As each novel and investigation into the human mind and spirit has demonstrated, we are creatures who crave honor and respect, the two key tenets to having dignity. Without dignity, we are nothing. Without respect, we fall to a lesser state - a...

Upon mere glance, it becomes immediately apparent that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” share many common themes, including good versus evil, heart versus mind, and the nature of...

Puritanism was a religious reform movement in the late 16th and 17th centuries that tried to purify the Church of England of remnants of the Roman Catholic popery. Puritans were central to American writing, history and even culture. They brought...

Both Pierre and The Blithedale Romance are structured around what Lucy would have called, if Hawthorne had written her, exhibiting secrets. Since he didn’t, she prefers the slightly less libidinally charged “disclose,” but this moment of...

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Blithedale Romance is an extremely enigmatic text. Due to its highly complicated and confusing plot, as well as its somewhat unreliable narrative, it is difficult--and some theorists would say impossible--to...

Hawthorne’s science fiction short stories, such as ‘The Birthmark’ and ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter,’ are set in the seventeenth century. His novels, however, The House of the Seven Gables and The Blithedale Romance, are set in the nineteenth century,...

Nathaniel Hawthorne is notorious for portraying characters whose past largely affects who they are and how they act in the future, and The Blithedale Romance is no exception. The interesting thing about The Blithedale Romance is that much of the...

Throughout history and literature, utopias usually materialize as attempts to fashion a more perfect society, typically catalyzed by a disagreeable quality of the current civilization. Having an understanding of the purpose for the creation of...

Benjamin Scott Grossberg, in “Coverdale’s Queer Utopia,” responds to what he posits as “attempts to contain [Miles] Coverdale’s erotic desire,” attempts that consequently “lead to strange contortions of the text” (24). Other critics, according to...

In The Uncanny Sigmund Freud argues that the uncanny is not only that which is new, but that "the "uncanny" is that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar" (Freud 1). In Nathaniel Hawthorne's...

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “My Kinsman, Major Molineux,” the main character Robin bears a wooden weapon called a cudgel. Throughout the short story, the cudgel comes to define Robin’s relation to the conflict between his expectations and the reality...

Hawthorne marks his characters as potential usurpers of God who are undermined by an inability to negotiate with human chaos. Confronted with examples of imperfection or fragmentation, the scientific minds of "The Birthmark," "Rappaccinis...

Critical readings of Hawthorne's "The Birth-Mark" tend to focus mainly on Aylmer's attempt to overpower the hand of God, and the boundaries between science and nature. In the vast array of scholarship on the story, however, little has been said of...

In his short story, "Roger Malvin's Burial," Nathaniel Hawthorne explores such fundamental themes as good, evil , sin, family, pride, and penance. However ,from the onset he warns us, "my tale is not of love"(Hawthorne 25). This is instead a tale...

Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Young Goodman Brown," is an allegory rich in sexual repression. By psychoanalyzing the main character, one can discover that "Goodman Brown" is not simply a battle between good and evil, but also one of a more...

Although "hardboiled" narratives became a popular literary genre in the early- to mid-twentieth century, these writers were not the first to create characters and stories in this genre. Early creators of the tough detective were preceded by the...

Nathaniel Hawthorne's popular short story "Young Goodman Brown" incites mystery and intrigue in its readers for several reasons. "Young Goodman Brown" produces a multitude of questions and interpretations as to the precise events of the...

“‘My Faith is gone!’” (Hawthorne 394) cries Young Goodman Brown after seeing his wife’s pink ribbon fall from the sky and then realizing that humanity is depraved. Although Faith is the name of Brown’s wife, it is also a metaphor for his interior...

Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” challenges preconceived notions of religion and offers another view. His view of religion is pessimistic, as his titular protagonist de-evolves into a disillusioned old man whose “dying hour was gloom” (12)....

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” is a tale of opposites and upset expectations. The ideal of the country or rural life is met by the overpowering, even corrupted nature of city life. Robin, the protagonist, the...

Nathanial Hawthorne, in the two different, yet morally similar stories, “Young Goodman Brown” and “Artist of the Beautiful,” displays his opinions on dominant doctrines of society. Hawthorne expresses that the protagonists in each of the stories...

Wakefield and Chillingsworth: Hawthorne’s Subtle Abusers

In his short story “Wakefield”, author Nathaniel Hawthorne represents the perverse and abusive inclinations of man at their most random. As a man of no individual value, Wakefield lives a...

In modern society, “corruption” connotes financial bribery, dishonest proceedings, or underhanded deals in business or politics. The perpetrators might waste others’ money and will supposedly suffer emotionally, but Romantic literature points out...

Some authors experiment with various styles and techniques throughout their literary career, with distinct differences between various works. This is not true in the case of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne displays striking similarities in style...