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American Literature: Romanticism research assignment Student Research Submissions 2016 |
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Jessica Myers
16
November 2016
Nathaniel Hawthorne and Total Depravity
Introduction: Questions about Hawthorne, Romanticism, and Original Sin
Traditionally, Romantic authors depict a world that reflects their belief in the
goodness of mankind. This belief stems from the idea that children are born
innocent, not innately fallen. Instead, their innocence is lost once they grow
to be an adult and are corrupted by the evils of the world. The belief of
childhood innocence stemmed from the ideas of philosopher, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, who wrote Emile,
or On Education (1762), which
“rejects the doctrine of Original Sin, but maintains that children are innately
innocent, only becoming corrupted through experience of the world” (Reynolds).
Throughout his writing, Nathaniel Hawthorne complicates the idea of mankind’s
goodness, since his Puritan ancestry and understanding of Calvinist theology
color his portrayal of humanity. According to the Puritans, “humans are born
sinful as a consequence of mankind’s ‘Fall’” (Reynolds). Hawthorne incorporates
the belief in man’s sinfulness into his writing. However, it is unclear how
Hawthorne balanced these two beliefs that inherently contradict one another. Did
he completely reject his roots and set his tales in Puritan New England simply
to mock his ancestors’ hypocrisy and stringent rule enforcement? Or do his
stories reflect a struggle to align the accepted beliefs of the society in which
he lived and the beliefs of the society from which he came?
In an
effort to explore these questions, this essay will investigate Hawthorne’s short
story, “Young Goodman Brown.” In the tale, Goodman Brown’s rejection of
temptation leads to his dissatisfaction with life due to his realization that
everyone he believed to be faithful and righteous is actually a hypocrite. Is
this a reflection of the corruption of humanity and a movement away from
Romantic philosophy, or is Brown simply a caricature of a hypocritical Puritan
who, in judging his neighbors, corrupts his own innocence?
In addition, this essay will examine the scene from “The Minister’s Black
Veil” when the minister speaks on his deathbed. Here, he discusses how his veil
is both a reflection of the hearts of others and a protection from those hearts.
It is a symbol of their wickedness and their blindness to their own innermost
evil. Again, is Hawthorne displaying man’s total depravity through the symbol of
the minister’s veil, or is he simply deriding the rigidity of the Calvinistic
understanding of sin in an effort to support man’s essential goodness?
Incorporating Hawthorne’s Calvinist Roots
Hawthorne’s choice of setting his
pieces in Puritan New England suggests a struggle to align the beliefs of his
ancestors with the beliefs of the Romantics. New historicism suggests that by
placing his tales in this historic location, Hawthorne attempts to revive and
rewrite that period of history. For instance, in the article, “‘Young Goodman
Brown’ and the Mathers” (2012), John Ronan claims that Hawthorne depicts Goodman
Brown as an “Everyman figure” and draws parallels between the historical figures
of Cotton Mather and George Burroughs to Goodman Brown (256). Ronan gives
background information regarding Mather’s beliefs and writings, which incited
fear of witchcraft and demons. He argues that the short story, “Young Goodman
Brown,” suggests that Hawthorne was swayed by these histories and was “struck by
their use of demonic evidence to uphold Christianity” (267). Ironically, this
“demonic evidence” causes Brown to lose his faith (both figuratively and
literally) in his community rather than strengthening his belief in
Christianity.
Hawthorne draws from Cotton Mather’s sermons that attempted to safeguard against
the Devil’s temptations in order to reveal the damning effect they had on his
congregation through Goodman Brown’s rejection of his community. Instead of
cautioning the Puritans against the power and temptation of the Devil, Mather’s
sermons prompted the Puritans to see the Devil in all aspects of their daily
life. Mather’s sermons and signs of the Devil’s work “[established] God’s and
the minsters’ power” (269). In “Young Goodman Brown” Hawthorne reverses the
power dynamic through “Goodman Brown’s reliance upon such evidence (the pink
ribbon)” (269). Rather than causing him to use the sign of his wife’s pink
ribbon to resist temptation, Faith’s pink ribbon “reveals his lack of faith in
Christ and prompts him to embrace the devil” (269). Here, Hawthorne gives power
to the Devil through his ability to trick Brown into believing all of his
community members, including his wife, secretly worship the Devil. Through the
belief that he alone was able to “resist the wicked one,” Brown becomes a bitter
and distrustful man (“Young” 68). In losing his faith in his community, Brown
unwittingly signs his name in the Devil’s book.
