Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Puritanism

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Özden YAĞLI Yrd. Doç. Dr. Nilsen GÖKÇEN Alan Çalışması 12 January 2008

Hawthorne vs. the Puritanism and the Nature as Mirror From the first step to the land of America, the Puritans have thought of nature as the place of evil. Having escaped from persecution in England, the Puritans in America replaced the role of persecutors against nature. Ignoring their sins, they think of nature as sinful. Nature, for Puritans is more than an external world; it rather reflects them their own nature, which they revealed under strict moral codes. A good Puritan would never go into the forest for they fear to face themselves. This may lead to a more surprising inference about the Puritans; that they did not have faith in their own faith in God.

The Approach of a Modernist Puritan toward His Ancestors  Nathanial Hawthorne is highly involved with the themes, Puritanism and nature. His way of using these themes is ironic and excessive as his background is also Puritan. Hawthorne makes us feel redemption, apology and also satire for his ancestors. If we check his novels, short stories, and sketches we see that this feeling reaches the climax as Hawthorne says: “At all events, I, the present writer, as their representative, hereby take shame upon myself for their sakes, and pray that any curse incurred by them…”

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Actually when Hawthorne wrote “The Gentle Boy ” in 1832, he gave the first implications of his thoughts about his ancestors by saying: “The traveler took the child in his arms and wrapped his cloak about him, while his heart stirred with shame and anger against … in this persecution” And even going further, showing that the Quaker family once lived in Turkey with pagans (?), were in a better situation than in New England, reminding his ancestors that they were killing the people with same blood: “Her husband and herself had resided r esided many months in Turkey, where even the sultan’s countenance was gracious to them … his (Ibrahim)oriental name was a mark of gratitude for the good deeds of an unbeliever.” I think his comparison of his ancestors with pagans, as he says, is well enough to see his seriousness about what they did in the past.

The Paradox between the Civilization and the t he Wilderness The Puritans, who were rebels in the old civilization, attempted to enforce the same civilization on the New England. Thus, nature and the wilderness became the enemy of the Puritans. And in their struggle with nature, they did not hesitate to use it as a way of   punishment. In The Scarlet Letter and The Gentle Boy , the reader is always made aware of the surrounding wilderness in many ways. At first, Hester has the option of leaving Massachusetts Bay Colony and living in the wilderness, where she will be out of reach of the Puritans.

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“—And having also the passes of the dark, inscrutable forest open to her, where the wildness of her nature might assimilate itself with a people whose customs and life were aliens from the law that had condemned her—” Hester’s staying in the town indicates her determination not to give herself to wilderness. She is banished from the village to a hut on the bound of wilderness and civilization. It signifies that she could not live according to the civilization and she is in danger of  wilderness. In The Gentle Boy we are informed that Ibrahim’s mother was left to wilderness to die as Hawthorne says: “She had been taken from the prison short time before, carried into the inhabited wilderness and left there to perish by hunger or wild beasts”

Young Goodman Brown’s walking with the devil in the forest is one of the best ways Hawthorne used to hold the nature as mirror. The purpose of his journey into the wilderness was actually a journey into his own nature. It was not just an act that anyone “the ones with not enough faith in their own faith” could dare. As the walking proceeds between the devil and Brown, we conclude that Brown’s ancestors have already looked the mirror long time ago as the devil says: “I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem; and it was I that brought your father a pitch pine knot kindled at my own heart, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip’s War.” The people, Brown saw in the forest have already been part of nature and found their true identity. He perplexes as he sees the people people but one thing that keeps Brown Brown faithful leaves him at the climax:

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“‘My Faith is gone!’Cried he, after one stupefied moment. ‘There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name’.” And he realizes that he was the one left not encircled by the wilderness. The Puritans standing against nature has been stable, as they think. Their prejudice has many reasons as we could say religious and things in nature forced them to be like that. And also we see a society trying to settle in a New World. Is it normal to behave like them? We could say “yes” but we know their approach to nature, natives and to the Quakers. One question comes forth here; was it necessary to be so harsh against everything around them? They did everything not to lose their identity, if you say, their manners made them infamous. In their view, you have no option other than being a Puritan, if you, then it means you represent the evil; “Is it the Lord’s house that you come to pour forth the foulness of your heart and the inspiration of the devil?” As we see in the quotation said to a Quaker woman in The Gentle Boy … The Puritans’ thought not to yield to the wilderness and not to be assimilated can lessen the anger against them, but it does not mean that it can change the prejudice on them. As a result we are led to rumors about their views, life styles. As Henry Louis Mencken ironically says; “Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy” We almost get this impression when we read the Market-Place of The Scarlet Letter. As Hawthorne let us know the women’ opinions about Hester, we conclude that not only he ironically shows their pious way, but also a lso shows their bitchy and shameless ways. But actually they were the ones who stood against the nature ardently (?).As we understand from

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Hawthorne’s approach to his ancestors, he has tried find distance from this point of  Puritanism and lived in his own way. The place of nature between Hawthorne and his Puritan ancestors were certainly closer to him. Then he was the evil one. Surely he was not; actually he was the one to realize that his ancestors were the ones with sinful pasts. Where nature involves between the two is when Hawthorne uses it against his ancestors. He is just reflecting them their own nature. While doing this, he had a different opinion; who was the one with devil? His answer to this was that the evil was in everybody as the devil says in Young Goodman Brown; “Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race.” He means the evil makes the people so blind that they can not recognize themselves. Consequently we see a little retreatment of the pressure on his ancestors. Thus what he  presents us about his ancestors is just a modern view of history. In this research paper, I tried to explain the ideas of Hawthorne about his Puritan ancestors and their views of nature. The Puritans’ negative ideas about nature have been knocked on their face by him. He condemned his ancestors by showing they were the ones with evil, which I see as revolutionary at times of his age. Hawthorne’s judgment of the Puritans was made with their own enemy; with this judgment he has showed that it is not the wilderness that should be feared, it is their own nature that should be aware of.

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Works Cited Hawthorne, Selected Tales and Sketches. Introduction  Introduction by Hyatt H. WAGGONER –  Third Edition (1970) Hawthorne: Collected Novels –Fanshawe, The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, The Marble Faun- (1983)