Nathaniel Hawthorne's life, as seen in his writing, shows solitary self analysis
expressed as symbolism which exhibits the weakness he found in all mankind. The ease in
which one can understand his symbolism has influenced American Literature.
Hawthorne's cynical themes of human nature were represented in The Ministers Black
veil, The Birthmark, and Rappaccini's Daughter. Hawthorne's preoccupation with
scientific and Puritan religious values shows his belief in mans shortcomings through the
The solitary character, found in Hawthorne's short stories, was based on his own
life. He lived a reclusive life starting at four when his father died of yellow fever. His
mother, Elizabeth Clark Manning Hathorne, and her three children were forced to move
back to her father's house. In a house filled with thirteen others and a mother who
mourned her husband in seclusion Nathaniel found it necessary to spend as much time
alone as possible. His interest in reading began at seven when he injured his foot in a ball
game and recuperating for several years instilled in him the love of literature (Hart 320).
Being alone was a habit for him and deepened when he would spend time alone at his
family's lake in Maine ( Rivendell's). Later while going to Bowdin college he met and
became friends with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Horatio Bridge and Franklin Pierce.
Although his first friendships would help establish his career as a writer he continued to
be withdrawn and lonely until he married Sophia Peabody in 1842 (Herzberg, 439).
The structured religious views that Hawthorne rebelled against were also instilled
in him at an early age. Although he grew up surrounded by Puritans, he was raised as an
Unitarian and clamed no church at all, his transcendentalist friends helped influence his
beliefs (American 228). Hawthorne's belief surmounted that happiness requir...