Nathaniel Hawthorne Essay Sample

On July 4th, 1804, a man by the name of Nathaniel Hawthorne was born. Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist famous for his novels, short stories and essays. Hawthorne produced varieties of literature, some of his most famous titles included, “The Scarlet Letter,” “The House of Seven Gables,” “Young Goodman Brown,” and “The Birthmark.” Nathaniel Hawthorne is considered one of the greatest of American fiction writers. Throughout his work we often see recurring gothic themes. Hawthorne’s writing emphasizes a darker side of human nature, leaving readers to evoke his work as desolate and melancholy, for example, some of the themes in his work include sin, punishment, guilt, and witchcraft. Hawthornes dark and gloomy literature reflects on Hawthorne’s personality, giving us a better understanding of who he was and his life during this time.

Understanding Hawthorne’s Early Life

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts on July 4th, 1804. He came from a religious family of puritans long associated with the town of Salem. Hawthorne had deep roots in the town of Salem, dating all the way back to 1630 when an early ancestor by the name of “William Hathorne” first emigrated from England to America. During the late 1600’s, the Salem witch trials occurred in which Hawthorne’s ancestors took part in. Another ancestor, John Hathorne, was one of the three judges at the seventeenth-century Salem witchcraft trials, where dozens of innocent people were accused of, and later executed for, being "witches.” Hawthorne was haunted by his connection to his ancestors’ puritan values which we later see in his short stories “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Birthmark.” Hawthorne was not very fond of his ancestry and wanted to distance himself from it as much as possible. Originally named Nathaniel Hathorne, he later decided to add a “w” to his name in attempt to seclude his name from the acts of his ancestors in the trials of 1692.

Hawthorne’s immediate family consisted of his father, Nathaniel and his mother, Elizabeth along with his two sisters. Hawthorne’s father was a sea captain who died in 1808 due to yellow fever. Hawthorne was only four years old when his father passed away. After the passing of Hawthorne’s father, Hawthorne’s mother, Elizabeth Clarke Manning Hathorne, lived in grief until the end of her days. Hawthorne was now the only boy of the family and was treasured by his mother and sisters. Despite losing his father at such a young age, Hawthorne exhibited in his writings and letters that he had a good childhood. The reasoning for Hawthorne’s childhood not being severely tragic is due to the wealth of his uncles. Hawthorne’s childhood was secluded and sheltered, spent with his mother and two sisters in Salem, and briefly in Lake Sebago, Maine. (Duyckinck, 1) At an early age, Hawthorne underwent a serious leg injury that left him in isolation and immobile for several months. During this time, it is believed that Hawthorne’s love of literature and writing start to commence. He became infatuated with reading and set his sights on becoming a writer. With the aid of his uncles, Hawthorne was able to go college. His love and craving for literature continued as he attended Bowdoin College. It is during this time spent in Bowdoin College that he began seriously reading works of “John Bunyan” and “Edmund Spenser” and his own interests as a writer developed. He spent four years at Bowdoin college and after graduating returned back home to Salem. 

The Beginning of Hawthorne’s Literary Journey

Upon graduation, Hawthorne went back home to Salem where he began working on writing earnestly. While back home with his mother, Hawthorne endured a twelve-year stay. Hawthorne anonymously published his first work at his own expense, a novel titled Fanshawe, in 1828. He shortly decided to retrieve this novel, he thought it was unworthy and burnt all copies. However, he later began to find his voice and style in writing and during the generous amount of time he spent at home in isolation, Hawthorne produced several books and stories some of which included “An Old Woman’s Tale” (1830), and “The Hollow of the Three Hills.” (1830) By 1832, Hawthorne had published “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” and “Roger Malvin’s Burial.” “Hawthorne's portrayal of Major Molineux, whose humiliation is referred to as "the foul disgrace of a head grown grey in honor," suggests that he is not unsympathetic to the Tory position.” (Grant, 52) In 1835, “Young Goodman Brown,” arguably the greatest tale of witchcraft ever written, was produced. It was a short story about a man who goes into the woods a night before his wedding. He sees many of his neighbors and friends participating in sin including his wife to be. He becomes disgusted and shocked in what he sees. On his return home, he’s unsure if what had just occurred was a dream or not. However, he decides not trust any of them anymore. From then on, his life becomes miserable and pessimistic. This tale showcases Hawthorne’s haunted past of sin and witchcraft. In 1837, after Twice-Told Tales he added two later collections, Mosses from an Old Manse (1846) and The Snow-Image (1851), along with Grandfather's Chair. (1841)

Subsequent to his time writing, Hawthorne ended up falling in love with his neighbor, Sophia Peabody. “The letters he had written her during the three and a half years of their engagement, later published with others of his letters to her, reveal his imaginative and idealistic and also thoroughly human qualities.” (Turner, 16) Hawthorne’s books gained some fame and profit, but not enough to support a wife and a family. Hawthorne then took it into his own hands to find a job. In 1838 he found work at the Boston Custom House and then spent part of 1841 in the Brook Farm community in hopes of finding a satisfactory home for Sophia and himself. By 1842, Sophia and Hawthorne married and settled in Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts. They soon had their first child, a girl named Una born on March 3, 1844. Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne's second child, a boy, was born a little over two years later on June 2, 1846. During this time, Hawthorne still continued writing and published “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Birthmark.”

The years 1850-1853 were Hawthorne’s most productive years which he wrote and published one of his most notable works, The Scarlett Letter. The Scarlet Letter tells the story of two lovers kept apart by the ironies of fate, their own mingled strengths and weaknesses, and the Puritan community’s interpretation of moral law, until they're atlas united but at the cost of their dignity. The time period and Hawthorne’s way of life was evident in his work. Being a puritan himself, he incorporated a lot of that into his literature with the most notable piece of work being The Scarlett Letter. The book made Hawthorne famous and was eventually recognized as one of the greatest of American novels. In May of that year, Hawthorne, Sophia, Una, and Julian moved to a cottage in Lenox, Massachusetts where in May of 1851, a second daughter, Rose, was born.  

During the 1852 election, Hawthorne wrote a campaign biography for his Piece who he had known from college. When Pierce was elected president, he appointed Hawthorne an American Consul to Britain as a reward.  In 1860, he finished his last novel The Marble Faun.  After 1860, it was becoming apparent that Hawthorne was moving past his prime. Striving to rekindle his earlier productivity, he found little success. Drafts were mostly incoherent and left unfinished. Some even showed signs of psychic regression. His health began to fail and he seemed to age considerably, hair turning white and experiencing slowness of thought. For months, he refused to seek medical help and died in his sleep on May 19, 1864, in Plymouth, New Hampshire.

Throughout Hawthorne’s literature, we repeatedly see gothic elements in all of Hawthorne’s writings including his short stories as well as his longer novels. Such elements that have haunted Hawthorne and are part of his life. Hawthorne’s has become one of the most famous American fiction writers due to his obscure writing themes. His imagination and adjectives are so strong that they attract almost everyone towards reading further. All of these attributes lead Nathaniel Hawthorne into becoming one of the most notable writers of all time.