Angelo Kirchon
ERH 206WX—01
COL Ball
Analytic Research Paper with Reflective Tag- Final Copy
Help Received: See Works Cited and Peer Review
______________________

How The Puritan Past Affected Hawthorne’s Message
It has been said that every piece of New England can be traced back to where it originated. This is true for its authors and artists as well, not just its physical history.
Henry James, an American writer and literary critic, recognized this and said, “Out of the soil of New England he sprang ,
” referring to Hawthorne. “In a crevice of that immitigable granite he spouted and bloomed”. James also said “Hawthorne had regards to two earlier centuries of New England Life” (Taylor 3-4). These previous two centuries of New England life can be traced back to Nathanial Hawthorne’s ancestors, and how their role in the persecution of Quakers had an immeasurable impact on the meaning of
Hawthorne’s writing.
Hawthorne’s works are deeply concerned with the ethical problems of sin, and punishment. Hawthorne’s exploration of these themes was related to the sense of guilt he felt about the role of his ancestors in puritan history. William Hawthorne, the founder of the Hawthorne family in America, was one of the main puritan leaders in the persecution of Quakers. Also one of Nathanial Hawthorne’s ancestors closer to his time period, Judge
John Hawthorne, became a leading judge in the Salem witch trials (Conway13-16).
Some of the brutalities committed by William Hawthorne included the whipping of Ann Coleman, and the naked lashing of Deborah Wilson in downtown Salem. Both of these women were Quakers and were persecuted for that sole reason. Judge John
Hawthorne also has some Quaker connections. John Hawthorne persecuted a so-called witch, just for having Quaker sympathies. These Quaker brutalities can be seen in many of Hawthorne’s writings, which included The Gentle boy, Young Goodman Brown, and
The Maypole of Marymount (Moore 32).

In Young Goodman Brown , there is one specific event when themes of sin and punishment can be traced back to Hawthorne’s ancestors. This event occurs when
Goodman Brown is speaking to the man in the woods who is a symbol for the devil. The man says, “I have been as well acquitted with your family as with ever a one among the puritans. I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker women”(Hawthorne 86). The similarities are undeniable between Hawthorne’s family history and Young Goodman Brown fictional family history. This message of the sin of puritans and his ancestors being directly influenced by the devil is very important.
Hawthorne was ashamed at some of the atrocities that had been committed and suggested that the puritans could only have committed them with the influence of the devil
(Williamson 157).
The Gentle Boy is another story in which brutality of the Quakers can be seen. In this story, “The Quakers are pictured” by Hawthorne as “full of holy courage, and this is unknown to the Puritans. The Quakers had shunned the holy cross according to the puritans, by providing for the peaceful exercise of their religion in a distant wilderness”
(Mills 80). The stories plot starts with a Quaker child having been adopted by a puritan family because he lost his father and mother to persecution by the puritans for the heresy of Quakerism. The adopted child suffers a terrible beating from his fellow children of the community. This is all despite the fact that this Quaker child had the kindest and brightest of souls (Taylor 38). This undeserved cruelty can be seen in Hawthorne’s ancestors as well. As previously stated, Judge John Hawthorne had someone murdered for being a witch, just because he had sympathies for Quakers. The only crime the man committed was not partaking in the ruthless persecution of Quakers. To Nathanial Hawthorne’s

ancestors, this meant the man must be a witch. To Hawthorne himself, this meant he was a good man.
The Maypole of Marymount , even though not about Quakers, has the same symbolism. In this story, Endecott is pictured as “The Puritan of Puritans.”(Mills 82) In this story there is a settlement of “straggling savages”, not far from a settlement of puritans. Endecott, leading the Puritans, murders the “savages” and tears down their symbol of religion, The Maypole. This still qualifies as religious persecution and leads back to how Hawthorne’s ancestors’ actions affected him. During the early to mid-19 th century when Hawthorne was writing, religious freedom was an accepted practice. The
Bill of Rights had been passed in 1791, and religious persecution was prohibited. The things John Hawthorne, William Hawthorne, and the rest of the Puritan community did went again all the beliefs of the time of Nathaniel Hawthorne. This is why the symbolism and themes of Young Goodman Brown, The Gentle Boy and The Maypole of Marymount all involve the wrongdoings of the Puritans and evil within man.
One last story where the past had an effect on the present is The House of Seven
Gables . The effect of the past can be immediately felt in the preface. A quote reads,
“Many writers lay very great stress upon some definite moral purpose at which they profess to aim their works. The author has provided himself with morals; the truth, namely that the wrongdoing of one generation lives into the successive ones” (---.
Seymour 2). In this quote, Hawthorne tells us that a theme of this novel is that wrong and retribution, as well as sin and suffering, will be carried on through generations. This explains that Hawthorne himself is still haunted by the actions of his ancestors, and that

