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In 'Rappaccini's Daughter,' Beatrice suffers for the sins of her father. ... His characters replace intimacy with other external concerns. ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Nathaniel Hawthorne18041864 Image Courtesy Library of Congress


1
Nathaniel Hawthorne(1804-1864)Image Courtesy
Library of Congress
2
Key Dates Hawthorne in Context
  • Consider the classic American works published in
    a five-year period with the United States
    seventy-five years old
  • 1850 Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter
  • Emersons Representative Men
  • 1851 Melvilles Moby-Dick
  • 1852 Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin
  • 1854 Thoreaus Walden
  • 1855 Whitmans Leaves of Grass

3
Key Facts about Hawthorne
  • Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on
    July 4, 1804, into a family that had long been in
    the area One ancestor had come over in 1630 and
    another presided over the Salem witch trials.
  • In 1825, he graduated from Bowdoin College, where
    he became friends with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
    and Franklin Pierce (later to become the 14th
    president of the United States).
  • After graduation, he spent the next twelve years
    in his mothers Salem home developing his
    literary skills. He called this period his
    twelve dark years in an effort to create a
    legend of a gloomy, solitary existence.
  • In truth, he visited friends and frequented local
    taverns he took summer tours taking advantage of
    an uncles stage-line business and he found
    himself interested in long, sensational murder
    trials.

4
Key Facts about Hawthorne
  • Hawthorne, however, did develop a fascination for
    introspection, morbidity, and the dark side of
    existence. Thus, those years were more
    psychologically than socially dark.
  • In 1837, Hawthorne published Twice-Told Tales, a
    collection of short stories that he had published
    in magazines. Sales were slight.
  • Beginning in 1839 and until 1849, he worked at
    the Boston Custom House through political
    connections.
  • In 1841, he spent seven months at Brook Farm, the
    Transcendentalist utopian community.
  • 1842, he married Sophia Peabody and they settled
    in Old Manse, the home of Emersons ancestors and
    Emerson himself when he wrote Nature in 1836.

5
Key Facts about Hawthorne
  • With sales of his writings still meager, he
    returned to Salem and took a job as a surveyor in
    the Custom House in 1846. That same year, he
    issued a collection of short stories, Mosses from
    an Old Manse. When the Democrats were defeated in
    the 1849 election, Hawthorne lost his position in
    the Custom House. He began work on The Scarlet
    Letter.
  • Published in 1850, The Scarlet Letter was an
    immediate success, bringing Hawthorne fame and
    profit.
  • Now at the height of his powers, Hawthorne
    published major works, The House of the Seven
    Gables (1851) and The Blithedale Romance (1852).

6
Key Facts about Hawthorne
  • In 1852, Hawthorne wrote The Life of Franklin
    Pierce. When Pierce, his college friend became
    U.S. president, he rewarded Hawthorne by making
    him consul at Liverpool (1853-1857). The
    appointment gave Hawthorne a chance to tour
    England and Europe. In 1860, Hawthorne published
    the allegorical novel The Marble Faun, inspired
    by a year in Italy.
  • Hawthorne returned home in 1860. His last years
    were marked by anxiety over financial worries and
    the Civil War.
  • Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864 while on a walking
    tour.

7
Key Issues Hawthorne and the Puritans
  • Hawthornes best work was inspired by the
    Puritans. Consider The Scarlet Letter, Young
    Goodman Brown, The Ministers Black Veil, The
    Maypole of Merry Mount, and Ethan Brand.
  • The Puritans gave Hawthorne artistic material
    from which he could speculate about the psyche
    and the effects of the past on the present.
  • Hawthorne presents the Puritans as dour, gloomy,
    narrow-minded, and dismal wretches (ATIL, p.
    1336).
  • For Hawthorne, the Puritan ethos represented a
    censorship of the imagination.
  • Hawthornes portrait of the Puritans is harsh and
    not completely accurate. The Puritans did try to
    enjoy life they liked colorful clothes they
    took pride in well-kept homes and they liked to
    take a drink, although they despised the drunkard.

8
Key Issues The Subconscious Mind
  • Hawthorne is concerned with internal struggles
    and dilemmas, and what lies beneath the conscious
    mind.
  • Internal forces often pull his characters in two
    directions.
  • While Emerson calls on individuals to trust
    thyself and listen to their inner voice,
    Hawthorne seems to respond with a question which
    inner voice do I listen to?
  • In My Kinsman, Major Molineux, Robin Molineux
    seems to be looking for his uncles residence
    and he is. But is he subconsciously trying to
    subvert this intention? What does Hawthorne
    mean, for instance, by Robins instinctive
    antipathy to authority (ATIL, p. 1303)?
  • Consider Wakefield who leaves his wife on a
    whim-wham (p. 1321) remember Emersons whim
    in Self-Reliance (p. 936). Wakefields motives
    seem inscrutable.

