Nathaniel Hawthorne

1
Nathaniel Hawthorne

• I have not lived, but only dreamed about living.
• The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the
  doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's
  self a fool the truest heroism is, to resist the
  doubt and the profoundest wisdom, to know when
  it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed.
• The wrongdoing of one generation lives into the
  successive ones...

2
Family History

• His great-great-grandfather, William Hathorne,
  ordered the whipping of Anne Coleman and four
  others in the streets of Salem.
• His great-grandfather, John Hathorne, was the
  magistrate presiding over the trial of the
  accused witches of Salem (1692).

3
Childhood

• Born July 4, 1804 in Salem, MA
• Father died when Hawthorne was four years old
• Sent to private school once his relatives
  discovered his storytelling abilities
• Sent to Bowdoin College in Maine

4
College

• Classmates included Franklin Pierce and Henry
  Longfellow
• Pierce- future President of the USA
• Longfellow- poet, educator, linguist
• Graduated in 1825

5
Reclusive

• He first anonymously published short stories and
  a novel, Fanshawe.
• Hawthorne later formally withdrew most of this
  early work, discounting it as the work of
  inexperienced youth.
• He burned most of his works from these years.

6
Back into Society

• Editor for The American Magazine of Useful and
  Entertaining Knowledge in 1836
• Appointed to the Boston Custom House in 1839
• Became engaged to Sophia Peabody, married in 1842

7
Concord

• After his marriage to Sophia, moved to the Old
  Manse in Concord.
• Joined the writing circles of Thoreau, Emerson,
  and Louisa May Alcott.
• The Transcendentalists believed that human
  existence transcended the sensory realm, and
  rejected formalism in favor of individual
  intuition and imagination.

8
The Custom House

• Between 1846 and 1849 he served as a surveyor of
  the Salem Custom House.
• He was ousted from that job in 1849, when the
  incoming political party, The Whigs, fired him to
  put in their own political appointees
• Hawthorne wrote a biography for Presidential
  candidate Pierce for his campaign. Pierce had
  attended college with Hawthorne.
• President Pierce then appointed Hawthorne to
  serve as the US Consul to Liverpool, England.

9
Influences

• 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

10
Final Days

• Returned to the US from Europe in 1860
• Returned to Concord
• Became ill and underwent a loss of literary
  creativity
• Journeyed to the White Mountains hoping to
  restore his health
• Died in Plymouth, NH on May 19, 1864
• Buried in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery in Concord

11
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 Spirits dominance over
  reason as the instrument of salvation
• America a Holy Commonwealth and a covenanted
  community

12
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

13
The Salem With 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