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Hawthorne Hawthorne: July 4, 1804 (Salem, MA) -- 1864 Bernard: 1813-1873; Poe: 1809-1849 Hawthorne graduated from Bowdoin college; spent the next ten years holed up in his bedroom at home, reading American History. -- was considered America's first great classic writer; was completely American and revered as a writer even during his lifetime. In Twice Told Tales (1837), he wrestles with the American image; questions Puritan ideals and uprightness. The Jacksonian era was one of opportunities: -- new jobs, westward expansion, etc. -- the role of strong women was also being questioned by society. Hawthorne thought that these movements were morally lax, focused on the material. He thought that his time lacked culture; that it was bland. He wrote about the past to juxtapose it with his own time. Didn't set his writing in his own time period (Jacksonian Era), because he viewed it as boring, without DEPTH. Jacksonian America was a time of westward expansion. The idea of Manifest Destiny was believed to be the responsibility of the new nation -- a God-given right to explore westward and to "civilize" & "Christianize" native Americans. By manipulating the Puritan past in his fiction, Hawthorn examined problems in his own society. American historical view: -- Puritans & Jacksonian historians believed that it was God's mission for them to expand the kingdom (Manifest Destiny, etc.) HOWEVER, expanding "God's Kingdom" also resulted in a massacre of the innocent; the dark underside of progress glossed over as God's will -- Indians, women & men accused of being witches, etc. all suffered at the hands of "morally upright" settlers Hawthorne was determined to reveal these ironies and to question what really was American: -- Puritan view: the ideal of being elect/chosen/above everyone else; is really arrogance -- "we are superior, everyone else is damned" Superiority by comparison creates a society that ostracizes, punishes, looks for the bad so that it can be weeded out -- how can you really know that everyone else is damned? -- Is it possible to truly be morally superior when you commit atrocities such as torturing Quakers, massacring Indians, ostracizing one another? -- Puritans are obsessed with spiritual salvation: they deny basic instincts: (sex, good food, etc.); is it possible to be happy? Ironies in Puritan life: judging another as damned really makes the one judging damned because they are judging -- something a good Christian should not do. When a community looks for the faults in people it is unable to see any good and thus continues to focus on negative, "sinful" characteristics. Hawthorne explores these complexities that the Puritans liked to pretend were black and white. -- reveals the complexity of New England present (Jacksonian era; also our own contemporary America of 2007), by writing about the past to illustrate the present (as opposed to Thoreau and Poe, who wrote about their current era). -- This provides a bigger perspective: stories have double angles. The Minister's Black Veil It is as if the minister can see through the veil into other people's souls. They trust him with their sins because they sense that he already knows anyway: (p. 180) "Its gloom, indeed, enabled him to sympathize with all dark affections. Dying sinners cried aloud for Mr. Hooper, and would not yield their breath till he appeared." As people lie on their deathbeds, they take a certain comfort in having another person who obviously has sins that he is concealing: As death approaches, sinners fear that the time has come when their veils will be lifted and they will face judgment for sins that they concealed while living. (p. 183) "I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!"-- the invisible veil used to conceal their sins. -- He seems to have a connection with death; they feel that he is hiding his own atrocious sin. (p. 173) "at the instant when the clergyman's features were disclosed, the corpse had slightly shuddered, rustling the shroud and muslin cap, though the countenance retained the composure of death. A superstitious old woman was the only witness of this prodigy." It's questionable as to whether or not this actually happened or if the townspeople were merely generating gossip in response to their discomfort with being confronted by the minister's veil. (p. 171) "as he gave out the psalm; it threw its obscurity between him and the holy page as he read the Scriptures; and while he prayed, the veil lay heavily on his uplifted countenance." The veil that the minister wears seems to obscure the connection the minister can have with God's word -- the veil seems to symbolize the invisible mask that people use to hide their sins; in Mr. Hooper's case, however, this mask is visible. This implies that the cloak people use to hide their sins actually disconnects them from God and His message. -- The minister is cast out from normal society, but allowed to share in the dark aspects of community life. The veil is an exit from social and sexual life for the minister; it allows him to become more devoted to God. Since the minister is separate from society he can "see" his parishoners better -- he is not vulnerable behind the veil because humans instinctually fear the unknown. -- He is forced to life more within himself, which is not the Puritan way (p. 179) "Thus, from beneath the black veil, there rolled a cloud into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin or sorrow, which enveloped the poor minister, so that love or sympathy could never reach him." The veil that people use to block others from seeing their sins also blocks out love and sympathy and traps the "veil's" wearer in a lonely, secret sorrow. -- they are obsessed about being constantly Judged By God. (p. 176) "Were the veil but cast aside, they might speak freely of it, but not till then." The townspeople are uncomfortable with being directly shown the visible veil because it reminds them of the psychological veils that they use to hide their own sins. (p. 177)"'There is an hour to come,' said he, 'when all of us shall cast aside our veils.'" This seem to relate to the moment when God sees through the veils that hide our sins. The power of the veil is its mystery, its openness to interpretation: like stories that must be interpreted, the meaning can vary with different perspectives. -- it is a secret, and everyone has secrets: (p. 171) "The subject had reference to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them". Mr. Hooper's first sermon after he begins wearing the veil is about secret sin. This implies that the veil is a visible way of concealing his secret sin, while the other Puritans conceal their secret sin with an invisible veil. By wearing this veil, it seems as though Mr. Hooper is trying to help the other Puritans realize that everyone has sins that are kept secret, but while they may try to keep them secret, God can still detect them. -- the mystery alone is terrifying: the veil at once reveals and conceals. Implies that all are veiled in life -- no one is transparent, we all live under layers. However even when the outside world cannot see a person's true identity, that person must still deal with his/her own conscience. The minister also gets an out of social or sexual relations by wearing the veil. He doesn't have to expose himself in relationships, or be vulnerable. Instead, he has to live within himself and face his own issues, avoiding the pleasures and the drawbacks of intimacy. The veil is an exit from social and sexual life, the minister becomes more devoted to God, as celibate, and sees society better because he is separate. He is not vulnerable behind the veil. -- We are all at one point veiled -- never transparent -- we must deal with our selves. True identity is signaled (not revealed) by the veil.

