Transcript Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne
1804-1864
His times:
• Romantic Period
• Resisted the previous period of logical Englightenment
(Thomas Jefferson; Benjamin Franklin)
• Moved from belief in pure logic, to a confidence in personal emotion, personal
experience and individual imagination. Saw themselves as free spirits. Artists
(including authors) moved away from strictly defined forms to freer expression.
•Some romantics included the exotic or bizarre . Hawthorne added just a touch of
unreality. “. . . he may so manage his atmospherical medium as to bring out or mellow the lights and
deepen and enrich the shadows of the picture. He will be wise, no doubt, to make a very moderate use of the
privileges here state, and, especially, to mingle the Marvellous rather as a slight, delicate, and evanescent
flavor, than as any portion of the actual substance of the dish offered to the Public”
• Many of his friends and fellow writers were Transcendentalists,
which was a special group of Romantics. Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Henry David Thoreau. Their particular focus: the individual should
turn inward to himself, and outward to Nature, to learn how to live a
better life.
Photos
Famous Works:
Novels:
•The Scarlet Letter
•House of the Seven
Gables
•The Blithedale Romance
•The Marble Faun
Better-known tales:
•“The Gentle Boy”
•“Rappacini’s Daughter”
•“Roger Malvin’s Burial”
•“The Birthmark”
•“Mosses from an Old Manse”
•“My Kinsman, Major Molineux
People He Knew
Class Activity—It’s Goal:
Determine what was Hawthorne’s overall purpose? What message
was he trying to convey? And why should we care in 2006?
Your book discusses seven different components of literature:
• Setting: Where are we? What kind of world does the story create? Why did the
author place the story in this particular setting?
• Character: Who are these people? What are their real motives? Why do they
act the way they do?
• Plot: What happens in the story and why? Patterns? Is there a central conflict?
• Point of View: Who is telling the story? Why did the author
choose this way of telling the story? What is his/her world view?
•Symbol: What in the story has a meaning beyond itself? What
do the symbols represent? Is there a point to using these
particular symbols?
•Theme: Does the story make you think? What issues does it
raise? What ideas does it explore?
•Style: How does the author use language? Why did the author
choose this particular genre (the short story)? How does the
language aid the story? (or not?)