Historical/Biographical Overview of Nathaniel

Hawthorne and Puritanism1806 - 1864

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, MA on July 4, 1806

His father was a sea captain and a descendent of prominent men in the Puritan theocracy of the 1600s

The first of his ancestors, William Hathorne, came to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1603 with a “Bible and a sword” and persecuted Quakers. He was said to have whipped a Quaker woman through the streets of Salem.

His great-great grandfather, John Hathorne, was one of the three judges that presided over the Salem Witch Trials in 1692.

Another ancestor helped fight the Indians in the 1600s.

Hawthorne felt extreme pride and guilt for the sins of his ancestors.

His ancestors’ attacks against Quakers, Indians, and accused witches were both a source of interest and conflict for him.

He changed the spelling of his name from Hathorne to Hawthorne to disassociate himself.

The Puritan DoctrineThe Puritans set up a theocracy in New England when they came to America from England in 1630. The church was a self-governing body, answerable to no higher authority.

They wanted to “purify” the Church of England of remnants from the Roman Catholic “popery”.

Their civil government strictly enforced public morality by prohibiting vices like drunkenness, gambling, ostentatious dress, swearing, and Sabbath- breaking.

The Church was the political and social center of life in Salem.

Puritanism emphasized the Calvinistic obsession toward morality, sexual repression, shame and declaration of guilt, and spiritual salvation.

Basic Beliefs of PuritanismOriginal Sin: Because of Adam and

Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden, all humans were born in a state of sin and without God’s salvation, man remained in a state of sin.

Predestination: Whether one achieved salvation was determined by God; only God could decide a person’s future and everything that happened was at God’s will. This decision would not be affected by how human beings behaved during their lives. God offered no incentives for upright moral behavior. No good actions on their part could change God’s divine decree and alter their preordained fates. They did not believe in free will to decide their fate.

Reasons Predestination Appealed to the Puritans

The Puritans embraced predestination and were comfortable with the idea as it provided them solace and security in a very confusing world.

At this time growth of commerce brought profit for some but unemployment, inflation, misery, vagrancy and crime to others.

Tension between Catholics and Protestants made their lives uncertain.

America was a strange wild place that they sought to tame.

Predestination answered their inner needs for comfort and reassurance: God had a plan for all humanity and everyone had a role to play. Suffering in the present world would produce a perfect peace, heaven on earth. Every event tended toward triumph of good over evil, order from disorder, Christ over Satan.

The Elect: They also believed that God, in His infinite mercy, would spare a small number of “elect” individuals from eternal hellfire that all men deserved. This elect group would be blessed by a profound sense of inner assurance that they possessed God’s saving grace (conversion).

They believed that living a godly moral life was not a CAUSE of a person’s salvation, but an EFFECT of being chosen by God to enjoy bliss in Heaven.

The uncertainty (not knowing who would be saved) only made believers redouble their efforts to practice self-examination and to purify their lives and society as whole.

Conversion: Despite the baptism and religious education, the only way to receive full membership into the church and receive communion was to experience a conversion.

A conversion was a sudden realization brought about by divine intervention, a vision, or perhaps a dream.

This was the ultimate sign of faith and election (that they were among one of God’s chosen).

So, people were eager to experience a conversion.

Baptism and Education: Children were baptized into the church and taught Puritan doctrine.

They believed that man had to be instructed to realize his own wickedness so at childhood, education began.

Children were taught that man was not only suspect but guilty of depravity.

Persons instructed in the catechism from their youth could consider a person of good works and character to be a witch merely on the basis of spectral evidence in spite of his or her good standing in the community.

Wealth: Outward wealth was a sign of inner grace.

Success on earth reflected God’s love.

This encouraged the Puritans to work had in order to achieve earthly success.

They led godly and disciplined lives – not because it would earn them salvation – but because their ability to master their evil inclinations and live in an upright society provided them some evidence that they were among God’s chosen.

Relations With Indians

The religious and social practices of the Indians were unfamiliar and strange to the straight-laced conservative Puritans.

The Puritans believed Indians were uncivilized, inferior, and associated them with the devil, witches, and evil spirits.

Puritan settlers had several belligerent encounters with Indians and they lived in fear of Indian attacks. One bloody incident was King Phillip’s War (1675 -76) led by Chief Metacom (a.k.a. King Phillip) and several tribes. Fighting lasted 14 months and destroyed 12 villages.

The Puritans saw their victories as a sign of God’s favor.

Salem Witch TrialsIn 17th century New England, most people shared

a strong belief in witchcraft and in “wonders of the invisible world” (witches, the power of Satan to assume visible form, the foretelling power of dreams and omens, and other supernatural phenomena).

In 1692 Salem experienced mass hysteria and paranoia that resulted in twenty people put to death for witchcraft.

More than 100 people were jailed and many died during their imprisonment.

Almost all accused “witches” were older women, who tended to be independent and nonconformist.

This episode and its aftermath marked the end of Puritan authority in New England and, with dawning rationalism, the belief in devils striking out from some “invisible” world.

Hawthorne’s TimesIn 1820’s and 1830’s, America was

undergoing the Second Great Awakening .

This was a time of religious tent revivals, people regaining an enthusiasm for religion and marked by an emphasis on personal piety.

Additionally, these revivals focused on developing a strong work ethic, frugality, and temperance.

Hawthorne observed this religious movement and became deeply concerned with the merits and consequences of religious fanaticism. He saw this as another attempt by a church to sway its membership toward total obedience and faith.

Growing up, Nathaniel Hawthorne could not escape the influence of Puritan society, not only from residing with his father’s devout Puritan family as a child but also due to Hawthorne’s realizations of his own family history.

Many of Hawthorne’s literary works reflect his ambivalence toward his Puritan heritage. This was even more disturbing because critics of this period condemned Puritan ideals.

Writing during the Second Great Awakening in 1835, Hawthorne commented on the dangers of extreme religious enthusiasm, as well as shedding light upon the dual nature of the Puritans – they realized man was flawed and needed to constantly better himself, yet persecuted those they deemed unfit for society.

Major Themes in Hawthorne’s Works

Hawthorne's family history and specific events in his life informed his writings.

In many of his stories, Hawthorne uses history to examine issues of community and individualism, explaining both the madness in Salem and much subsequent madness.

An analysis of the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne will not only reveal his interest in exploring the themes and ideas behind the Puritan period, but also, in the true spirit of the tradition of Romanticism that he was writing, they examine more ethereal notions such as nature, beauty, romantic love, and of course, the supernatural.

Some of Hawthorne's major themes include self-trust versus accommodation to authority; obsessive versus open-mindedness; hypocrisy versus candor; presumed guilt or innocence; the penalties of isolation; crimes against the human heart; patriarchal power; belief in fate or free will; the truths available to the mind during dream and reverie; and the impossibility of earthly perfection.

Bibliography• http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/Literature/

Quakers&Witches/YoungGoodmanBrown/Introduction.html• http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/wohlpart/alra/Hawthorne.htm• http://sakridge.umwblogs.org/put-pen-to-paper/portfolio/the-

influence-of-history-and-puritanism-on-young-goodman-brown/• http://college.cengage.com/english/heath/syllabuild/iguide/

hawthorn.html• http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/king-

philips-war• http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/eighteen/

ekeyinfo/puritan.htm