LITR 4232: American Renaissance
University of Houston-Clear Lake, spring 2002
Index to Student Research Projects

Valdria Harpster
April 18, 2002
LITR 4232
Dr. White

Hiding: A Mechanism For Change

           Hiding can take many forms: hiding for personal safety, personal comfort, personal rebellion, or any combination of these.  As we see in the literature of the American Renaissance period, and even in society today, no specific class or personality type is exempt from choosing to hide.  Hiding, references to hiding, and hiding behind literature are not unique to the western world.  The methods and the reasons for hiding vary dramatically but in almost all cases, the goal being sought is one of change that benefits the participant psychologically or physically and is actively sought by the person because they frequently have something to lose.

            In the cases of Harriet Jacobs’ character Linda, in “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s characters the Harris family, in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, the most basic kind of hiding takes place: hiding for physical safety.  In contrast, Nathaniel Hawthorne reveals another type of hiding in “The Minister’s Black Veil”.  Hawthorne presents the producing of a psychological comfort level by hiding his character, Mr. Hooper, behind a black crape veil.  In Muslim society veiling works much the same way as in Hawthorne’s manner to produce a psychological comfort level with the added benefit of increasing the physical level of safety, by hiding the face and/or body from temptation.  Another form of hiding is represented by the rebellion of Henry Thoreau and Emily Dickinson.  Retreating from society in their personal lives to find creative freedom, Thoreau and Dickinson seek to change society through refusal to participate in it; the act of refusal to partake in the mainstream is a method of hiding from society.  Though the rebellion Thoreau and Dickinson present should not be minimized, the reasons for Jacobs’ and Stowe’s characters to hide is one more easily accepted and understood in today’s readership.

           The concealment of Linda Brent, in “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, is for the most basic of reasons: survival.  Hiding is routinely viewed, by most persons, as a state of being locked away from the world in a fairly restrictive environment, quite the opposite of being free to follow ones will in public. The conflict with hiding is as deep as the conflict Abraham Lincoln feels exists within the Constitution (Apthorp, 2008).  Slaves, in America in the 1800’s hid to survive, but they also hid as a means of gaining freedom.  Although a conflict of concepts, freedom and survival are familiar reasons for flight and concealment during the era of slavery.

           When Linda runs to escape the shackles of bondage, with its inevitable rapes and beatings by slave owners, “she was sheltered by black and white neighbors” (Jacobs, 1978) and “closeted a long time” (1977) by the daughter-in-law of her first master’s wife.  To evade exposure, Linda flees again and endures the confines of a cramped, stifling hot, bug and rat-infested garret in her uncle’s house.  Among the “consolations” for her living conditions, Linda explains, “I was not comfortless.  I heard the voices of my children [. . .] How I longed to speak to them” (1978).   The likely punishment for detection would be death as “scenes of blood and cruelty are shocking” and well known to the people of slavery (Stowe, 2513).  Linda understands the reality of brutality and that to hide means she must remain hidden even from her own children, for her safety and theirs.  The children of runaway slaves are at jeopardy if they have knowledge of the whereabouts of parents.  As a means of leverage the slave owners, bonding a slave to a particular location, hold onto children tightly.

           In Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, the impending sale of their child and continued abuse by slaveholders force Eliza and George Harris to seek a hiding place within the Quaker community.  Believing that “The Lord hath ordered it so that never hath a fugitive been stolen from our village” (Stowe, 2500), Rachel, in true Christian spirit, safely hides first Eliza and her son Harry, then later George.  The conditions of the hiding place offered Eliza are quite in contrast with the conditions Linda endures in her garret.  The first images the reader is given are those of  “A large, roomy, neatly-painted kitchen, its yellow floor glossy and smooth, and without a particle of dust; a neat, well-blacked cooking-stove; rows of shining tin” (2499) and many “hospitable invitation [s]” (2499).  These conditions are pleasant to Eliza and George, but what really matters is that they reach freedom by remaining hidden until they can safely flee.  The flight of slaves, in general, is a social commentary on the condition of the nation and the welfare of all of its citizenry.  Young Simeon, the son of the Harris’ hosts, points out the connection to much needed social change, “But is n’t it a shame to make such laws” (2504-05).  This social change must occur to bring the nations ideals in line with its actions; of the few that can force this change are the slaves that are willing to hide until they can flee to freedom.  At risk to their lives, the slaves in both these works seek freedom not only for themselves but to change the conditions their children will grow up in.  While the slaves are struggling for sovereignty, Hawthorne’s work reveals that not everyone seeks the same kind of freedom.

           Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil”, moves hiding to a more individual level, as personal comfort becomes the issue.  With complexity, so common to his writing, Hawthorne does not reveal if Hooper is protecting society from his sins or protecting himself from those that are sinful around him.  Whether Hooper is “hiding” or “being hidden from” is something left for each reader to decide, but it is evident that this has little to do with safety, as the slaves hiding does, and more to do with personal preference for psychological comfort and bringing about change within society to align them closer with the Puritan point of view.  The change is both a personal one and one that affects the minister’s immediate society rather than society in general by addressing “the guilt we hide from one another and about the dangers of self-absorption” (Gollin, 2171).  Hawthorne appears concerned about the power a writer’s identity has to influence society, much the same as the power that environment has over the individual mind: 

                              [. . .] the question of the nature of the writer’s identity is a central one for

                              Hawthorne.  For him the relation between a writer’s personal identity and the

                              form of its manifestation to the world is a part of the larger problem of the

                              relation between a human being’s inner and social beings.  More than most

                              writers he is fascinated by the ways in which a writer’s work is at once a veil that

                              he wears and a manifestation of his most intimate concerns.  (Dryden, 143)

           Hooper denies himself the pleasures of the world, as related to love and sexuality, by denying himself marriage to the woman he loves. Concern with the strength of attraction that Hawthorne feels, within his own personal relationships, perhaps drives his need to write restraint into his character’s life. Hawthorne’s wife, Sophia Peabody, is related as telling of her first meetings with him “that his presence from the very beginning exercised so strong a magnetic attraction upon her that, instinctively [. . .] she drew back and repelled him.  The power which she felt in him alarmed her” (Hawthorne, 8).  In “The Minister’s Black Veil”, we see a similar drawing back of Hooper when he takes the veil.  It is of interest that the minister’s veil is black, the symbol of gothic and evil.  Rather than portraying the world or Hooper as evil, the opaque blackness of the veil removes color from the world; color that leads to impurity in the mind of the author.  Hawthorne reveals this attitude when looking “at Gibson’s colored statues, feeling that the coloring destroyed the chastity of the marble (though he admitted ‘something fascinating and delectable’ about it too)” (Wagenknecht, 134).  In choosing a black veil, a form of neutrality, the author defuses the sexuality of the world within the story just as he has diffused the sexuality within Hooper.  Through veiling, Hawthorne is removing his character from the arena of romantic love.  As Nancy Bunge explains in her book, Nathaniel Hawthorne, A Study of the Short Fiction, “Love is there for Hooper, but the veil prevents him from seeing or enjoying it” (19).  This veiling, or hiding, that diffuses the vivacity of life for Hooper in Hawthorne’s 1836 piece carries over into Hawthorne’s personal life as seen in his letter to H. W. Longfellow written on June 4, 1837:

                              For the last ten years, I have not lived, but only dreamed about living.

                              It may be true that there have been some unsubstantial pleasures here in

                              the shade, which I should have missed in the sunshine; but you cannot conceive

                              how utterly devoid of satisfaction all my retrospects are.  (108)

For Hawthorne, it seems “the veil is also, always, that which isolates man from man and the desired truth from our perception of it.  It destroys the connections in ‘the magnetic chain of humanity’” (Waggoner, 201).  Hooper’s congregation realizes the power of this personal influence when they explain that the veil “throws its influence over his whole person” (Hawthorne, 2197) even though the narrator tells us that Hooper was trying to guide his flock “by mild persuasive influences” (2196) toward a social change offering a more heavenly life.  This view, of how a life should be lived, is not unique to American literature.  The Muslim community has long espoused the wearing of the veil to as a mechanism for change.

           The colors associated with veiling in the Muslim community parallel the colors of gothic literature: black, white, and red.  In Bedouin society, white veiling is associated with the virginal state prior to marriage and could be closely aligned with the connotations of goodness and purity.   From the time of defloration onward, the woman wears a black veil signifying “shame [and it] is confirmed in a rich folktale of mother-son incest” (Abu-Lughod, 138).  This association of the color black with sin and evil parallels the moral gothic definition we know in literature.  Women who chose not to veil are considered “brazen and lacking in religion” (137), reminiscent of the attitude portrayed by Hooper in “The Minister’s Black Veil”.   The women’s outfits are belted in gothic colors of black, white or red.  A red belt represents “femaleness and fertility [. . .] To go without a belt is considered highly indecent or shameful” (136).  Like Hawthorne, the Bedouins seem to associate chastity with color and sexuality as something that must remain hidden because “The modest woman admits no interest in men, makes no attempt to attract them through behavior or dress, and covers up any indication of a sexual or romantic attachment” (152) just as Hooper does in “The Minister’s Black Veil”.   The connection of the Bedouin to hiding, carries over from their physical veiling into their literature.

