Identity And Isolation In The Works Of Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hawthorne was familiar with the intense feelings and reflection isolation granted him during the years he spent secluded from others. As a boy, Hawthorne was confined to a room following a leg injury, where his love for reading deepened. Hawthorne also witnessed his mother’s seclusion from her family after his father was lost at sea in 1808. Determined to be a writer, Hawthorne secluded himself in the chamber of the eaves of his mother’s home in Salem from 1825 to 1837, after leaving Bowdoin.(Turner13) Hawthorne’s self imposed isolation undoubtedly granted him the ability to “[look] at [life] from a distance...with meditative eyes.”(Mabie)The isolation Hawthorne experienced as an introspective man who preferred solitude transferred over into