Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born July 4th in Salem, Massachusetts, five generations removed from his Puritan ancestors, of whom Judge Hawthorne took part in the Salem witch trials. At age twelve, he went to live with an uncle in Maine and returned to Salem to attend Bowdoin College, continuing to live in Salem for several years after graduation. He became secretly engaged to Sophia Peabody and stayed for seven months at Brook Farm, a famous experiment in communal living.
After leaving Brook Farm, Hawthorne took a job at the Boston Custom House, married Peabody, and settled at Emerson’s home, the Old Manse. He lost his job in Customs when the Democratic party was forced out in the next elections. Hawthorne eventually settled at Wayside in Concord and was appointed Consul to Liverpool by his old college friend, President Franklin Pierce. Hawthorne died at Plymouth while on a walking tour.
Two misconceptions have long existed about Hawthorne: that he was a recluse and that he had a vendetta against Puritanism. He was actually a very public figure, and his works often exploited his own understanding of the colonial history of New England. He was absorbed by enigmas of evil and moral responsibility and the idea of man’s destiny in nature and eternity. He hated intolerance, hypocrisy, and greed.
Major themes in his fiction include alienation, the problem of guilt, the destructive power of pride, hypocrisy, and the role of the artist. Major influences include his time in Salem, his Puritan family background, and his beliefs in the existence of the devil and in determinism. All of these influences and themes appear in his novels (Fanshawe, The Blithedale Romance, The House of the Seven Gables, The Scarlet Letter, The Marble Faun) and his many short stories.
Questions to Accompany the Reading
“Young Goodman Brown” operates as a parable of sin and faith set in Puritan America. What conclusions does the parable make? How is Brown changed by his encounter in the forest, and what does that reveal about him and those with whom he will spend his life?
What is meant by the narrator’s suggestion that it makes little difference whether Brown’s experience at the forest altar was a dream or reality?
Discuss the first paragraph of “The Minister’s Black Veil” and what it reveals about the lives of the people and about the religious arena in which the Reverend Mr. Hooper’s actions occur.
Hawthorne is known for his ambiguity, or the uncertainty that operates within his stories on the levels of language, human conduct, and plot. Choose one short story from this section and explain how such ambiguity asks readers to rethink their assumptions about a particular character, mindset, historical moment, and so on.