           Bedouin poetry, called ghinnāwa, is sung as a “discourse of defiance” (185) to deep emotions that society dictates must remain hidden.  For women in particular, the “Ghinnāwas seem to have been the medium in which she could voice responses not culturally appropriate for a young Bedouin woman”(221).  To retain their code of honor, hasham, the authors remain anonymous; they are safely hidden from the disgrace of being revealed publicly for showing feelings.  Those familiar with the singer of a ghinnāwa can frequently distinguish who or what the emotion is that is troubling the singer.  The identification of problems or offending parties is used to pressure change in actions toward the singer in a manner that could not be broached openly.  The response to hearing the ghinnāwa is frequently, “It’s really that bad!  I had not realized” (221).  Bedouin singers effect change on their lots in life much the same way Thoreau and Dickinson try to hasten the changes that society, as we know it, is based upon. 

           For two years, in a self-imposed retirement, Thoreau “studied nature to discover what she had to teach of moral and spiritual truth” beside Walden Pond (Glick, 1670).  A refusal to pay poll tax, culminating in his imprisonment, stems from “Thoreau’s contentions that private morality is a privileged sanctuary that governments have no right to intrude upon, and that such intrusion by government should be passively resisted by the individual” (1671).  The development of Thoreau’s essay, “Resistance to Civil Government”, cannot occur in the busy world of society but requires the seclusion of a man and his thoughts, hiding from intrusion.  Dickinson “hides” in a modified sense physically; her work reveals the hidden personal sentiments of a writer longing for professional freedom.

           The poetry of Dickinson delves into areas of anger at Calvinism that cannot be freely expressed during this era.  Exploring topics of life, death, dissatisfaction, and the mystical powers of nature, instead of God’s, place her work in the realm of controversy.  By not publishing her work, Dickinson hides her feelings from the world and keeps her work private.  Emily “had thinking to do” (Hart, 2970) “and she needed much time for solitude” (2971), making the family home her escape during her later years although she did remain in contact with the society she feels she does not belong to.  When reading Dickinson, one suspects that she is demanding a reason from society for it’s asking her to conform to it’s mold.  The family home gives Dickinson a chance to find her own identity in a world that holds vastly different sentiments than her own making it necessary to hide her feelings within her poetry.

            In their own way, each of the authors is hiding from society: some hide to preserve their lives so there can be change for future generations on earth, some hide to ensure future generations making it to heaven, others hide to preserve personal dignity, and still others hide their work in hopes of changing the world one essay or poem at a time.  The weight of value placed on one persons struggle to effect change can scarcely disparage another’s efforts. Whether quietly resisting through their writing or by their fleeing brutal slaveholders, each is making a statement that the policies of a society should be fluid and accepting of diversity while embracing personal freedom.   In her work, Elizabeth Stanton insists “that all men and women are created equal” (Stanton, 2042-43) but obtaining freedom and equality is an ongoing process requiring change.  As long as people are opposed to change, there will be strong voices lurking in garrets, behind veils, and in rebellious writings to institute reform for those who can envision a better world.  

Works Cited

Abu-Lughod, Lila.  Veiled Sentiments.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. 136-221.

Apthorp, Elaine S.  Introduction.  The Heath Anthology of American Literature.  Ed. Paul Lauter.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 2002.  2008.  

Bell, Millicent, ed.  New Essays on Hawthorne’s Major Tales.  Ed. Millicent Bell. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Bunge, Nancy.  Nathaniel Hawthorne, A Study of the Short Fiction.  New York: Twayne, 1993. 19-108.

Dryden, Edgar A.  “‘The Minister’s Black Veil’ as Parable”.  New Essays on Hawthorne’s Major Tales.  Ed. Millicent Bell.  New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.  143.

Glick, Wendell.  Introduction.  The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 2002.  1670-71.

Gollin, Rita K.  Introduction.   The Heath Anthology of American Literature.  Ed. Paul Lauter.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 2002.  2171.

Hart, Ellen and Peggy McIntosh.  Introduction.  The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 2002.  2970-71.

Hawthorne, Julian.  The Memoirs of Julian Hawthorne.  Ed. Edith G. Hawthorne.  New York: MacMillan, 1938.  8.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel.  “The Minister’s Black Veil”.  The Heath Anthology of American Literature.  Ed. Paul Lauter.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 2002. 2196-97.

Jacobs, Harriet A.  Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.  The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 2002.  1977-78.  

Lauter, Paul, ed.  The Heath Anthology of American Literature.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 2002.

Stanton, Elizabeth.  “Declaration of Sentiments”.  The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 2002.  2042-43.

Stowe, Harriet B.  Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 2002.  2499-2505.

Wagenknecht, Edward.  Nathaniel Hawthorne:  Man and Writer.  New York:  Oxford University Press, 1961.  134.

Waggoner, Hyatt.  Hawthorne, A Critical Study.  Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963. 201.