Through Brown’s fall to the Devil, Hawthorne condemns the use of spectral
evidence as proof that a person is wicked. According to Ronan, “Hawthorne
underscores Mather’s view that the devil’s rites are insubstantial
approximations of Christian originals designed to ensnare the unregenerate”
(271). Hawthorne describes the ceremony using language associated with a church
service such as “altar or pulpit,” “congregation,” “hymn,” “converts,” and
“baptism” (“Young” 54, 58, 59, 67). This language establishes an attempt by the
Devil to ensnare his prey through the use of familiar elements of the Christian
service. Mather’s expectation is that the truly faithful should be able to
recognize this hollow echoing of the service and resist the temptation to
participate. However, what condemns the community in Brown’s mind is their
inability to see through the Devil’s sham and their open willingness to
participate in the Devil’s service. For Brown “the number and quality of the
individuals represented spectrally in Salem means that ‘virtue’ is ‘all a dream’
and thus that the young Puritan should formally renounce Christianity and pledge
his allegiance to Satan” (273). Yet, he pledges his allegiance unknowingly. In
his belief that he resists temptation, he falls into the Devil’s trap by
sinfully condemning and judging his neighbors for the rest of his days. In the
same way, “Hawthorne shows that in using demonic evidence to inspire Christian
faith, Cotton Mather unwittingly serves as an advocate for the devil” (273).
Brown serves as a parallel to Mather through his encounter with the Devil. In
creating this parallel, Hawthorne mocks these Puritan preachers by revealing
their ability to further spread the Devil’s kingdom instead of Christ’s.
Hawthorne condemns these men as “false teachers and divines who led their
contemporaries to perdition by publishing the devil’s power” (276). Their trust
in the truth of the spectral led to the devastating events of the Salem witch
trials just as Brown’s trust in the spectral destroys his relationship with his
community. By condemning and ridiculing the historic figure of Cotton Mather,
Hawthorne rejects his Puritan roots and aligns himself more closely with
Romantic ideals.
Hawthorne further wrestles with his Calvinist roots by depicting the
hypocrisy of Reverend Hooper in “The Minister’s Black Veil.” Hawthorne again
sets his short story in Puritan New England, but instead of making the
protagonist a member of the congregation he chooses a minister. In his article,
“The Biblical Veil: Sources and Typology in Hawthorne’s ‘The Minister’s Black
Veil’” (1989), Newberry explores historical models for Reverend Hooper and
describes his veil as a Biblical “type” in order to examine “Hooper’s revival of
the Calvinistic primacy of original sin and Hawthorne’s own quarrel with it”
(171). Hawthorne portrays Hooper as a man who in attempting to distance himself
from the sin he sees in his community ends up isolating himself from that
community. In doing so, Hooper takes his understanding of the “veil” too far and
ends up becoming obsessed with the secret sins of those in his congregation,
which causes him to lose sight of his own sin.
Through Reverend Hooper’s obsession with his congregants’ secret sin,
Hawthorne reveals his own beliefs about the problem of Original sin. Reverend
Hooper wears the black veil in order to draw his congregants’ attention to their
own secret sins. In doing so, Hooper is trying to convey that there is “no
‘innocent’ sorrow and that ‘secret sin’ is the condition of all mortals” (178,
79). Therefore, according to Hooper, all men are born sinful and must take
action by confessing their secret sin. This sin is an issue for Hawthorne
because no one can escape the sin or have a guarantee that this sin will be
overlooked because they are “elect.” Hooper’s “deathbed vision of veils on
everybody suggests the essential hiding of sin begun with Adam and Eve in the
immediate consequence of the Fall. The need to hide – from God, from other
mortals – links the notion of secrecy to original sin” (179). Hooper feels his
congregants are blind to their secret sin because they do not openly confess
their secrets to the community. Thus his veil becomes a “type” for the secret
sins that all of his congregants must be hiding because that is “inevitably a
part of being fallen” (179). Hooper’s concern for his congregation’s “fallen”
status appears genuine. However, Hooper’s obsession with his congregants’ sin
becomes an unhealthy one as he dies alone and isolated from the community around
him. His preoccupation with others’ sin unveils Hawthorne’s belief that Original
sin is problematic since a person cannot rid themselves of this sin just as
Hooper cannot remove his veil.
