Style of Hawthorne

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In 1804 a great Gothic-romance writer by the name of Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts and was determined to make the 18th Century aware of the deep and dark desires that are present in every person’s mind. Hawthorne himself once quoted that “easy reading is damn hard writing.”(Hawthorne, 1849) but through frustration and angst Hawthorne created a selection of metaphysical poetry and a few longer works, one of which being the infamous “The Scarlett Letter”. Hawthorne’s style of writing shaped the genre of romance and short story as the originality of his writing was a reincarnation of his own personal values and beliefs (Litz, 1998). Essentially, Hawthorne chose to focus primarily on themes revolving around the nature of man involving psychological or metaphysical elements. In the texts “The Ocean”, “Go to the Grave” and “The Scarlett Letter” Nathaniel Hawthorne conveys central themes and ideas through the character’s internal struggle, the concept of neutrality and religious symbolism.

The conflict in a fictional work is formulaic yet crucial to the plot as it assists the development of the characters, themes and drives intrigue into the pages. Although most authors choose to focus predominately on a character’s external conflict, Hawthorne decided to design his writing around internal conflict. From the perspective of a character’s thoughts, the targeted audience could connect more with the character and discover a darker side of humanity than that which is normally seen. For example, this technique is prevalent in “The Scarlett Letter” as Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale must all face a struggle of their conscious between what is right and what is sinful. During the chapter iro...

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...itans was seen as evil or simply black magic. Overall, the use of religious symbols create a more specific setting, a more frightful and adamant mood and scared atmosphere as well as tones of regret, remorse and fright.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s craft of consistent inner struggles, impartial grounds and religious motifs created various moods, tones and contributing factors to his texts “The Scarlett Letter”, “Go to the Grace” and “The Ocean”. The evolution of classical American literature would not have been complete if it were to miss the complex writing style of Hawthorne. The diversity of Hawthorne’s techniques and applications mesh with his uniform mixture of intricate ideas and controversial themes and ventures into metaphysical questions and the vast psychological components of the human mind that have never been so thoroughly explored in literature before.

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