Young Goodman Brown The woods: -- the Kingdom of the devil, where it is possible to lose one's soul (where Indians reside, where evil lurks: "The Black Man") (p. 242) "'My love and my Faith,' replied young Goodman Brown, 'of all nights in the year this one must I tarry away from thee. My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again must needs be done 'twixt now and sunrise.'" Goodman Brown seems to be leaving both his literal Faith, his wife, and also his figurative faith. And the as the deed that he must attend to can only take place under the obscurity of night, not during the truth and light of day, further implies that he is leaving to do a wicked errand. (p. 243) "Faith kept me back awhile."Again "Faith" seems to have both literal and figurative meaning. His wife Faith did delay his visit with a form of the devil; his own religious faith also kept him from this meeting. Story introduces questions: -- How is it possible to know that you are among the elect? -- If you judge others as being damned, how good are you? -- Moral superiority becomes inferiority: torturing others, maiming, doing evil things under the banner of moral superiority. (Puritan ideals; no tolerance) (p. 248) "the instinct that guides mortal man to evil." Goodman Brown says that it is a human instinct that leads us to evil -- are we naturally inclined to turn to evil? Or is this something the devil wants Goodman Brown to believe -- the devil says: "Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness" (p. 251) Devil in the forest: (p. 243) "his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent." The serpant staff owned by this devil is symbolic of the serpant used to tempt Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden -- the devil even says: "Take my staff if you are so soon weary" (p. 243), tempting Goodman Brown to succumb to his way. There is the outward, polite side, and the evil side. (p. 246) "What if a wretched old woman do choose to go to the devil when I thought she was going to Heaven! Is that any reason why I should quit my dear Faith and go after her?" "'You will think better of this by and by,' said his acquaintance composedly. 'Sit here and rest yourself awhile, and when you feel like moving again, there is my staff to help you along.'" Even when Goodman Brown decides not to follow the devil to the meeting, evil still offeres him a way/temptation that will allow him to continue into the darkness. -- Everything pious is a sham if Goodman Brown's vision was real: is it all a dream? or true? Ambiguous = All public life is an act. (pp. 248) "'My Faith is gone!' cried he, after one stupefied moment. 'There is no good on earth, adn sin is but a name. Come, devil! for to thee is this world given.'" Once Goodman Brown looses his Faith (figurative and literal) nothing else exists for him and evil is the only path to choose. -- The inner crimes of everyone are revealed: (p. 244) "'I marvel they never spoke of these matters. Or, verily, I marvel not, seeing that the least rumor of the sort would have driven them from New England." Like in The Minister's Black Veil, this story seems to speak of secret sin. The symbolic devil figure has met with other, seemingly good members of the community, though all have carefully concealed this fact. They also use "veils" to hide their sins that they don't want others to see. (p. 245) "'The devil!' screamed the pious old lady." "'Then Goody Cloyse knows her old friend?' observed the traveler, confronting her and leaning on his writhing stick." This further implies that the figure is, in fact, the devil, and that even the people who were thought to be strongly pious and religious are in contact with him. -- All public life is a charade.(p. 252) "Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting?" Like in The Minister's Black Veil there's a quesion as to whether something supernatrual has happened or not -- whether the veil was really evil and whether the meeting with the devil occured -- he is unable to settle for himself whether or not that which he saw in the woods was real, and whether or not those around him are of as pure heart as they seem. Ultimately, however, it doesn't matter if the vision was real or not. Goodman Brown's view of his society is shattered, his confidence in the ideals that everyone outwardly pursues is gone. He is ruined by his own changed perspective & by doubt.

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