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Nathaniel Hawthorne: Biography, Works, and Style
Nathaniel Hawthorne: Biography, Works, and Style
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Taught by
Heather Carroll
Heather teaches high school English. She holds a master's degree in education an
d is a National Board Certified Teacher.
Who was Nathaniel Hawthorne? Well, besides being a brooding guy with a bit of a
dark past, he was one of the most famous writers from early America. Learn more
about him and his view of the Puritan belief system in this video.
Biography
You may not know his name, but Nathaniel Hawthorne's writing is some of the earl
iest American writing whose themes have transcended time. Religious hypocrisy an
d the effects of guilt and sin are two issues that we still debate, question, an
d explore. While he is not the inventor of such ideas, he has left us with a uni
que perspective from a unique time.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts - the perf
ect contradiction of time and place for a man who truly defines the dark side of
America. He grew up during a pretty cool time in American history. In spite of
being a descendant of John Hathorne, a well-known judge who sent quite a few inn
ocent people to their death during the Salem witch trials, Hawthorne (who change
d the spelling of his name to distance himself from his ancestors) had some pret
ty famous college friends, like poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and future presi
dent Franklin Pierce. Transcendentalists Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Eme
rson were his friends later in life, and fellow Dark Romantic writer Edgar Allan
Poe wrote great reviews of his books.
Hawthorne befriended poet Longfellow and future president Pierce in college Hawt
hrone Longfellow Pierce
In spite of his status among the famous and being very handsome, Hawthorne was t
erribly shy. In fact, we probably wouldn't know anything about him if he were wr
iting during our lifetime. Most of what we do know about his life is what was re
covered from his diaries after his death. In fact, he was so shy that he didn't
even want anyone to know when he published his first novel Fanshawe in 1828. He
published it anonymously.
While working as a weigher and gauger at the Boston Custom House, Hawthorne wrot
e several short stories including what are now some of his most well-known works
: 'Young Goodman Brown' and 'The Minister's Black Veil.' These were published in
various periodicals, but in 1837, he published the stories into a collection ca
lled Twice-Told Tales. While this brought him local recognition, it was not enou
gh to make a living.
By 1841, Hawthorne had fallen in love with Sophia Peabody, an illustrator and a
transcendentalist. In hopes of getting a home for Sophia and himself, he joined
Brook Farm, a transcendentalist utopian society. As a Dark Romantic, his views d
iffered from the transcendentalists, but he was able to save money while he was
there and used the experience when he wrote his novel The Blithedale Romance.
In 1842, Hawthorne and Sophia were married and moved to Concord. They both were
pretty shy and stayed to themselves. Eventually though, Hawthorne took a job at
the Salem Custom House as a surveyor. He found the job to be horribly boring and
wrote to Longfellow to complain that as much as he wanted to write, the Custom
House job was causing sort of a mental-block. Much like many today, his job put
food on the table but was totally unfulfilling.
Thankfully, he was fired from his job in 1848 when a new president was elected a
nd the politics shifted. He then spent his time writing and published his most f
amous work, The Scarlet Letter, in 1850.
Over the next few years, the Hawthorne family moved from Concord and back to fin
d themselves again in the midst of some of the greatest historical figures of th
e time. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were now Hawthorne's neighbo
rs, and his relationship with Franklin Pierce led him to write a biography of th
e man who was to be president. Hawthorne was given the position of United States
consul in Liverpool when Pierce was elected, which allowed the family to tour F
rance and Italy.
Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, after returning to America, meeting new Presiden
t Abraham Lincoln, and witnessing the beginning of the American Civil War. He is
buried in the now-famous Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, like many of the ot
her important Americans from his time. His wife Sophia continued to publish his
works until her death in 1871.
His Works
The work of the Dark Romantics contrasted greatly with the Transcendentalists Tr
anscendentalists Dark Romantics
To really understand Nathaniel Hawthorne's literature, it's best to understand t
hat he was a Dark Romantic in the midst of a bunch of transcendentalists. Transc
endentalists like Emerson and Thoreau believed that society, including organized
religion, was killing the individual's pure soul. To the transcendentalist, peo
ple and nature were inherently good, if they were being self-reliant and if each
person was true to him or herself. They believed in utopian societies, where ea
ch person embraces their individual strength and contributes to the betterment o
f the community.
This is in contrast to the Dark Romantic who believed that humans had a dark sid
e. Hawthorne had seen the dark side of humanity and believed it lay in everyone.
