as he pries into the heart of another in an attempt to expose sin.