Hooper’s misunderstanding of
Original sin and his insistence on wearing the veil as a reminder to his
community of their ever present fallen state reveals the hollowness Hawthorne
found in Calvinist beliefs. By wearing the veil, Hooper emphasizes “his belief
in the primacy of sin existing everywhere and at all times, in the universality
of the tendency to ‘hide’ sinfulness that marks himself and all other mortals”
(183). Hooper transforms sin into a “boogeyman” that the community cannot
escape. By mimicking historical Calvinist preachers, such as Jonathan Edwards,
who preached fire and brimstone and the sinfulness of humanity, Hawthorne
derides the Puritan understanding of man’s innate sinfulness. Newberry explains
that “Hooper strictly adheres to a radical version of Puritan typology by
expecting the unveiling of his and perhaps all other faces only with the Second
Coming [of Christ]” (186). Hooper’s belief is radical because “he never seems to
believe in the sufficiency of Christ’s first appearance” and expects Christ’s
Second Coming alone to completely remove all sin (187). Hooper’s radicalness is
significant since it points to a gross misunderstanding of Biblical teachings.
Through Hooper, Hawthorne exhibits how Puritan and Calvinistic beliefs were also
radical and insufficient understandings of the Bible. It is not the minister who
correctly understands sin, but the people of Milford. Hawthorne purposefully
creates this reversal in order to credit the people “with vaguely but correctly
suspecting the typological implications of the veil: that it divides mortals
from one another and from God, and that it finally amounts to a profound
anachronism whose emphasis on the Old Adam essentially renounces the
availability of redemption through Christ’s only historical appearance” (189).
It is ironic that the congregation understands the separation created between
mankind and God better than Hooper. Hawthorne revives faithfulness in the
community’s ability to recognize and understand how sin truly functioned and
should be dealt with in an effort to emphasize the misplaced condemnation coming
from the minister’s pulpit and misapplication of wearing the black veil. This
faithfulness aligns Hawthorne with the Romantic ideal of the goodness of men
because society is capable of recognizing how evil should be appropriately dealt
with.
Hawthorne’s Moral Worldview: How does he define “sin”?
Since
Hawthorne spurns Calvinistic teachings, it follows that Hawthorne does not
define sin in Calvinistic terms as a transgression against the law of God.
Rather, he defines sin as a transgression against the community, and the most
heinous of sin is the pride that keeps a member of society from confessing to
committing the sin. In his article, “Hawthorne and Sin” (2003), Denis Donoghue
argues that Hawthorne viewed sin as “a social transgression only” (218). When
Hawthorne references sin, it is in connection with society, not with the Bible.
Donoghue purports that Hawthorne believed in “Original Sin” just “without the
theology of it” (219). In both “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister’s Black
Veil,” the protagonists wrestle with sins they “see” in others from their
society. They are not necessarily looking at specific instances of people
committing sin. However, they condemn people from society for their persistence
in hiding their sin and inability to confess it publicly.
Since
Hawthorne seems to disregard the theological definition of sin, a new definition
must be found based on how he depicts sin throughout his texts. Donoghue claims
that Hawthorne’s definition of sin is "an act, a condition, a state of
consciousness” where an individual refuses “to come clean and tell” the
community of their sin (221). According to Hawthorne, “the concealment is more
lethal than the sin concealed, because it undermines the community and makes it
impossible, even for the individual, to know which of his faces is the true one
– if any of them can be true, given the concealment” (221). Hence, Hawthorne’s
constant depiction of hypocritical characters. In “Young Goodman Brown,” Brown
questions the piety of community members who he sees consorting with the Devil
figure. This experience causes him to become “[a] stern, sad, a darkly
meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man” (“Young” 72). He obsesses
over their hypocrisy and this makes him a miserable man. The minister from “The
Minister’s Black Veil” finds himself in a similar situation, which is why he
wears the veil. His hope is to make men aware of their own secret sin and repent
of it. On his deathbed he accuses the community of “loathsomely treasuring up
the secret of [their] sin,” and he dies beneath the veil that he believes
separates him from their hypocrisy (67). The stain of their experience with
other’s hidden sin never leaves either protagonist. Donoghue explains that once
a person has sinned, it is “psychologically damaging to the sinner and that
damage cannot be repaired” (219). However, in “Young Goodman Brown” and “The
Minister’s Black Veil” it is not the sinful community members who are damaged,
but the protagonists themselves. They are the ones who take extreme measures to
distance themselves from the sin they see in others, which causes them to become
isolated from the community. Hawthorne’s basis for sin is removed from theology
and grounded in the more Romantic concept of psychology.
