Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter in 1850. He also wrote Twice-Told Tales. Hawthorne also wrote short stories like “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” and “The Minister’s Black Veil.” Nathaniel Hawthorne used a great deal of imagery and symbolism in his stories. Nathaniel Hawthorne was an early American author whose novels and short stories shaped American Literature.
Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts on July 4, 1804. Nathaniel graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825, and then he moved to Salem (“Nathaniel Hawthorne”). He added the “w” in his last name because he did not want to be associated with his ancestor John Hathorne, who was a judge during the Salem Witch Trials. John Hathorne played a role in the hanging of nineteen people for witchcraft. Hawthorne became a hermit; he locked himself in his room on the third floor of his family house. When he emerged 12 years later, he published a collection of stories called Twice-Told Tales (“Elements of Literature” 249). Hawthorn married Sophia Peabody in 1842. In the years following his marriage, Hawthorne wrote some of his most famous novels (“Nathaniel Hawthorne”). Hawthorne was offered a U.S. consul position in Liverpool. The job was offered an old friend he knew from his days at Bowdoin. Hawthorne returned from Europe but could not finish the novels he had promised his publisher because of
lack of cheerfulness (“Elements of Literature” 250). Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864 in New Hampshire (“Nathaniel Hawthorne”).
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter in 1850 (Eldrich). The Scarlet Letter’s setting is in a strict Puritan community. In the novel, Hester Prynne becomes pregnant, but will not reveal the child’s father. She is put in jail and is forced to wear...
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...ements of Literature” 250).
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an early American author whose novels and short stories shaped American Literature. His books have stood the test of time. Hawthorne uses a great deal of description is his stories. Hawthorne’s books give us a little in-site into life in the 1800s. He changed the way authors wrote back then, and the way we write today.
Works Cited
Eldrich Press. 24 May 2011. 10 March 2014.http://www.eldrichpress.org/nh/hathorne.htmpl
Elements of Literture. 1. Austin,: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2008. 249-50. Print.
Harris, Laurie, ed. "Nathaniel Hawthorne." The Literary World. Gale Research, n.d. Web. 7 Apr 2014.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Supernaturalism. Detroit: Gale Research, 1985. 247-48. Print.
"Nathaniel Hawthorn." E-Scoalar. N.p., 4 Nov 2009. Web. 7 Apr 2014.
"Scarlet Letter." Worldcat. N.p., 12 Aug 2006. Web. 7 Apr 2014.
Nathaniel Hawthorne the author of The Scarlet Letter uses the literary device of chiaroscuro to effectively develop his characters. Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804 to a prominent family. His father passed away on a voyage when he was four years old. His relatives recognized his talent, and they helped pay his way to Bowdoin College. Hawthorne and his classmates became the most prominent people in America at that time. He had many strong ties with important people from attending Bowdoin, such as: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Franklin Pierce. In 1828, his first novel, Fanshawe was anonymously published at his own expense. In 1842, he befriended Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Bronson Alcott, and married Sophia Peabody, an active member of the Transcendentalist movement. In 1846, he was appointed surveyor of the Port of Salem where he worked for the next three years, being unable to earn a living as a writer. He wrote The Scarlet Letter in 1850, showing the Puritans as hypocrites fixated on sin. This romance was an immediate success, even though it received many criticisms for its risqué topic. In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne effectively uses chiaroscuro to develop the personalities of Hester Prynne, Pearl, and Arthur Dimmesdale.
“Nathaniel Hawthorne – Biography.” The European Graduate School. The European Graduate School, n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2014
Waggoner, Hyatt H. “Nathaniel Hawthorne.” In Six American Novelists of the Nineteenth Century, edited by Richard Foster. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1968.
“Nathaniel Hawthorne.” The Norton Anthology: American Literature, edited by Baym et al. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1995.
... resided in their first permanent home, The Wayside, at Concord. Hawthorne’s health eventually began to fail him, but since he refused to submit to medical examination, the details of his health issues remain unclear. He eventually died in Plymouth, New Hampshire on May 19, 1864 (Magill 1; Campbell 1; “Nathaniel Hawthorne”; Eldred 1).