understanding the past can help someone recognize the message of this story. The Old
Pyncheon may not be the Hawthorne family but the messages are still the same.
Hawthorne and his stories are so closely identified with puritans and New
England culture. As Poe observed, in his review of Hawthorne, “Hawthorne began his tales with some single with some preconceived effect or theme in his mind and then invented in his imagination of adapted from history such incidents as helped to achieve his pre-established design” (Taylor 21). Hawthorne did not see all of puritanism in a bad way. He viewed many things within puritanism as good such as their ability to simplify worship and the beauty of holiness, their seriousness of purpose, and their devotion to the life of the mind and soul. All of these things can be read about in some of his other stores.
Some people might say since he viewed puritanism as good, then how could his ancestors have influence such negation of the religion within Hawthorne. The stories presented all have one overall themed message. Nathanial Hawthorne did not agree with all of the principles of the previous generations of Puritans. The ones he did not agree with were directly affected by previous generations. As Hawthorne researched and learned more about his family history, he became affected by it in a special way. Hawthorne wrote once in one of his notebooks “the spirit of my Puritan ancestors was mighty within me”
(Mills 88).
In conclusion, Hawthorne learned a new sense of morality through the negative examples of his ancestors, which he could never forget. He learned that the proper combination of the mind and the heart is a guide to moral action. Puritans demonstrated to him that even the most preferably deduced principles may prove unreliable and must always be subordinate to the humane and moral dictates. The best sounding principles,

the highest of places of the Puritan community, should have been corrected or abandoned if, in practice, they violate the dignity of other people. In the case of the Puritans, they sometimes did. His new message of morality is what Nathanial Hawthorne tried to portray in most of his Puritan-themed stories (Taylor 7).

Works Cited
Conway, Moncure Daniel. "Life of Hawthorne." Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne . New
York: Haskell House, 1968. 13-27. Print.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, and James McIntosh. Nathaniel Hawthorne's Tales: Authoritative
Texts, Backgrounds, Criticism . New York: Norton, 1987. Print.
---. Seymour Lee Gross. "Preface." Preface. The House of the Seven Gables: An
Authoritative Text Backgrounds and Sources Essays in Criticism . Taipei: Maa
Ling, 1979. N. pag. Print.
Mills, Barriss. "Hawthorne and Puritanism." The New England Quarterly 21.1 (1948):
78-102. JSTOR . Web. 12 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/361158?ref=no-xroute:89675c4077fc5ce1a3d4e928accaa243>.
Moore, Margaret B. "2. The Long Past." The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne .
Columbia: U of Missouri, 1998. 28-49. Print.
Taylor, J. Golden. Hawthorne's Ambivalence toward Puritanism . Logan: Utah State UP,
1965. Print.
Williamson, James L. "'Young Goodman Brown': Hawthorne's 'Devil In Manuscript'."
Studies In Short Fiction 18.2 (1981): 155. Academic Search Complete . Web.
12 Nov. 2014.

Reflective Tag
While writing this research paper I learned a lot. I really began o understand the meaning of some of hawthorns writings and how they had a cultural impact in the past and the present. Nathanial Hawthorne used past culture to try to influence current culture.
I began to start to understand and see how everything learned this year in class so far, really does relate to culture. Culture is no just how people act, it’s a way of life and how people are influences, and how their ideas progress. This idea of progression is what
Hawthorne tried to do wit someone of his stories. Learn from the past and do not make the same mistakes again. Also every time I do a research paper, I get a better understanding of what it takes to write a successful one, no matter what the subject matter is.