Nathaniel Hawthorne: Transcendentalism In Emerson And Henry David Thoreau

Nathaniel Hawthorne is a very well known American short story writer, and romantic novelist. Nathaniel was born on July 4th of 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. Shortly after being born Nathaniel’s father Nathaniel who was a seaman, passed away in 1808 due to yellow fever at sea. This caused Nathaniel's mother Elizabeth to take Hawthorne and his two sisters to live with her brothers. Most of his ancestors, and family consisted of businessmen, judges, and seamen. Nathaniel was born into a family of puritans, ones with a very strict religious background which affects hawthorns writing in the future. Nathaniel’s great great grandfather was a well-known and crucial judge that controlled what happened to the supposed witches in the Salem witch trials. This made the hawthorns believe that they had a

curse on their family due to the fact that they had ancestors who dealt with the Salem witch trials. Nathaniel Hawthorne decided to add the letter w to his last name to hide any relation to his ancestors. Nathaniel always knew that he wanted to be a writer. His first writing was published by himself in 1828 called Fanshawe. He used his own money to publish Fanshawe, but later decided it was not his best writing and did not want the public to be able to view his creation, so he tried to destroy all of the copies that were printed before the public could view his work. Hawthorne made money after college selling a bunch of short stories that he had created, but it was only making him enough money to get by. As Nathaniel was growing up he found it hard to make a career out of writing, so he decided to work a lot of jobs that had to deal with government issues. He hated living in Salem so much he stated that, “I detest this town so much that I hate to go out into the streets, or to have people see me”.

What really began to shoot off Nathaniel’s writing career is when he got connected with two transcendentalist writers named Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Transcendentalist writers write about the goodness of people and nature, and how everything should be looked at in a positive view in life. Basically making them the peacemakers of their time. Nathaniel could never be fully labeled as a transcendentalist writer due to the fact that he had other beliefs about humans and nature, and was more focused on creating his own stories. Nathaniel believed that not everything in life was positive, and had more of a realistic view on everything in life. This led Nathaniel in to creating a lot of his writing in a Dark Romantics category. A great example of one of these writings would be “The Scarlet Letter”. Soon before creating The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel's mother passed away. The Scarlet Letter was a story that takes place in the puritan times about a woman named Hester Prynne who violates community moralities by performing

adultery. Creating this story is what got Hawthorne to become so famous due to the actuality of the story, and not holding back what he really sees in human nature. His writings implied that the world is a relatively bad place. Though famous for creating such an amazing story, Nathaniel was a very shy author and did not like the fame and attention that he was receiving from fans for his work. Nathaniel married a woman by the name of Sophia Amelia Peabody was a painter and illustrator who also published her own journals. Nathaniel and Sophia had three children named Una Hawthorne born in 1844, Julian Hawthorne born in 1846, and Rose Hawthorne born in 1851. Nathaniel Hawthorne passed away in Plymouth New Hampshire May 19th 1864. He refused to ever seek medical attention at an old age, so he passed away in his sleep due to natural causes. Nathaniel being the shy man he was never wanted to have any stories, or documents written about him, but when he passed away he left all of his amazing writings, and journals to be read by society so he could always tell his stories. Nathaniel Hawthorne will forever be known as a Father of American Literature.