9
Key Issues The Journey Within the Loss of
Innocence
  • Unconsciously, Hawthornes characters frequently
    wander into unfamiliar territories, sometimes
    representative of inner explorations, as in the
    allegorical Young Goodman Brown, whose journey
    into the heart of the solitary woods can be
    read as a journey into his own heart.
  • Consider Goodman Browns inner investigation.
    How does it result in a loss of innocence?
  • Frequently in Hawthorne, the loss of innocence or
    an awareness of a sin-ridden world has
    devastating results. Consider Ethan Brand and
    Goodman Brown. Why is Robin Molineux more
    fortunate?
  • Characters are often confused by their new-found
    knowledge. Can Rappaccinis Daughter be
    interpreted with this in mind?

10
Key Issues Sin
  • Hawthorne is interested in the psychological
    aspects of sin, not the act of sinning or the sin
    itself. He focuses on the effects of the sin on
    the sinners and on those close to the sinners.
  • Hawthorne investigates the effects of inherited
    sin, hidden sin, and the consequences of exposing
    sin.
  • Many Hawthorne characters are obsessed with sin.
    Consider Ethan Brand, Goodman Brown, Reverend
    Hooper, John Endicott, and others.
  • In Rappaccinis Daughter, Beatrice suffers for
    the sins of her father.
  • The Scarlet Letter is a novel about sin.
    Consider the effects of the sin on Hester and
    Pearl consider Dimmesdales struggle with hidden
    sin, and the corruption of Chillingworth as he
    pries into the heart of another in an attempt to
    expose sin.

11
Key Issues Sin
  • In Hawthorne and his Mosses, Melville writes of
    Hawthorne
  • Certain it is, however, that this great power of
    blackness in him derives its force from its
    appeals to that Calvinistic sense of Innate
    Depravity and Original Sin, from whose
    visitations, in some shape or other, no deeply
    thinking mind is always wholly free.

12
Key Issues Isolation Withdrawal
  • Many of Hawthornes characters live in isolation,
    frequently self-imposed.
  • Hawthornes characters seem afraid of revealing
    themselves to one another.
  • Many characters in Hawthornes fiction avoid
    marriage or intimacy Goodman Brown after his
    loss of innocence, Rev. Hooper, Ethan Brand, and
    Aylmer in The Birthmark.
  • His characters replace intimacy with other
    external concerns.

13
Key Issues The Search for Knowledge Perfection
  • When Hawthornes characters strive for perfection
    of any sort, the results are devastating for them
    and their families.
  • Intellectual pride operates throughout
    Hawthornes fiction Rappaccinis Daughter,
    The Birthmark, Young Goodman Brown, The
    Ministers Black Veil, and The Scarlet Letter.
  • Consider Ethan Brand, in which the protagonist
    explains the unpardonable sin and its
    consequences.

14
Key Issues Ambiguities
  • Hawthornes fiction is complex. He is
    intentionally ambiguous as he captures the
    complexity of existence.
  • The interplay of light-dark imagery in several
    works ( Young Goodman Brown, Ethan Brand, My
    Kinsman, Major Molineux in ATIL 11/e, shorter
    ed.) suggests not only an awareness of polarities
    but also the realization that polarities cannot
    always be reconciled. (This is also true of The
    Scarlet Letter, not included in the volume.)
  • Very rarely are Hawthornes characters completely
    good or admirable, or completely evil.
  • Hawthornes allegories and parables rarely lend
    themselves to neat interpretations. Consider
    Young Goodman Brown, The Ministers Black
    Veil. (This is also true of his complex novel,
    The Marble Faun.)

15
Key Issues Ambiguities
  • The world and morality are ambiguous in
    Hawthornes fiction, and yet as the laughter
    indicates at the end of several stories
    (Birthmark, Molineux), Hawthorne seems to be
    comfortable with ambiguity in a way that Melville
    was not. Hawthorne wrote of his friend He can
    neither believe nor be comfortable in his
    unbelief (Journal, November 20, 1856).
  • Hawthorne seems to demonstrate what John Keats
    called negative capability that is when man
    is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries,
    doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact
    reason (Keats, letter, December 1817).

