Hawthorne Writing Style :: essays papers

Hawthorne Writing StyleNathaniel Hawthorne was a prominent early American Author whocontributed greatly to the evolution of modern American literature. A reinvigorated England native, Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts on July4, 1804 and died on May 19, 1864 in New Hampshire. An avid seaman,Hawthornes father died in 1808 when Nathaniel Hawthorne was only ayoung child. After his fathers death, Hawthorne showed a keen fill in his fathers worldwide nautical adventures and often containthe logbooks his father had compiled from sailing abroad. Hawthornewas a descendant of a long origin of New England Puritans, which sparkedhis interest in the Puritan way of life. After he graduated fromBowdoin College in 1825, Hawthorne returned to his home in Salem werehe began to spell in semi-seclusion. Hawthorne published his firstnovel, Fanshawe in 1828. In 1839, Hawthorne was appointed weigher andgauger at the Boston Custom House. He later married Sophia AmeliaPeabody in 1842. In t he following years, Hawthorne wrote his morefamous novels which shaped his own literary style, as well as thegenres of the romance novel and short story. Eventually, Hawthornedeveloped a style of romance fiction representative of his ownbeliefs. Although Nathaniel Hawthornes write style was often viewedas outdated when compared to modern literature, Hawthorne conveyedmodern themes of psychological science and human nature through his crafty use ofallegory and symbolism. To acquire with, Hawthornes style wascommonplace for a writer of the nineteenth century. During the cartridge clipperiod in which Hawthorne wrote, printing technology was not yet right enough to easily reproduce photographs in books. Therefore,Hawthorne frequently wrote lengthy visual descriptions since hisaudience had no other means to see the setting of the novel. (Magill1840). One example of such descriptions was in The Scarlet Letter whenHawthorne in an elaborate way describes the prison door and its su rroundings.Another aspect of Hawthornes writing which was scoop to his timeperiod was the use of formal dialogue which remained fairly pursuant(predicate)from use to character (Magill2 140). Such overblown dialoguewas perspicuous in The Scarlet Letter when the dialogue of Pearl, a youngchild, exhibited no difference from the dialogue of the othercharacters in the novel. Hawthorne adopted the use of excessively formaldialogue partly from a British writer, Sir Walter Scott, whose workswere hot in the United States and Great Britain (Magill1 841).Although Hawthornes dialogue was besides formal, it was an accuratetool in describing human emotion (Gale). Absence of characterconfrontation was another component of Hawthornes literary style.