Therefore, Hawthorne removes himself from his Calvinistic roots and replaces
those ideals with those of the Romantic movement: emphasis on society and
understanding of psychology. Donoghue claims that Hawthorne “replaced God with
community and dissolved religion in psychology” (230). Rather than being
obedient to God, Hawthorne’s characters are obligated to be honest with one
another. This honesty builds trust and cohesiveness in the community rather than
isolation and distrust. Both Brown and Reverend Hooper become isolated from
their communities because of the unconfessed sin they perceive in others.
However, Hawthorne is unable to clarify where the sin originated from. Hawthorne
could not “decide whether a sin was a fierce and willful act of the individual
soul or merely a symptom, a shadow, of universal evil” (230). The question of
man’s innate evil or innocence still remains. Is man corrupted by the
hypocritical society he lives in? Or is man born with the shadow of evil already
hovering over him? By reading Goodman
Brown and Reverend Hooper as saints and the community members as hypocritical
sinners, these two characters appear to be corrupted (or attempting to prevent
corruption) from being associated with a community of sinners.
However, Goodman Brown and Reverend Hooper could be read as the hypocrites who
are blind to their own sin as they proudly judge the community members around
them. In her article, “The Burden of Secret Sin” (2010), Margarita Georgieva
explores the various references to sin throughout Hawthorne’s work and claims
that understanding Hawthorne’s distinction “between ‘knowledge as sin’ and
‘secret sin’ is the key” to why his works are able to “soften the sin-obsessed
Puritan worldview” (52). She defines Original sin as the desire for knowledge
between good and evil that God originally forbade in the Garden of Eden. She
extends this knowledge to Goodman Brown’s and Reverend Hooper’s knowledge of the
sins of their community members. She defines evil as “the darker, burdensome,
hidden part of humanity’s complex identity which was to be revealed only through
man’s direct relationship with God” (56). This Original sin becomes problematic
because neither Brown nor Hooper are aware that their knowledge of other’s sins
makes them a sinner. Their secret knowledge makes them God-like, and this
knowledge ironically makes them sinners as well.
By
trying to become the medium between God and the community members, Hooper
attempts to bear the burden of his congregation’s sins. This knowledge becomes
problematic because he is pursuing God-like knowledge regarding others’ sin that
he should not have access to. Since Reverend Hooper tries to “deal with sin on
[his] own,” this makes him a man “‘of awful power over souls that were in agony
for sin’” (56). Georgieva explains that Hooper’s black veil “hides his awareness
and understanding of a multitude of sins. As a minister, he is the immediate
recipient of the sins of an entire congregation. The veil shields them from the
knowledge the minister carries” (57). The veil provides Hooper with God-like
knowledge, which is problematic. His knowledge causes “his existence” to become
“increasingly dependent on that knowledge” which “prevents him from taking off
the veil. His burden is heavier not because of the pressure exercised on him to
remove the veil but because of the accumulation of knowledge about sin” (58).
Hooper’s knowledge becomes his sin. He becomes the hypocrite in the tale because
he is blind to his own sin and unwilling to confess that his access to this
knowledge makes him a sinner.
This
same knowledge of sin becomes problematic for Goodman Brown as well. While in
the woods, he “becomes the witness of sacrilege and this, in part, leads him to
perdition” (57). After viewing the people gathered around the Devil’s fire, he
perceives their innermost evil. Therefore, Brown “possesses a secret. He has
discovered and knows the nature of man. He knows himself. This awareness is
godlike and it is precisely what God forbade to Adam” (57). Brown gains
knowledge of other’s sin, which in turn makes him sinful since he has access to
forbidden knowledge. This can be considered Brown’s “Original sin.” However, he
compounds his sin because he does not deal with his knowledge of both his own
sin and the sins of others in an acceptable way. Therefore, he becomes a
hypocrite as he isolates himself from his community in an effort to remove
himself from the sin he sees in others.
