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.
Lathrop, G. P., ed. "Hawthorne, Nathaniel." The Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature. Binghamton, New York: Vail-Ballou, 1962. 439-40. Print.
“Nathaniel Hawthorne – Biography.” The European Graduate School. The European Graduate School, n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2014
“Nathaniel Hawthorne.” The Norton Anthology: American Literature, edited by Baym et al. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1995.
Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts on July 4, 1804 (Magill 1; Campbell 1; “Nathaniel Hawthorne”; Eldred 1). He was born into the sixth generation of his Salem family, and was a descendant of a long line of New England Puritans, which contributed in his interest in the Puritan way of life. The family was originally known as the “Hathornes”, but Nathaniel added the “w” to his name so it would become “Hawthorne”. The Hawthornes had been involved in religious persecution with their first American ancestor, William. Another ancestor, John Hathorne, was one of the three judges at the seventeenth-century Salem witchcraft trials. Hawthorne’s father was a sea captain, and when he was four years old (1808), his father died on a voyage in Surinam, Dutch Guinea (Campbell 1). Hawthorne was left alone with his mother and two sisters. He spent his early years in Salem and in Maine, during which he showed an interest in his father’s nautical adventures and read his logbooks often, even after his death (Magill 1). His maternal relatives recognized his literary talent at such a you...
“Nathaniel Hawthorne.” The Norton Anthology: American Literature, edited by Baym et al. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1995.
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.
Wagenknecht, Edward. Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Man, His Tales and Romances. New York: Continuum Publishing Co., 1989.
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.
BIOGRAM 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.
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.
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.
One of Hawthorne’s best novels was The Scarlet Letter which presents a stable and sad tale of love and betrayal it was set in the context of the seventeenth-century, Puritan, New England. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s authorial intentions were to be the first American writer to explore hidden motivations of characters. His intentions of his beliefs were to show people that witchcraft wasn’t real and that Puritans were paranoid. Even though he had a Puritan descent he hated them with a passion he was ashamed of what his grandfather was and he added the w to his name through the shame of his history. Nathaniel Hawthorne wanted to present the puritans with a negative stigma. Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. His family descended from the early Puritan settlers in America and had lived in Salem since the 1600s. One of his ancestors was a judge in the Salem witchcraft trials where many women were executed. Hawthorne's father was a captain of a ship, he died when Nathaniel was aged 4, and his mother became a virtual recluse. Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, where his best friends Franklin Pierce, who later became a president of the United States.