Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
property. Several of his classmates, including Horatio Bridge (1806–1893) and
later president Franklin Pierce (1804–1869), would become life-long friends and
supporters of both his livelihood and his writing.
After graduating, Hawthorne immersed himself in antiquarian pursuits,
studying Puritan and colonial history. Many of his stories would consider
Puritanism’s eect on the American consciousness, particularly in regards to the
place of evil—and its inevitable impact on human life—in the American individual
and their context in society. The stories would also give an American slant to
universal concerns, concerns such as potential conicts of individual freedom and
destiny and humankind’s place (if any) in the wilderness/nature, and, perhaps,
in eternity. Sensitive to how Puritans would confuse the concrete and particular
with the abstract and spiritual, Hawthorne often used allegory and symbolism in
order to give shading to Puritans’ apparently clear-cut, black and white certainties.
He would link Puritan certainties about human nature with more natural human
uncertainties and ambiguities.
His rst published novel derived not from his antiquarian studies but from
his experiences at Bowdoin. Published at his own expense, Fanshawe (1828)
proved such a failure that Hawthorne halted its distribution. Despite this failure,
he successfully placed contemporary and historical prose pieces in Christmas
annuals, many in The Token, edited by Samuel Griswold Goodrich (1793—1860).
His friend Bridge encouraged Hawthorne to publish a collection of this work and,
unknown to Hawthorne, oered to defray its publisher, the American Stationers’
Company, for any publishing losses. Twice-Told Tales came out in 1837 to much
critical, though little nancial, success. Hawthorne followed it with historical
children’s books, including Liberty Tree (1841), and an expanded edition of Twice-
Told Tales (1842).
To earn a steady income, Hawthorne worked at the Boston Custom House
(1839–1840) and invested money in and lived for a brief stint at the utopian Brook
Farm in West Roxbury, an experiment that ultimately failed. In 1842, he married
Sophia Peabody. They moved into a house owned by Emerson’s family, the Old
Manse, in Concord. There, Hawthorne became part of the important literary milieu
that included Thoreau, Fuller, and Emerson.
His story collection Mosses from an Old Manse came out in 1846. It also
oered little nancial success. Hawthorne returned to Salem where he worked in
the Salem Custom House (1846—1849), losing this position when the Democrats
lost the next election. He used his experiences at the Custom House in the long
introduction to The Scarlet Letter (1850), the novel that won Hawthorne longlasting
fame. This work dramatizes sin, punishment, and redemption—and their
eects not only on its heroine, Hester Prynne, but also on her partner in adultery,
her cuckolded husband, and the surrounding Puritan community and government
that confuses the internal and external self. Hester Prynne both embodies and
transcends the scarlet letter “A” she is forced to wear on her breast as punishment
for her adultery. Her lover, the Puritan minister Arthur Dimmesdale, underscores
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