Another big influence on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s writing of his most famous novel, The Scarlet Letter, was money. At the time before he started writing his novel, he had very little money, and his first daughter was recently born. He needed to write in order to support his family. He planned on writing a long short story, however the amount of money he would make from writing a novel was too much to pass
"Nathaniel Hawthorne - Biography." Nathaniel Hawthorne. The European Graduate School, n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
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. In The Scarlet Letter, the scaffold not only represents the act of confessing but it also can be seen as a symbol of the stern, inflexible doctrine of the Puritan faith. The Scarlet Letter is centered on the three scaffold scenes, which unite the work, beginning, middle, and end. Hawthorne uses these scenes to aid in his development of the main characters, Hester Pryne, the Reverend Mr. Dimmsdale, and to a lesser degree, Roger Chillingsworth.
Wagenknecht, Edward. Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Man, His Tales and Romances. New York: Continuum Publishing Co., 1989.
"Nathaniel Hawthorne- Biography." The European Graduate School. The European Graduate School EGS, 1997-2012. Web. 25 November 2013.
The man Nathaniel Hawthorne, an author of the nineteenth century, was born in 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts. It was there that he lived a poverty-stricken childhood without the financial support of a father, because he had passed away in 1808. Hawthorne was raised strictly Puritan, his great-grandfather had even been one of the judges in the Puritan witchcraft trials during the 1600s. This and Hawthorne’s destitute upbringing advanced his understanding of human nature and distress felt by social, religious, and economic inequities. Hawthorne was a private individual who fancied solitude with family friends. He was also very devoted to his craft of writing. Hawthorne observed the decay of Puritanism with opposition; believing that is was a man’s responsibility to pursue the highest truth and possessed a strong moral sense. These aspects of Hawthorne’s philosophy are what drove him to write about and even become a part of an experiment in social reform, in a utopian colony at Brook Farm. He believed that the Puritans’ obsession with original sin and their ironhandedness undermined instead of reinforced virtue. As a technician, Hawthorne’s style in literature was abundantly allegorical, using the characters and plot to acquire a connection and to show a moral lesson. His definition of romanticism was writing to show truths, which need not relate to history or reality. Human frailty and sorrow were the romantic topics, which Hawthorne focused on most, using them to finesse his characters and setting to exalt good and illustrate the horrors of immorality. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s experiences as a man, incite as a philosopher and skill as a technician can be seen when reading The Scarlet Letter.
Lathrop, G. P., ed. "Hawthorne, Nathaniel." The Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature. Binghamton, New York: Vail-Ballou, 1962. 439-40. Print.
The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne takes place in Salem, Massachusetts in the sixteen hundreds. Hester Prynne is accused of committing adultery in her small puritan settlement but little does the town know that the father is in fact Reverend Dismmesdale. Having sent his wife ahead of him two years before hand, Hester stops her husband in the crowd as she is standing accused on the scaffolding. Hester is given a punishment in the hopes of making her ashamed; however, she turns the mockery into amazement by making the scarlet A into a beautiful piece of patch work. Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, is on the hunt from at that point to find out the child’s father but not even Pearl herself knows. The Scarlet Letter showed how early Americans concentrated their beliefs of church and home in their daily lives. Nathaniel Hawthorne words reflect the flaws in American society during the Puritan settlement. This was also the era of the Salam Witch Trials which Hawthorne’s father played a part in. The central idea reflects that suffering comes from sinning. The Scarlet Letter was the stepping stones that paved future American novels to become so successful.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short-story writer who was a master of the allegorical and symbolic tale. One of the greatest fiction writers in American literature, he is best-known for The Scarlet Letter 1850 and The House of the Seven Gables 1851.
Symons, Arthur. "Nathaniel Hawthorne." Studies in Prose and Verse. E. P. Dutton & Co., 1904. 52-62. Rpt. in Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Ed. Laurie Lanzen Harris. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale Research, 1982. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 3 Feb. 2012.