The Most Influential Romantic Novelist

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Nathaniel Hawthorne is the most influential romantic novelist of the American literature history in the 19th century, who play a important role to American short story. He is not only famous for his skillful writing techniques, but also for his complicated and contradictory view on religion. Herman Melville regarded him as the equivalent to Shakespeare in "Hawthorne and Mosses".

As Hawthorne’s masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter prominently reflected his tangled and contradictory religious view with a strong vitality and artistic charm. It describes a case of adultery under the rule of Puritanism. However, Hawthorne doesn’t focus on the case, but its effects on three major characters. Through the description of three characters with contradiction of the psychological and their specific historical circumstances and living background, the author reveals some dark social problems. Although in this novel Hawthorne always explore the problem about "sin", "evil" and "penalty", he didn’t give us a clear answer at last. In shaping the image of his characters, the words he used and his revealed feelings is always in a position of opposition and contradiction, which makes the characters show opposite personalities.

The thesis provides a general knowledge of the author’s background and religious thought, and analyzes this work’s theme and author’s spiritual beliefs. This thesis will help us get a clearer view on Hawthorne’s religious view and have a better understanding on The Scarlet Letter. At the same time, it will help us fully feel the charm of this work. Therefore it is believed that this thesis can contribute to the further research of Hawthorne and his works.

1.2 Literature review

Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the most important writers in the history of American literature and an excellent representative of American romantic writer in the late nineteenth century. He is also one of the real founders of American literature who created the native American literature in the new world. His masterpiece The Scarlet Letter with deep thought, rich imagination and unique writing technique, marks a big breakthrough in creation of the American novel. Because of its importance and popularity, it has been studied by a lot of people.

As Xue Li (薛丽 2012) states in her paper,"Nathaniel Hawthorne is the most romantic writer of the 19th century, many of whose works are highly religious. Hawthorne was born in a religious family so that his own understanding of the religion is complex. As the representative work of Hawthorne, "The Scarlet Letter" also directly reflects his own Puritan attitude".

Zhao Huan (赵欢 2009) points out, "In Hawthorne’s masterpiece, "The Scarlet Letter", though different attitudes towards life of different characters, we can see that the religious view of Hawthorne is anxious and contradictory. He affirmed the certain Puritanism creed, but attacked the Puritan cruel rules and precepts, as well as the persecution of human nature".

Through the analysis of the prototype of the scarlet letter, Li Li, Zhang Shuling, Meng Qian (李丽 张淑玲 孟倩 2007)explore Hawthorne’s religious perplexity and his complex and contradictory religious feelings. They think that the internal conflict and contradiction of characters and plot archetypes profoundly reveals the religious idea of Hawthorne.

Peng yushi（彭玉石） remarked in his thesis, "Hawthorne’s contradictory and complex religious consciousness in the novel reflects the complexity and contradiction of a great writer’s thought, and perhaps this is what the entire great writer in common".

Although many researches have been made on Hawthorne and his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter, most of them only focus on Hester. The analysis of a single character can’t achieve a comprehensive understanding of his work, especially The Scarlet Letter. Therefore, in this thesis the researcher try to make an analysis of the double-sided personality of three major characters to explore the charm of Hawthorne’s novel and his contradictory thought.

1.3 Organization of the thesis

This paper consists of four chapters. Chapter one is an introduction of the whole thesis, covering rationale, literature review and organization of the paper. Chapter two and three are the main parts of the thesis, mainly discuss about Hawthorne’s contradictory religious view and its reflection in The Scarlet Letter. Chapter two focus on make some introduction about the social background in the 19th century to explain why Hawthorne’s view is contradictory and complicated. And chapter three is written to find out the reflection of Hawthorne’s contradictory religious view in The Scarlet Letter. As the concluding remarks, it is emphasized at the end of the thesis that Hawthorne’s religious view is contradictory and he injected it in his work, especially The Scarlet Letter

Chapter Two

Hawthorne’s Religious View

2.1 An Introduction to Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hawthorne is not so much an ambiguous figure as a contradictory person who is difficult to reconcile. He is a moderate rebel. For the literary and social belief in his era, he keep, and also break.(Emory Elliott, 1994) As many critics and biographers say, Hawthorne is an extremely complicated contradictions writer, whose complicated contradictions in thoughts is due to his social environment and Puritan family background. It determines that his work contains not only general topic, but also other richer and deeper connotation, mainly about humanity. Meanwhile, Hawthorne integrates his own life experience into his works to present a unique charm, making them not only has historical depth but also rich practical significance.

2.1.1 Social Background

Hawthorne lived in an era of sharp change of rapid change in the social structure, the updating of value system and the American capitalism’s rapid economic development. These developments greatly improved the welfare of people and facilities, such as the train, which his ancestors never thought. While they still linger in their material achievements, the turmoil of thought broke out in the 1830s. A new region born out of Calvinism became the dominant force in New England, the cultural center of the United States. This church make God Jesus become a man, being the brother of all congregations and think that people can connect with god directly without any intermediary, priest or ritual. Of particular importance is that they don’t agree with the concept of original sin and fatalism, making people be able to escape from the innate sense of sin, which was quite progressive significance at that time. What stems from this view, the transcendentalism, state that people can get rid of the old dogma and release their initiative with their "intuition"-wisdom and understanding. Transcendentalism inspires people rely on own efforts to realize their own value. Obviously its positive significance is self-evident. The elites called on people to create national literature with the democratic spirit, appealing a large number of eminent writers taking part in., including Hawthorne. They object to ignorance of religion and advocate carrying forward the personality, taking the spirit in high position. It is the first wave of American literature and laid the foundation of American literature in the true sense.

2.1.2 Personal Experience

At the beginning of the 17th century, Hawthorne’s ancestors immigrated to the United States, being prominent and wealthy for more than two centuries until the 19th century. His ancestors are fanatical puritans, and two generations of them were members of theocratic authority in New England, involved in the notorious "drive witch" in the history of the United States.

2.2 Hawthorne’s religious view