Analysis Of Nathaniel Hawthorne 's ' Scarlet Fever '

Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the best fiction authors of the 1800’s, and is still highly praised to this day. Hawthorne paved the way for future successful authors such as William Faulkner. Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, the second of three children born to Nathaniel and Elizabeth Hathorne (their son added the "w" to the family name when he began his writing career). In 1808, Hawthorne’s father, a ship's captain, died of yellow fever in the distant port of Surinam Hawthorne attended college at Bowdoin College where his main concentration was writing.” (Egotism; or, The Bosom Serpent) “In sketches, tales, and romances published in the second third of the nineteenth century, Hawthorne chose mainly American materials,

The devastation of losing a parent at a young age can cause long-term effects that last into adulthood. When Hawthorne was four, his father died of yellow fever and this caused problems for him. His mother became very overly protective and pushed him toward isolated pursuits (Biography). His childhood left him shy and bookish, which molded his life as a writer. He also was not a very social person, had few close friends, and had little engagement with others (Biography). If Hawthorne’s life had not started the way it did, he would have never been the person he was as an adult, and society would have never been able to see the writing he could create. Nathaniel

Nathaniel Hawthorne (originally spelled “Hathorne';) was born to Elizabeth Clarke Manning Hathorne and Nathaniel Hathorne in Salem, Massachusetts on July 4, 1804. He was the second child and the only son of the Hathornes’ three children. When Nathaniel was four, his father came down with yellow fever and died in Surinam, Dutch Guiana. After his father’s death, Mrs. Hathorne moved her family into her parents’ house in Salem (Shepherd iv). At the age of nine, Nathaniel Hathorne suffered an injury to his legs that kept him from attending school for about two years. This injury was a blessing in disguise. During his recovery, Nathaniel read many books and developed an appreciation for the English classics. Bunyan’s Pilgrim Progress and Spenser’s Faerie Queene seem to have been his favorite books because he had two cats named Beelzebub and Apollyon, characters from Bunyan (Martin 17). “Hawthorne later named his first child Una, after Spenser’s heroine'; (Martin 17).

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a brilliant writer of the 19th century. Hawthorne created a novel that reflected the time period of the Puritans in New England. The Scarlet Letter contains a representation of the people during that time period but can also be related to the reader’s time period. Originally, God created the world with complete perfection until man fell, and sin entered the world. In the eyes of God, a sin is a sin. There is no worse sin that one can commit. Man is the one that decided that one sin could be more harshly judged than another. Hawthorne uses the theme of sin to show the importance of one’s faith and conviction and how those principles relate to fallen sinners.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the most important authors in the history of American literature and the genre of Romanticism or Dark Romanticism, due to his unique style of writing and his focus upon subjects of Puritan religion and the unknown. I consider Hawthorne an important author, due to the fact that he skillfully and accurately based his fictional writings upon happenings of colonial times, was one of the first authors to display unfortunate outcomes for his characters’ immoral choices according to Puritan beliefs, and wrote of things that were considered taboo in his time, such as witchcraft, scientific innovation and experimentation. I strongly believe that Hawthorne’s influence for his writings were his Puritan ancestral background, his fascination with Puritan beliefs, and his interest in what was considered the unknown such as witchcraft and science. According to the Norton Anthology Textbook Vol. B, Nathaniel Hawthorne was “born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804” (370). Hawthorne belonged “to a family whose ancestral roots were tied to Puritan history, with his family being among the first settlers of Massachusetts and having one of his relatives serve as a judge during the Salem witch trials” (370). Hawthorne, as a young boy, “had a particular interest in writings such as John Bunyan’s Puritan allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress, and by his mid-teens he took interest in British novelists such as Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollet, William Godwin, and Sir Walter Scott”

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a writer in the 1800s, an anti-transcendentalist, and the great-nephew of John Hathorne, a judge in the Salem Witch Trials. Hawthorne is obsessed with Puritanism and, due to being obsessed, bases all his writings on Puritan towns. All of his stories take place in New England in the 1600s, before the Salem Witch Trials; The Scarlet Letter is one of these stories. In his novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the symbolism of the Wild Rosebush, Hester’s Cabin, and the sunlight and the forest to contribute to the overall theme of imperfection.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804 (net). He attended Bowdoin College with famous writers such as Horatio Bridge and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (net). In 1850, Hawthorne published The Scarlet Letter (1222). It is considered by many that The Scarlet Letter, “represents the height of Hawthorne’s literary genius. At this time, Boston was the center of a very Puritan society. Throughout the novel Hawthorne uses many symbols. For example, one prominent symbol is the scaffold. During this period in time, the scaffold was used for public humiliation. Those who had committed either a crime or a sin were forced to stand upon it in front of everybody in the town, as a form of confession or public recognition of one’s sin.

