Sunday, September 15, 2019
Nathaniel Hawthorne Essay
After the publication of The Scarlet Letter in the year 1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne was recognized as one of the most significant writer in the United States. He has the ability to write like a â€Å"romancer†able to probe the inner mysteries and also as a realist who can describe to the reader the American character and experience (Gollin, par. 1). This means that in the early to the middle-part of the 19th century Hawthorne as writer can be depended upon as a guide, able to show how America was shaped by the forces of religion, migration, and other forces unique to the New World. Hawthorne is not a religious writer but the reader can get more from his work when it comes to the study of religion and religious men than by reading a religious treatise. The following will examine the man and the writer as he became instrumental in how the world came to view and understand nation building the American way. Biography            He was born in Salem, Massachusetts on July 4, 1804. He came from a family of Puritans. His father was a sea captain who died when he was four years old and so his mother brought him up together with his two sisters. For a few years he lived in Raymond, Maine but he was forced to go back to Salem so that he can prepare for college. It was at this time that he knew he was going to be a writer but at the same time realized that it would be difficult to earn a living writing full time (Golin, par. 2). He would always complain about the fact that he was forever forced to spend time and energy to make money to buy bread rather than to devote a great deal of his time doing the thing that he really loved. However, circumstances prevented him from doing so, especially when he decided to marry and raise a family.            But when he had the means and the opportunity to write, Hawthorne began to show his brilliance as a man of letters. Even his early works like Young Goodman Brown and Twice-told Tales gained approval from critics (Golin, par. 3). Nonetheless, Hawthorne still could not find a way to make writing novels a full-time job. He was forced to gain political appointments so he can have a decent source of income from working in places like the Customs House. Yet since he was a political appointee he was at the mercy of those who are in power. In 1849 he was dismissed and he fought to be reinstated. (Golin, par. 7). He was rejected once more but this failure became a stepping stone for him because it was also during this time that he completed The Scarlet Letter, a novel that would catapult him to fame.            It was The Scarlet Letter that made him famous as a writer who chose to express himself in the genre of romance. He was a unique writer in the sense that he spoke against the excesses of the Puritan tradition (Idol & Jones, p. 471). But what made his works so penetrating and so influential was the fact that he was an insider. He was no ordinary journalist who merely investigated the character flaws of the Puritans, he was one of them, the descendant of one of the most feared and respected Puritan. Moreover, he lived in Salem, the infamous location of the Salem witch trials.            He would later learn about the intimate details of the paranoia that swept the region and he would also come to know his ancestors who ruled the area with an iron fist. His embarrassment to be associated with them and the horrors that he discovered forever influenced his writing style and the type of subject matter that he would like to deal with in his future writings. His inspiration for doing so was described clearly in one of his autobiographical works and there he revealed his desire to remove the stain that embellished the Hawthorne name and he wrote: He was a soldier, legislator, judge †¦ he had all the Puritanic traits both good and evil. He was likewise a bitter persecutor, as witness the Quakers, who have remembered him in their histories †¦ His son, too, inherited the persecuting spirit,and made himself so conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said to have left a stain upon him (Woodberry, p. 124). By writing about the Puritans and the good as well as the bad things they did provided a way out for Hawthorne, a type of healing for the soul and the emotions. It can be argued that he was not very proud of his heritage but by writing about it he can have the ability to rectify some of the damages created by his ancestors. His ancestors thought that everything they did was righteous, but Hawthorne, writing generations later would like to set the record straight that although the Puritans help build a New World their religious views can sometimes do more harm than good. The Scarlet Letter            Everything that he knew and everything that he felt he poured out in the writing of The Scarlet Letter. This is perhaps the reason why this novel is considered a masterpiece. In the second chapter of the tale Hawthorne was able to capture the imagination of the readers when he brought them to a place where severe punishment was given to those who disobeyed the law no matter how trivial it may sound in the hearing of modern men. Hawthorne said that a lazy servant, a disobedient child, a person with different religious views, and even an â€Å"Indian†who may have behaved not in accordance to the customs of the land can receive punishment that should have been reserved only for criminals and not those who simply wanted to exercise their God-given freedom to live and pursue happiness.            