The Puritan Heritage in the Fiction of Nathaniel Hawthorne

Abstract

This study is focused on the Heritage of Puritanism in the fiction of Nathaniel Hawthorne, making emphasis on the impact of sin, also related to evil and guilt, in Hawthorne’s characters and plots. Nathaniel Hawthorne was very interested in expressing these Puritan principles and ideas in his works because he aimed to provide his public with a very critical evaluation of Puritanism. Even though in some aspects, Nathaniel Hawthorne rejected the Puritan beliefs, he was remarkably influenced by them. The corpus used for this project is based on novels and short stories related to the Puritan ideology in which Nathaniel Hawthorne was born and raised. Among the different works used to make a rigorous study on this topic are a few tales and narratives, all of them written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Some of these texts that constitute the basis of this project are “The Minister’s Black Veil”, “Young Goodman Brown”, “The Scarlet Letter” and “The House of the Seven Gables”, among others. The main aim of this study is to examine the close relationship that exists between Hawthorne’s fiction and the Puritan religion, as well as the reflections of the big impact of Puritan beliefs on every one of Hawthorne’s stories and novels. The method used to analyse the impact of Puritanism in Hawthorne’s work is based on the precise study of different literary works from Hawthorne, comparing how Puritan ideals are differently portrayed in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s fiction.