Family History: Hawthorne’s Genealogy of Madness

History, in demanding family history, is doubtfully Nathaniel Hawthorne’s most important nature in The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables. Hawthorne focuses on his fatherly intimates in these novels for the reason that the Hathorne name, notwithstanding its infamous suggestion in history, is a important name in early American history. Burdened by his male ancestors’ in famous standing, Hawthorne recount family history in his fiction often with a sense of guilt. Superficially, Hawthorne reveals a feeling of shame on behalf of his paternal ancestors’ actions when he portrays Puritans in his fiction.

Yet, upon closer inspection, Hawthorne may have experienced mixed feelings of shame and pride when he recast these historical figures.

The Puritans, despite their severe dogma, were responsible for creating new colonies where they could practice their beliefs freely. Hawthorne’s choice of the Pyncheon name in The House of the Seven Gables perhaps reveals his conflicting feelings of shame and pride toward his male ancestors. Unlike the Hathornes, the historical Pynchons of the seventeenth-century were unconventional; they became problematic citizens among their Puritan community.

The accuracy of Hawthorne’s portrayal of historical male figures, consequently, is questionable. He highlights both his sense of honor and shame in his depiction of father figures in his fiction. Hawthorne’s fictional portrayal of the women in his family, in particular his mother, is anything but unfavorable. Elizabeth Hathorne suffered the loss of a husband, and her confidence was forever shaken by this event.

When Hawthorne created Hester and other strong female heroines. When he portrays the women in his family, specifically his mother, he cannot judge them since they were relatively powerless; instead he sympathizes with feminine figures. Mrs. Hathorne’s insecure nature is transformed in Hawthorne’s fiction as he reveals the life he wished for his mother. Elizabeth Hathorne lost all hope for independence when she went back to her maternal family home, and she never attempted to become head of her own household.

Hawthorne takes historical figures such as the Puritans and builds a narrative surrounding their seventeenth – century communities to reveal certain themes about human nature: the corruption of Chillingworth’s heart, Hester’s isolation and the break from her community, and the burden of guilt evident in Dimmesdale’s character. Instead of factual story turns out to be much a construction of the human mind as the narrator’s first Gothic fictions.

Easton points out that he narrator in The Custom House, for instance, attempts to establish the story’s historical authenticity when he finds the manuscript of the novel and remnants of a red cloth, perhaps part of Hester’s scarlet A. This is a clear example of Hawthorne’s ironic sense of humor in his fiction. Hawthorne’s fiction reflects geographical shifts in his life, for example, as Easton notes, the time between the composition of The Old Manse and The Custom House represents two times in his life (167). The Old Manse is part of what Easton refers to as “the Concord-inspired artist’’.

Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne is exploring human behavior through the Puritans of the past, as he transports the past to his present audience. For Hawthorne, reexamining the past, “gives him the necessary detachment to observe the operation of values in any particular society and make generalizations as seem appropriate” (Easton 194). His predicament is similar to Hester’s in the novel. She falls from her place within her community for not maintaining the moral values of those who are in power, the Puritan officials.

She sinned against God, an obviously higher official than a political party, she is judged by a more severe community: seventeenth – century Puritans rather than more liberal nineteenth – century politicians. Hawthorne, furthermore, uses Hester as an example of an extreme case of defiance to test his contemporary audience. Hawthorne was ashamed of how his paternal ancestors used their power because he may have suffered, as did Hester Prynne; they were both powerless victims in the midst of powerful figures within their communities.

Much of Hawthorne’s sense of identity comes from his fascination with the past. Although his “sense of the past” is based on historical events, much of that past is Hawthorne’s artistic re-creation. He creates a grotesque image of his male ancestors to draw attention to the Hathorne family name. The Hathorne name, though notorious, held a notable place in America’s past. Hawthorne may have wanted to re – establish his family’s prominence in American history.

Hawthorne’s portrayal of his Puritan ancestors may be, Hawthorne’s approach to the past consists of diverse attitudes toward his ancestors, as revealed through his characters. During Hawthorne’s lifetime, he may also have developed a romanticized sense of “pride” in his ancestry because his family’s name had lost its luster by the nineteenth – century and his own family’s fortune had dwindled after the death of his father. Elizabeth Hawthorne and her children became dependents of the Manning family, though they had no resources of their own. His mother abandoned her ties with the Hathornes and, consequently, their link to a notable past; thus Hawthorne may have looked to his past. In The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne goes back, perhaps with a hint of nostalgia, to a time when his family would have held powerful positions among the Puritan community. The Pyncheon family of The House of the Seven Gables may also allude to the Hathornes of the past because of Judge Pyncheon’s wealth and prestige.

When Hawthorne’s immediate family became dependents of his mother’ family, the Hathorne name and fortune were at the lowest point they had been in the family’s history. Hawthorne likely related to the “dependent male in his stories” as a dependent of the Mannings. However, his ambition may have been to become a successful “self-contained artist”” and regain his family’s honor.