The 19th Century Prose of Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne's 19th Century Prose

Nathaniel Hawthorne, a master of American fiction, often utilizes

dreams within the annals of his writings to penetrate, explore and express

his perceptions of the complex moral and spiritual conflicts that plague

mankind. His clever, yet crucial purpose for using dreams is to represent,

through symbolism, the human divergence conflict manifested in the souls of

man during the firm Christian precepts of the Era in which he lived. As a

visionary in an extremely conservative Puritanical society, he carefully

and successfully manages to depict humanity's propensity for sin and

secrecy, and any resulting punishment or atonement by weaving dreams into

his tales. The dreams he refers to in many of his writings are heavily

symbolic due to his Christian foundation, and they imply that he views most

dreams as a pigmentation of reality. Hawthorne's ability to express and

subsequently bring to fruition the true state of man's sinful nature by

parallelling dreams with reality represents not only his religious beliefs

but also his true mastery of observation regarding the human soul.

An examination of Hawthorne's own narrative in his short story, The

Birthmark, published in 1850 during the latter part of the period of

Puritanism expands his observations of mankind with keen insight.

Truth often finds its way to the mind close-muffled

in robes of sleep, and then speaks with uncompromising

directness of matters in regard to which we practice

an unconscious self-deception, during our waking

moments. (par.15)

The prophetic statement was made by Hawthorne to open the reader's mind and

perhaps inject an introspective glimpse of his perspective that dreams do

indeed contain precursors or warnings of future conscious realities. He

also contends that people often purposely disregard the contents of their

dreams and do not face the realities that they are confronted with while in

unconscious moments of slumber. Hawthorne's writings are marked by

intrinsic depth and a sincere desire to crawl inside of the characters he

has created. He accomplishes this objective by allowing them to dream.

He makes his presence known by frequently commenting openly throughout his

prose and interject a narrative of his assertions. Hawthorne historically

has his characters confront reality following a dream, or he reveals that