From his point of view, people needed things like guilt or sin to learn how to
be themselves, and there wasn't much room for that in utopian society. Eventuall
y, he began to write against transcendentalism. His novel, The Blithedale Romanc
e is a fictional story based on his time living in the utopian community Brook F
arm. The characters in the story, who are supposed to be changing the world with
their endeavors, end up being rather egotistical, which leads to tragedy. This
illustrates that that the dark side of the human mind does exist in everyone, no
matter how much we may try to suppress it.
In fact, Hawthorne's experiences fueled many of his stories. Because of his dark
, Puritan ancestry, Hawthorne, who was quite embarrassed by his heritage, spent
a good deal of time studying the Puritan beliefs. He used his own family's past
to influence his themes. Rather than mimic the Puritan point of view in his work
s, he sought to use their style of allegory, where the characters and objects in
a story represent something else in order to teach a lesson, in order to show t
he hypocrisy, sin, and corruption that was rampant as a result of their religiou
s beliefs. His most famous work, The Scarlet Letter, is a racy yet heartfelt acc
ount of Hester Prynne, who has a daughter after a brief affair with the minister
. Her struggle to overcome the social discriminations is the focus of the story,
as are the effects of repressed guilt, sin, and evil.
Another of his novels, The House of Seven Gables, was also heavily influenced by
Hawthorne's Puritan obsession and deals with hypocrisy and self-righteousness.
It is the story of the Pyncheon family, who were cursed generations before by a
man that one of the ancestors had accused of being a witch - obviously a connect
ion to Hawthorne's own life. The curse is lifted only when two decedents of the
accused and the accuser unite to solve the sort of mystery surrounding the house
.
Style
Hawthorne's writing style goes hand-in-hand with his gloomy themes and stories.
As a Dark Romantic, it's no surprise that he used symbols and metaphors to teach
lessons. His focus on the psychological is also typical of the Dark Romantic st
yle, which he used to illustrate themes of sin, guilt, and hypocrisy. All-in-all
, if it's a story that somehow shows the faults of Puritan ideology, it's probab
ly Hawthorne.
But beyond the literary techniques he imposes, Hawthorne's writing style is also
known for extremely long, drawn-out sentences.
'In my native town of Salem, at the head of what, half a century ago, in the day
s of old King Derby, was a bustling wharf,--but which is now burdened with decay
ed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or no symptoms of commercial life; except
, perhaps, a bark or brig, half-way down its melancholy length, discharging hide
s; or, nearer at hand, a Nova Scotia schooner, pitching out her cargo of firewoo
d,--at the head, I say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide often overflow
s, and along which, at the base and in the rear of the row of buildings, the tra
ck of many languid years is seen in a border of unthrifty grass,--here, with a v
iew from its front windows adown this not very enlivening prospect, and thence a
cross the harbour, stands a spacious edifice of brick.'
Yes, that is one sentence from 'The Custom House,' the introduction to The Scarl
et Letter - one of the longest sentences ever! Think of it as if you're sitting
on the porch with an elderly fellow who has very few visitors. You can sort of s
ee his eyes glaze over as he tells you his tale in an almost stream-of-conscious
ness form. Not all of Hawthorne's sentences are that long or so elaborately punc
tuated, but he does like descriptions and eloquent language.
Lesson Summary
So, why should you know about Nathaniel Hawthorne? Well, he is a super-famous Am
erican writer who lived among others who were equally well-known. His writing is
heavily influenced by his embarrassment of his Puritan heritage. He wrote of si
nners, guilt, and hypocrisy, all of which were major themes for the Puritan char
acters in his novel The Scarlet Letter. Through the use of allegory, symbols, an
d long, elaborate sentences, Nathaniel Hawthorne makes us question our motivatio
ns to better understand ourselves.
Chapters in English 102: American Literature
1. Literary Analysis (4 lessons)
2. Colonial and Early National Period in Literature (13 lessons)
3. Romantic Period in Literature (6 lessons)
4. Dark Romantics (9 lessons)
5. Transcendentalism in Literature (6 lessons)
6. Realism in Literature (16 lessons)
7. Modernist Prose and Plays (15 lessons)
8. Modernist Poetry (14 lessons)
9. The Harlem Renaissance and Literature (6 lessons)
10. Literature of the Contemporary Period (17 lessons)
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