Nathaniel Hawthorne Essay Research Paper From the

Nathaniel Hawthorne Essay, Research Paper

From the staging in the Scarlett Letter, to the dark, deep, and evil woods of

Young Goodman Brown ; these are elements of Puritanism. Nathaniel Hawthorne,

in his literary plants, dramatizes his lineage and background of Puritanism.

Hawthorne was born and raised in Salem, Massachusetts, to one New England s

oldest Puritan households. When Hawthorne was four, his male parent died, and from there

on he was surrounded by females: two sisters, his retiring female parent, and a inaugural aunt.

That is where his ties to his male parent s household side were lost, and he grew to his maternal

side. They were supportive and made sure that he was to go to college, the first in

his household to make so ( Turner 33 ) . During his four old ages at Bowdoin college, despite his

recluse nature, he established close relationships with his schoolmates, some for life.

Among his schoolmates were soon-to-be of import political and literary figures of the

twenty-four hours: future Senator Jonathan Ciley, future President Franklin Pierce, and authors

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Horatio Bridge. These four old ages of sharing

company with others were contrasted by his following twelve old ages of

self-determined isolation spent in the upper floor of his female parent s place back in Salem.

There he spent all his clip seeking to get the hang the art of authorship. Besides, in that clip of

isolation, researching the local New England history for background usage in his fiction

Hagiographas, Hawthorne made a surprising find. His 17th century paternal

ascendants, which he ever assumed to be husbandmans and mariners had been major

laminitiss, political leaders, and besides spiritual Puritan leaders of Salem. Elementss of

household and local history provided much of the stuff for some of

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Hawthorne s fictional plants. His great-grandfather was one of the most intense of all

the old Salem witchtrial Judgess.

Hawthorne viewed his Puritan ascendants with a mixture of pride and guilt. He

felt pride in seeing the history of his ain household involved so profoundly with

Salem ( Turner 5 ) . He was proud of their success and achievements in establishing a

bulk of Salem. On the other manus, he felt guilty for his ascendant s portion in the

witchtrials along with all the prosecutions of Religious society of friendss. In Young Goodman Brown

the Satan tells Brown that I helped your gramps, the constable, when he lashed

that adult female so cleverly ( Hawthorne 2131 ) . Hawthorne frequently called the Puritan life of

his ascendants strict. He was cognizant of the figured bass tenseness and conflict between the

flesh and the spirit in all the lives of Puritans. From this he created many of his

literary quandary in characters belonging to his plants in the Scarlett Letter and

Young Goodman Brown every bit good in some of his other plants. It was in the three

immoralities, ennui, frailty, and desire, kept within his characters, under a forceful manus of

faith, that produced these internal struggles. With Hawthorne s disbelieving,

dual-outlook on life, by the 1830 s, he had chosen to pass tierce of his life in

self-determined isolation. Though he chose it, it was wholly against his beliefs.

Hawthorne believed society to be all important. What Hawthorne learned from his

associations with pe

ople and in current thoughts in college convinced him of the demand for

societal duty and human concerns ( Johnson 35 ) . Hawthorne felt that the

human must hold significance and value merely through common relationships ( Anderson 60 ) .

The same pick between isolation and portion of society is frequently found in the characters

in his literary plants incorporating a Puritan scene. Coming out of his old ages of stray

survey, Hawthorne s unique, dual-outlook of life caused him to invariably seek to see

both sides of state of affairss ; and

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subsequently uncertainties would increase his incredulity. He adopted a womb-to-tomb doctrine of

uncertainness both in his private life, and in his fiction ( Donaldson 216 ) .

Hawthorne s mental and moral beliefs are revealed throughout Young Goodman

Brown. Puritans believed that the autumn of Adam was the heritage of all work forces, and

to deliver oneself came merely through Christ. Hawthorne came to believe that the autumn

was by human mistake, and that damnation is non inherited but chosen and is

redeemable through human bureau ( Ziff 140 ) . He thought that worlds portion a type

of brotherhood of guilt. If guilt itself was escapable, brotherhood with the guilty

was non ( Ziff 142 ) . This belief of Hawthornes is the swiveling point of this narrative.

Peoples in the Puritan society were invariably tormented because of the possible

strong beliefs and judgements of the other townsfolk. This conflict in each Puritan

intrigued Hawthorne and he sought out its presence in Puritan literature. Plants such

as Cotton Mather s Magnalia fascinated Hawthorne. Because it held the morbid

strength with which he projected typical characteristics of the Puritan imaginativeness of

world. Mather besides believed there were evil liquors in the universe, these unlovely

devils were everyplace, in the sunlight every bit good as in the darkness, and that they

were hidden in work forces s Black Marias and stole into their most secret idea ( Abel 133 ) .

Those evil liquors tortured the Puritan, invariably reminding him of his wickedness and the

conflict in his ain bosom. Hawthorne showed the presence of devils in Young

Goodman Brown by demoing through Brown, a Puritan s journey to happen his ain

Justification ( Fogle 16 ) . When Goodman Brown entered the forest to confront immorality with

his religion. He found in the wood together, both pious and the lesser Godly people of

the town. It was unusual that the good shrank non from the wicked, nor were the

evildoers abashed by the saints ( Hawthorne 2135 ) . Unable to accept that society is a

brotherhood of both good and evil, Brown chose his ain damnation. Brown chose

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to see that all were evil and lost has opportunity at salvation when he chose to insulate himself

and to stand down to his religion and fellow adult male. Men like Brown are everyplace in today s

society, and there still are others who try and destroy that which they do non understand,

or decline to understand like Hawthorne demonstrates frequently in his plants, which contain a

Puritan scene. One of Hawthorne s subjects in his literary plants is pride ; religious pride is

demonstrated by the Goodman Brown here in his novel. Hawthorne rounds off the

Puritan rhythm in American literature in his belief on the being of an immorality, the Satan, and

in a sense of determinism ( Rueben 2 ) .