This time of Hawthorne's life was blended with the delights of perusing and the disdain of budgetary reliance. While he learned at an early age with Joseph E. Worcester, an outstanding etymologist, he was not especially enamored with school. A damage permitted him to remain home for a year when he was nine, and his initial "companions" were books by Shakespeare, Spenser, Bunyan, and eighteenth century writers.

Many years later,“His health began to fail … experiencing slowness of thought. For months, he refused to seek medical help and died in his sleep on May 19, 1864, at Plymouth, New Hampshire” (Biography.com). All the obstacles Hawthorne had gone through in his life influenced his writing. He created his characters with a sense of alienation and guilt. The character’s alienation reveals much about the surrounding community.

On July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hathorne was born to Nathaniel Hathorne and Elizabeth Clark Manning Hathorne. Not wanting his name to be thought of in the likes of John Hathorne, a distinguished figure in the Salem witch trials of the late 1600s, Nathaniel added a ‘w’ to his name when he began his writing career. Nathaniel Hawthorne was only four when his father, the captain of a ship, died from yellow fever. Much of Hawthorne’s childhood was spend living with his mother, sisters, and uncles. Robert Manning, one of his uncles, was quite taken by a young Nathaniel and was the financing behind Hawthorne’s years at Bowdoin College. He began publishing short stories during his college education and continued to write after his graduation in 1925.

In stark comparison to his ancestors, his life was relatively normal; he was married with children and spent his days doing what he loved the most, writing. Hawthorne would often draw from his own personal understandings or beliefs, just as he did when he wrote “but the past was not dead” in “The Custom House”. It was evident that Hawthorne’s Puritan past was alive within him, and even after his death in 1864; it continued to live on forever in the pages of his books.

Nathaniel Hawthorne has encountered many challenges throughout his lifetime. He was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts. When he was only at the age of 4, he lost his father and “A leg injury at an early age left Nathaniel immobile for several months” (Biography.com).With the aid of his wealthy relatives, he was given the opportunity to attend Bowdoin College. After some time in college, he greatly missed his mother and sisters and so he returned home and started to write. He then married Sophia Peabody and had three children.

Hawthorne’s background was rough at times but at the same time he had lots of support from his family. Nathaniel was born on July 4, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. Hawthorne’s family ancestors were some of the first puritans to live in New England (Merriman). His father, a sea captain, died in 1808 when Nathaniel was four

On May 19th, 1864 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of such stories as The Scarlet Letter, Young Goodman Brown, and The Birthmark dies of an unknown cause. He was 59 years old. During the latter part of his life the once active Hawthorne’s health began to decline for mysterious reasons. He wrote little during the final years of his life, and what he did write was often little more than incoherent babbling. It was clear the once brilliant Nathaniel Hawthorne was not in full possession of his mental faculties.

Nathaniel was an American writer who was born in Salem Massachusetts, with a long New England history. Nathaniel’s original name of the family was Hathorne, he added a “w” to distinguish himself from his family history. His relative was a prominent judge in the Salem witch trials of 1692-1693. Nathaniel grew up from the upbringing of his mother. His father, a sea captain, died of yellow fever in Suriname. His uncle Robert Manning, help Nathaniel and his mother financially, helping with his college education at Bowdoin College. Hawthorne did not enjoy school even though he was an avid reader and writer. He was an average student in the class of 1825. After graduation, Hawthorne went back home to Salem. He spent a lot of time in the local library, learning about his ancestral roots and his Puritan past. During this time of his discovery Hawthorne wrote many short stories, but they were failed to publish. He married his wife Sophia at her parent’s home in Boston during 1842, once married they moved to Concord, Massachusetts. They rented the Old Manse from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Surrounded in the literary circle and transcendental movement, the Hawthorne’s had big social lives. After Hawthorne’s income from publishing short stories, they moved in with Hawthorne’s mother in Salem around 1845. Hawthorne took up a job at the Salem Custom House but since Boston had taken much of the seaport business from Salem,