Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804-1864
These brief notes are meant to supplement, not replace, your textbook,
your own writing and research, and class discussions about Hawthorne and
his works. I've also developed a brief annotated list of Hawthorne
Research Resources. Among them is Hawthorne
in Salem, a new Website that has digitized many important artifacts
of Hawthorne's hometown and life, courtesy of several museums and educational
organizations. For establishing the context that will help you understand
Hawthorne's world view, this site is valuable. In addition, you will receive
credit for using and evaluating the site.
Born in Salem, Massachusetts, descendant of five generations of Puritans,
including Judge William Hathorne, who had participated in the Salem witch
trials (one of the accused had cursed Hathorne and descendants). After
college graduation, he lived in relative seclusion for twelve years (1825-1837)
but did socialize in Salem and keep in touch with friends; however, he
mostly read and wrote. He married Sophia Peabody, tried communal living
at Brook Farm, worked in the Custom House, served as American consulate
in Liverpool, and visited Italy. See the Hawthorne in Salem Website for
more details.
Hawthorne was a friend of the American transcendentalists but differed
from them in his belief in sin and guilt, which many transcendentalists
considered to be illusion.
Style
- Allegorical: Allegory is a literary technique (a type of metaphor,
actually) that draws parallels between aspects of the story (usually
characters and events) and abstract concepts, particularly moral issues.
These specific moral concepts, as Holman describes them (1980), "represent
meanings independent of the action in the surface story" (11).
- Ambiguous: Ambiguity is the expression of an idea in language that
suggests more than one meaning and leaves uncertainty as to the intended
significance-yet all suggestions work and thus enrich the work with
multiple possibilities of meaning and sometimes ambivalent, characterized
by uncertainty, confusion, conflicting or contradictory feelings and/or
attitudes; sometimes ironic
- Romantic-emphasizing internal and imaginative approaches to truth-rather
than realistic, as in the novel, which approaches truth in the context
of external events that seem actual (see Hawthorne's Preface to The
House of the Seven Gables, 1851)
- Light and dark imagery (corresponds to themes of discrepancy between
appearance and reality, lack of distinction between actual and imaginary,
and the difficulty of human perception)
- Seriousness and gravity of tone
- Eloquence and formality of language
Motifs
- Interplay/conflict of appearance and reality/real and imaginary
Hawthorne juggles always with contradictions; he seems to be warning
us that things are seldom as they seem, that in life, as in the topsy-turvy
world of dreams, the impossible and the possible, the credible and the
incredible, are not so far apart as we would believe. (Edel, et al.,
1959)
- Spiller (Literary History of the United States, 1963) writes
that Hawthorne expresses a disillusionment about human nature that typifies
the age in which he wrote-not just a symptom of Hawthorne's own "brooding,
introspective character" (430).
- Problems of moral and social responsibility
- Perpetuation of guilt/sin/evil from generation to generation
- Frequently presented through the initiation of an innocent who
gains knowledge of self and others
- Presence of sin, evil and guilt in human nature
- Concern about isolation/withdrawal/arrogance/cynicism-the dangers
of cold intellectualism (alienation)
Notes on "Rappaccini's Daughter"
| Notes on "The Birthmark" | Hawthorne
Research Resources
for educational purposes only
developed and copyright ©2001 by D. Reiss
modified and copyright ©19 February 2005 by D. Reiss
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