16
Key Issues Intrusive Narrators Humor
  • Intrusive Narrators
  • Even in an era that welcomed intrusive narrators,
    Hawthornes are among the most surprisingly
    intrusive. Consider the comments on laughter in
    Ethan Brand, for example (ATIL, p. 689).
  • Humor
  • From time to time, Hawthorne can be humorous.
  • He can be self-deprecating. Consider The
    Custom-House and his journals (not in this
    volume).
  • He can be ironically humorous. Consider the many
    references to Robin Molineux as shrewd.
  • In their lack of compassion, his characters can
    demonstrate perhaps a dark sense of humor
    Aminadabs inappropriate laughter in The
    Birthmark, Bartrams comment at the end of
    Ethan Brand, and the Man in the Moons comment
    at the end of Molineux.

17
Key Issues Young Goodman Brown
  • Hawthorne wrote Young Goodman Brown in 1835.
    It has become an American classic and, in many
    ways, is Hawthornes representative short story.
  • In Goodman Brown Hawthorne explores his
    dominant themes, themes that would later find
    full force in The Scarlet Letter.
  • Consider Puritanism in Goodman Brown
  • Goodman Brown appears to be a potential leader of
    his Puritan community. Consider why he goes into
    the woods? Could he have been asked to
    investigate some kind of evil doings?
  • Is Brown, like many of Hawthornes Puritans,
    preoccupied with the goodness and evil in others
    and himself? Does he seem morbidly
    introspective? Is he humorless and joyless?

18
Key Issues Young Goodman Brown
  • The Subconscious Mind and the Journey Within
  • Consider the internal forces operating on Brown,
    which might include doubts about his own goodness
    and purity. Brown, newly married, is in a
    transitional state in his life.
  • Consider the story as an allegory. Could the
    forest be Browns own heart and soul? Note how
    in the heart of the dark wilderness Brown was
    the chief horror of the scene (p. 645) or the
    reference to the heart of the solitary woods
    (p. 646).
  • Consider the sudden appearance of his companion
    who bears a considerable resemblance to Brown
    (p. 642). Could he represent a part of Brown
    himself? The part Brown tries to resist but must
    yield to in his investigation?

19
Key Issues Young Goodman Brown
  • The Journey Within, the Loss of Innocence,
    Isolation and Withdrawal
  • Consider the following The fiend in his own
    shape is less hideous than when he rages in the
    breast of man (p. 646 ).
  • Browns companion tells him that all must
    penetrate, in every bosom, the deep mystery of
    sin (p. 648). Brown then realizes all that was
    wicked in his own heart and that evil is the
    nature of mankind (p. 648).
  • Browns discovery, or self-discovery, leads him
    to lose his innocent Faith, as he shrank from
    the bosom of his wife (p. 649), withdrew from
    his community, and sank into a solitary and
    lifelong melancholy.

20
Key Issues Young Goodman Brown
  • Sin and Perfection
  • Do Brown and the Puritans seem obsessed with sin
    in the story? Do they have an implicit belief
    that near perfection is possible?
  • Ambiguities
  • Light and dark images and shadows suggest
    distortion, uncertainty, and a lack of clarity.
    Consider the following
  • The dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest
    trees concealed maybe Indians or maybe the devil
    (p. 641).
  • At the time of the journey it was deep dusk and
    much could only be nearly discerned (p. 642).

21
Key Issues Young Goodman Brown
  • Consider the field, with red light and a fire
    blazing, hemmed in by the dark wall, where
    the congregation alternately shone forth, then
    disappeared in a shadow, and again grew out of
    the darkness (p. 646).
  • The four blazing pines obscurely discovered
    shapes and visages of horror on the smoke
    wreaths (p. 647).
  • Consider the lurid light and the questions
    about the basin hollowed in the rock (p. 648).
  • In addition, sounds are unclear, indistinct (p.
    645).
  • Ultimately, the story poses a question had Brown
    fallen asleep and dreamed his vision or did he
    witness an actual witch-meeting?

22
Readings
  • The American Tradition in Literature 11/e
  • Read the heading and selections for Nathaniel
    Hawthorne (pp. 626-97)
  • Ariel American
  • Visit Ariel American and explore the resources on
    Hawthorne, including an electronic version of
    Young Goodman Brown with hyperlinked notes and
    a video clip of a dramatization of this classic
    tale.

23
Writing Topics
  • Compare Hawthornes and Poes use of Gothic
    settings and imagery, dreams and hypnagogic
    states (the state between sleep and wakefulness).
  • Consider the hypnagogic state of Goodman Brown
    (pp. 640-49) with that of the narrator of The
    Raven (pp. 574-77). How because of this state
    do their surroundings take on different meanings?
  • Consider the importance of setting to The
    Birthmark (particularly the laboratory) (pp.
    657-68) with that of Ligeia (pp. 581-91).
  • Consider the Gothic overtones and the quests of
    the protagonists of The Ministers Black Veil
    (pp. 649-57) and Ethan Brand (pp. 686-97) with
    that of The Fall of the House of Usher (pp.
    597-604)
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