Hawthorne then explained why the people living in that particular village acted so harshly and he wrote: â€Å"Meagre, indeed, and cold, was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for, from such bystanders, at the scaffold. On the other hand, a penalty which, in our days, would infer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might then be invested with almost as stern a dignity as the punishment of death itself†(Hawthorne, Chap. 2). In the opening scene a woman named Hester Prynne emerged from prison clutching her baby in her arms and with a scarlet letter A embroidered on her bosom, symbol of ignominy according to the norms and values of old Massachusetts.            The readers felt the harshness of the sentence but pity turned to anger just as quickly when they discovered that a woman like Hester Prynee could not commit the sin of adultery without a partner. Aside from that the emergence of Hester’s husband – who apparently abandoned her – added another reason as to the need for clemency. But there is more. The adulterous partner was a respected clergyman who was so full of hypocrisy that he even joined with the inquisitors to force out from Hester the name of the man who committed adultery with her.            When Hester did not answer the clergyman as well as those who condemned her to a life of shame and misery the story reached another level of complexity. The woman considered to be the most sinful in the village has transcended her accusers by becoming more righteous than them because she chose to love her enemies. Hester’s actions mirrored the one felt by Hawthorne. He was not anti-religious or anti-God. One can even argue that Hawthorne believed in God and the Bible but he simply could not accept why men of shallow thinking was given the power and the influence to teach the Word of God without learning first compassion and wisdom. Instead of learning the intricacies of the law and the knowledge on how to dispense of punishment in the most cruel and inhumane manner, these ministers should have learned wisdom and love first. By doing so they could have been better servants of God.            It is not hard to see Hawthorne’s allusion to another famous Bible story when an adulterous woman was brought to Jesus to be judged. The woman was brought to Jesus simply because the Nazarene had earn the reputation for being merciful to the point that the religious leaders of his day interpreted his actions as heresy and a blatant demonstration of unfaithfulness to the Jewish religion and to their traditions. By bringing the woman who was caught in adultery, they sought to trap Jesus and to force him to act in accordance to the Law and if he refused then he will be condemned like the woman in front of her.            At this point one can appreciate the complexity of Hawthorne’s writing. He was not simply giving an indictment against the Puritans, he was also trying to show them how it should have been done, not using the author’s righteousness but using the same Bible against them. The Pharisees who was trying to trap Jesus was the ancient version of the Puritans who could not see the big picture, they can only saw the legal aspect, not the person in front of them. And so going back to the Bible story and Jesus this is what the religious leaders said to him: They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, â€Å"Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say? (John 8:3-5, NIV) Once again the woman was alone standing in the crowd of men. Where was the man who committed adultery with her? Where was the man who committed the act of adultery with Hester? The religious leaders did not wish to punish the woman because they sincerely believed that she should be punished but they went to great lengths to humiliate her simply because they wanted to uphold an ancient tradition, to preserve a way of life. Furthermore, there is a deeper lesson that the author wanted everyone to know: the community must abide by the rules and regulations because those who will not participate or those who will not consent are considered to be as guilty as the sinner. But Jesus was not afraid of the religious leaders, their accusations, and their condemnation. Jesus instead allowed them to see the big picture that all of them are guilty of secret sins. It may be big or small but if the community focused on punishment rather than in building each other up then they will simply destroy the way of life that they so cherish. They can stone the woman but the one who will cast the first stone must be blameless because the moment he would hurl the first stone his neighbor will turn on him for he too deserved to be punished. Conclusion            The brilliance of Hawthorne can be seen in so many levels. He was a gifted writer able to describe and analyze the way the Puritans had shaped the New World. But instead of simply criticizing them for their legalistic ways he also offered a way out for them by creating indirect references to the Word of God and when he used it as a basis for his writings he was not only able to rectify the misdeeds of the past, he was also able to show there is a better way to build a new nation. Works Cited Gollin, Rita. â€Å"Nathaniel Hawthorne.†In The Heath Anthology of American Literature. 5th Accessed 21 July 2010 from http://college.cengage.com/english/lauter/ heath/4e/students/author_pages/early_nineteenth/hawthorne_na.html Hawthorne, Nathaniel. â€Å"The Scarlet Letter.†Accessed 21 July 2010 from http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/scarletletter/ Holy Bible. â€Å"The Gospel of John.†The New International Version. Accessed 22 July 2010            from http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%208&version=NIV Idol, John & Buford Jones. Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Contemporary Reviews. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Woodberry, George. Nathaniel Hawthorne. SC: BiblioBazaar, 2008.
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