Nathaniel Hawthorne Essay

After the publication of The flushed Letter in the year 1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne was recognized as whiz of the most signifi croupt writer in the United States. He has the ability to write like a romancer fit to probe the inner mysteries and overly as a realist who tin lot describe to the reader the Ameri give notice character and experience (Gollin, par. 1). This means that in the early to the middle-part of the 19th century Hawthorne as writer behind be depended upon as a guide, competent to show how America was shaped by the forces of religion, migration, and some other forces unique to the New World. Hawthorne is not a ghostlike writer but the reader can get more from his work when it comes to the study of religion and spectral men than by reading a phantasmal treatise. The following bequeath examine the man and the writer as he became instrumental in how the world came to view and understand nation girding the American way.Biography He was born in Salem, Massachuset ts 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 prep ar for college. It was at this time that he knew he was firing 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 active the fact that he was forever forced to spend time and energy to come property to buy bread rather than to devote a great deal of his time doing the thing that he really deard. However, circumstances prevented him from doing so, especially when he decided to marry and raise a family. moreover when he had the means and the opportunity to write, Hawthorne began to show his brilliance as a man of letters. Even his early whole kit like Young Goodman Brown and Twice-told Tales gained ap proval 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 to a fault during this time that he completed The crimson 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 investiga ted the character flaws of the Puritans, he was one of them, the descendant of one of the most feared and well-thought-of Puritan. Moreover, he lived in Salem, the infamous location of the Salem witch trials. He would after 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 exit matter that he would like to deal with in his future writings. His inspiration for doing so was described clear in one of his autobiographical works and there he revealed his desire to remove the stain that embellished the Hawthorne relate and he wroteHe 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 per secuting spirit,and made himself so conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said to have left(a) a stain upon him (Woodberry, p. 124).By writing about the Puritans and the good as well as the deplorable 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 sacred views can sometimes do more harm than good.The Scarlet Letter Everything that he knew and everything that he tangle 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 horrendous penalization was given to those who disobeyed the law no matter how trivial it may sound in the audience of modern men. Hawthorne said that a lazy servant, a disobedient child, a person with different religious views, and even an 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 barely wanted to exercise their theology-given liberty to live and pursue happiness. Hawthorne therefore explained why the people living in that particular village acted so harshly and he wrote 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 its elf (Hawthorne, Chap. 2). In the opening scene a cleaning lady 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 pitting 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 Hesters husband who apparently abandoned her added another reason as to the need for clemency. But there is more. The illicit partner was a respected clergyman who was so full of hypocrisy that he even join 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 narration reached another level of complexity. The woman considered to be the most s inful in the village has transcended her accusers by becoming more righteous than them because she chose to love her enemies.Hesters actions mirrored the one felt by Hawthorne. He was not anti-religious or anti- matinee idol. One can even argue that Hawthorne believed in God and the Bible but he simply could not let 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 Hawthornes allusion to another famous Bible story when an adulterous woman was brought to the Nazarene to be judged. The woman was brought to Jesus simply because the Nazarene had earn the temper for being merciful to the point that the religious leadership of hi s 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 want 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 Hawthornes 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 development the agents 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 good-looking 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 himThey made her stand forrader the groupand said to Jesus, Teacher, this woman was caught in the a ct of adultery.In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say? (John 83-5, 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 subdue 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 com munity cerebrate 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 vagabond 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 smart 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 CitedGollin, Rita. Nathaniel Hawthorne. In The Heath Anthology of American Literature. 5thAccessed 21 July 2010 from http//college.cengage.com/english/lau ter/ heath/4e/students/author_pages/early_nineteenth/hawthorne_na.htmlHawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Accessed 21 July 2010 fromhttp//www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/scarletletter/Holy Bible. The Gospel of John. The New International Version. Accessed 22 July 2010 from http//www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search= buns%208&version=NIVIdol, John & Buford Jones. Nathaniel Hawthorne The Contemporary Reviews. New YorkCambridge University Press, 1994.Woodberry, George. Nathaniel Hawthorne. SC BiblioBazaar, 2008.