Born on July 4, 1804 to Nathaniel and Elizabeth Clark Hathorne in Salem, Massachusetts, Hawthorne had a tensed childhood. In 1808, Hawthorne's father died of yellow fever while at sea. With little to no money, the family moved in with Elizabeth's wealthy brothers. At the age of nine, Hawthorne suffered a leg injury that left him immobile for about three years and it is at this time …show more content…
that he began to write. Some of Hawthorne's writings were centered around his Puritan ancestry. Throughout his life, Hawthorne spent a decent amount of time trying to deny his ancestral background. Hawthorne’s family was directly linked back to the Salem witch trials. One or two of his ancestors were judges who sentenced many to death. This disturbed Hawthorne. He was ashamed of his family’s background and even went as far as adding a “w” to Hathorne, to try to distance himself from his family’s past.
In 1821, Hawthorne began attending Bowdoin College for English composition and classic courses such as Latin. Hawthorne excelled at writing and decided to become an author. While at college, Hawthorne became friends with fellow writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and future president Franklin Pierce. After finishing college in 1825, Hawthorne returned to his widowed mother’s house where he remained in solitude for twelve years. While in solitude, Hawthorne worked on his writing and found his voice self-publishing a few short stories. Later, Hawthorne began writing his novels.
When Hawthorne first began writing, he had the air of a transcendentalist. But after some time, he began to stray away from the aspect of transcendentalism and soon, his writings even displayed a sort of disdain for the movement. Hawthorne soon found himself immersed in the dark romanticism movement. Dark Romanticism was a new style in literature and Hawthorne was amongst one of the first authors within the growing genre. This style of writing is prominent in his story Young Goodman Brown. Published in 1835, Young Goodman Brown presents the struggle between good and evil and the concept of original sin. The story was one that dealt with how evil could be presented and perceived. The story also displayed Hawthorne's Puritan background and one could infer Hawthorne's disdain for this link. In 1850, Hawthorne published The Scarlet Letter. The story was another way that Hawthorne presented his disdain and criticism of the Puritans and their beliefs. The Scarlet Letter quickly became Hawthorne's most well known literary work and sold a few thousand copies upon being published. People were instantly intrigued with the novel and Hawthorne became a well-known
name.
After 1860, Hawthorne had fallen out of his prime time and his drafts began to dwindle and were often left unfinished. During this time, Hawthorne’s completed works found little success. His health began to fall along with his work and on May 19, 1864 Hawthorne passed away in his sleep in Plymouth, New Hampshire. Hawthorne may have been gone, but his legacy would continue to live in the minds of many and throughout the pages of his writings.
During Hawthorne's time, not many authors changed their writing style like Hawthorne himself. Although Hawthorne left the idea of transcendentalism behind, he kept one key idea from it throughout his life: individualism. Hawthorne's writings weren't always taken lightly and at times, he was often more or less asked to stop writing his criticising stories. Hawthorne was set in his ways and did not care about the opinion of others and continued to do what he was best at. Although not very popular during his lifetime, Hawthorne became a well known author and his contributions to literature are immense. For centuries to come, Hawthorne will be remembered through his writings and will be accredited for his writings on the Puritans and will be noted for his descent from transcendentalism to dark romantic.