The Artist Behind The Letter

The Artist Behind the Letter.

For Nathaniel Hawthorne, the first colonists of Puritan Massachusetts were a little more than "dim and dusky bitter persecutors" (Hawthorne), he questions their morality and criticizes the rigidity of their religious beliefs and lifestyle (Lanlan). It would be hard to guess that he is talking about his own direct ancestors. The town of Salem, whichHawthorne feels a strong connection with, is not only his birthplace or the background where his great-great grand parents played important roles as politicians or in the famous witch trials, but also where his masterpiece of literature takes place. Nathaniel Hawthorne incorporates his Puritan heritage, his years working at the Boston and Salem Custom Houses, and the transcendentalist philosophies ofhis contemporaries in his novel, The Scarlet Letter.


born on July 4, 1804 Born on July 4 1804 as Nathaniel Hathorne, he studied at Bowdoin College in Brunswick where he had several opportunities to meet influential figures for him and for the country as a whole at that time (Johnson). He kept contact with writers, philosophers and politicians who left a print on his life and his legacy asan author.


The disgrace which Hawthorne pictured his Puritan ancestors with and the experiences he went through his life, his struggle as an imaginative writer against


the society in which he lived and his need for portraying his views on the sufferings that result from sin, all contributed to shape what now is one of the most famous and representative pieces of American literature.Hawthorne’s life was marked by his father’s death when the author was only four years old, only months after his younger sister was born. With a mentally fragile mother who withdrew to a life of seclusion, the children’s education was left on the hands of his wealthy uncle, Robert Manning, who helped Hawthorne to afford his studies at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.
Even beforeattending to college, Hawthorn showed talent and interest on writing. He introduced himself into the literary world by writing and publishing The Spectator, a newsmagazine he distributed among his closer friends and relatives during July of 1820.
The following year, Hawthorne enrolled at Bowdoin University. His college years played a crucial role in the person he would later become; a welleducated man interested in literature, national politics and philosophy, influenced by the long-lasting friendships he forged there; among these, he frequented poet Henry Wedsworth Longfellow and future president Franking Pierce (Canada). Soon after finalizing his studies, Hawthorne moved back to Salem with his family,
where he withdrew from the world, leaving a period of isolation during which hespent most of his time writing.
After publishing his first novel and two short stories that passed unnoticed by the public, Hawthorne added a “w” to his last name; Hawthorne. The name that gave him international fame that remains to this day.
In 1839, Hawthorne found a job in the Boston Custom House, but bored by the tediousness and political scheming of his role there, he quit a coupleof years later and moved to a utopian community. On July, 1842, after three years of engagement, he married Sophia Peabody, who convinced him to move to the Old Manse in Concord. Here the couple had their first child, a daughter named Una. Hawthorne also met his neighbor for the following three years; Henry David Thoreau; both men shared several philosophical point of views and even thoughHawthorne never considered himself a transcendentalist, they influenced each other’s writings (hawthorneinsalem.org).   
    By the year 1846, after the Sophia and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s second child, Julian, was born, the family moved to Salem, where Hawthorne, appointed by President James Polk, took a position as chief executive officer in the local Custom House. Finding himself surrounded by the...