Similarities Between Hawthorne And Emerson

Greatest Thinkers of The 19th Century

“ In the mid-19th Century, Concord- about 19 miles west of Boston- was home to writers, scholars, policy makers, and abolitionist- among them Alcott- her father, philosopher Bronson Alcott, and the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau” (Jones). All of the aforementioned, accomplished writers were friends. Initially, because of Emerson’s presence, Concord was a significant cultural center. "The Brook Farm experiment (1841-1846) was one of the most famous experiments in Utopian Socialism in America” (Brozeck). The “Brook Farm” is where Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau met. They attained their writing ability and style here. However, we can draw similarities and

differences from all three writers.
We look at their similarities as being members of the “Brook Farm”.

The Brook Farm was a society of Transcendentalist, which according to Brozeck, “They blamed the social evils of the world on the lust of accumulation of personal objects and that the only way these 'ills' could be cured is by withdrawing from a competitive institutional society and setting up a new community, free of competition and desire for accumulation” (Brozeck). Thoreau lived with Emerson’s family and they shared common beliefs. Emerson and Thoreau believed, basically, that we were born good and that society and government brought out the basic evil in us. These two authors wrote a plethora about self-discovery and about government influence. All three wrote about the human condition. They believed that humans were capable of good and evil. The similarities between Emerson and Thoreau were great. However, there were also differences in their beliefs as well. The differences in convictions between Hawthorne and these two were even

greater.
The main difference between Emerson and Thoreau were how they presented their stories.

Let’s look at some passages and analyze their styles of writing and content. Emerson wrote in “Self Reliance”, “Man is his own star; and the soul that can render an honest and perfect man” (Norton). Thoreau wrote in “Walden Pond”, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” (Norton). Emerson was more philosophical and presented his writings as more of a lecture. Thoreau's writings were more intimate and personal in style. He was the central character of his stories. Thoreau lived on Walden Pond and actually lived what he wrote about. Hawthorne was completely opposite of Emerson and Thoreau. He was an “Anti-transcendentalist” which believed, “man is born with the strain of original sin, man is the most destructive force in nature, one can only find good through good works and life experiences” (Brozeck). Hawthorne was more dark in his writing as is evident in a passage from the “Scarlett Letter”. “The founders of the new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison” (Hawthorne). From this passage, it is

noticeable he uses objects or symbols to get his meaning across.
Emerson and Thoreau were rather similar as it seemed Thoreau looked up to Emerson. Emerson welcomed Thoreau to his property. Hawthorne did attempt to become a “Transcendentalists”. However, his beliefs that humans were born evil and that their evil was not a product of societal influence, drastically influenced the way he wrote and put him at odds with the beliefs of the "Transcendentalists". All three writers that lived in Concord, Massachusetts fed off each other’s concepts and ideas. Each author influenced the others. If we were all alike in our beliefs, our style of thinking, and the way our thoughts affect our actions, our country would not be as strong. It is these very differences that make us who we are and make this country the greatest on Earth.