Nathaniel Hawthorne
1804-1864
Influences on Hawthorne
 His early childhood in Salem and work
in the Salem Custom House.
 His Puritan family background.
 He believed in the existence of the
devil.
 He believed in determinism, a theory
of predestination
The Puritans
 Puritanism is the religious reform
movement of the 16th and 17th centuries
seeking to purify the Church of England
 Characterized by earnest, intense moral
and religious principles such as the
necessary covenant relationship with God,
the emphasis on preaching and the Holy
Spirit’s dominance over reason as the
instrument of salvation
 America: a Holy Commonwealth and a
covenanted community
The Pilgrims
 Settlers of Plymouth, MA, the first
permanent colony in New England –
1620
 Members of the English Separatist
Church, which was a radical faction of
Puritanism
The Salem Witch Trials
 May – October 1692: Salem, MA
 Constitute a series of investigations
and persecutions that caused 19
“witches” to be hanged and many
others imprisoned
 Period of public hysteria generated by
false accusations and coerced
confessions
Works
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Fanshawe (1828)
Mosses from an Old Manse (1846)
The Scarlet Letter (1850)
The House of Seven Gables (1851)
The Snow-Image (1851)
The Blithedale Romance (1852)
Life of Franklin Pierce (1852)
The Marble Faun (1860)
His Themes in Writing
Moral allegories
The sinful man
Hypocrisy
The Dark side of
Human Nature
 Religion in Nature
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Hawthorne’s contributions
 Hawthorne rounds off the puritan cycle in
American writing - belief in the existence of
an active evil (the devil) and in a sense of
determinism (the concept of
predestination).
 Hawthorne's use of psychological analysis
(pre-Freudian) is of interest today.
 In themes and style, Hawthorne's writings
look ahead to Henry James, William
Faulkner, and Robert Penn Warren.
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Hawthorne’s Black Vision of Life
haunted by his sense of sin and evil in life. Most of his works deal with
evil one way or another.
A. Evil exists in the human heart (“Earthy Holocaust”)
B. Everyone possesses some evil secret (“Young Goodman Brown”)
C. Everyone seems to cover up his innermost evil (“The Minister’s
Black Veil”)
D. Evil seems to be man’s birthmark.
E. Evil comes out of evil though, and it may take many generations
F. One source of evil is overweening intellect. (The tension between the
head and the heart) Hawthorne’s intellectual characters are usually
villains, dreadful because devoid of fellow feelings.
(Chillingworth, Dr. Rappaccini – Hawthorne’s negative attitude toward
science is reflected in his writings and characterizations).
The Scarlet Letter
 The story of Hester Prynne reveals
the moral, emotional, and
psychological effect of the sin on the
people in general .
 Sober, dark mood is well defined from
the very beginning of the novel.
The Major Characters
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A. Hester Prynne: This book is not a praise of Hester Prynne sinning, but a
hymn on the moral growth of the woman when sinned against.
Hester’s life eventually acquires a real significance when she reestablishes a
meaningful relationship with her fellowmen.
Symbolic of her moral development is the gradual, imperceptible change
which the scarlet letter undergoes in meaning. A – “Adultery” “Able”, “Angel”
(“Adamic” the original sin or “America”)
B. Arthur Dimmesdale banishes himself from the society. Deeply concerned
with himself, he lives a stranger among his admirers. He undergoes the tragic
expericence of physical and spiritual disintergration.
C. Roger Chillingworth, the real villain of the story, embodies pure intellect,
who commits “the unpardonable sin” (the violation of heart)