Hawthorne accepts that people are susceptible to Original sin, but he
considers isolating oneself from the community due to sin something that is
unpardonable because there is no accountability for committing the sin.
Georgieva notes that “[sinful characters] become withdrawn and distant and the
fact that they preserve their secret sin damages their body and soul” (59). Both
Brown and Hooper choose to withdraw from society due to their knowledge of sin.
This ruins their relationship with other community members and more acutely
their love interests, Brown’s wife of three months and Hooper’s fiancé. These
actions group these two men with “Hawthorne’s secret sinners [who] appear as
socially ostracized individuals or as solitary wanderers” (59). Despite their
Original sin of knowing the sins of others in a God-like capacity, Hawthorne
seems to lessen the “value of original sin … progressively, while the burden of
the unpardonable sins grows” (60). Although Hawthorne acknowledges the existence
of Original sin, he takes issue with their unwillingness to confess their sin.
Instead of confessing, they hypocritically remove themselves from what they
believe to be a sinful community. Therefore, Georgieva claims that “[t]he yoke
of secret sin is heavier than that of the original sin because our immediate
ancestors are to be held accountable for it” (61). Original sin is present and
cannot be changed, but the act of obscuring sin creates a burden on the
community because members are no longer genuine with one another. Hawthorne
holds humanity “directly blamable for the wrongs it commits. Hushing the wrongs,
dissimulating the sin only aggravates the crime” (61). Both Brown and Hooper are
guilty of this unpardonable sin. Neither are willing to confess their own sin of
pride and hypocrisy which in turn isolates them from their respective
communities. Through the depiction of Brown and Hooper’s hypocrisy, Hawthorne
ridicules the Puritan’s focus on being outwardly blameless while turning a blind
eye to their own sins. This hypocrisy and condemnation becomes a cancer within
the community. Here, Brown and Hooper are innately sinful beings, but their
inability to realize their sin makes them unpardonably evil. However, this evil
comes from their exposure to society not from something innately within them,
which reflects a Romantic understanding of sin.
Hawthorne’s Unpardonable Sin: Social Isolation
Both
Hooper and Brown are guilty of Hawthorne’s unpardonable sin: social isolation.
Reverend Hooper commits this atrocity by choosing to wear his black veil, which
creates both a physical and social barrier between himself and his congregation.
In his essay, “Hawthorne, the Fall, and the Psychology of Maturity” (2010),
Melvin Askew argues that for Hawthorne “the fall” is not a theological concept
but a “trope” that is “intimate and personal, and its ramifications are worked
out in the personal life-experience and existence of the fallen. And its
greatest significance is the influence it exerts in the conduct and quality of
that specific individual,” which creates a psychological experience that leads
to a “maturity of mind and heart” (232).
He defines Hawthorne’s psychological fall as “Love,
Maturity-acceptance-responsibility, Life” (235). It is only through this “fall”
that man can find joy or fulfillment. Only a few of Hawthorne’s characters
actually reach this level of maturity; others are trapped in a narcissistic
cycle and become inhumane. Reverend Hooper falls into this narcissistic cycle
because he fails to accept Elizabeth and “the world on its own terms. She would
have him without the interposed veil, and he would have all the world if it wore
a veil” (239). This narcissism is a problem for Hawthorne because it promotes
pride and self-absorption that is detrimental and harmful to the community as a
whole. Hooper’s narcissism reveals a lack of maturity that would traditionally
be expected from a man in his social position.
Reverend Hooper’s job is to guide his parishioners to live an acceptable life
and to lead his congregation through the example of his own life choices.
However, Hooper “fails at life” despite the “partial success of his ministry”
(due to his ability to scare people into repentance) because he absorbs himself
in creating a barrier so that the sin he sees in others cannot attach itself to
him (239). By distinguishing “himself from the common heart of humanity with his
black veil,” he waits “for the world to come round to him” (239). However,
“[Hooper] waits in vain” since his veil causes him to isolate himself from his
parishioners (239). Although Hooper’s intention is to reveal his community’s
sin, he only manages to erect a barrier that promotes doubt and mistrust.
Hooper’s inability to perceive this barrier in a negative light causes him to
“fall into inhumanity” (239). This
“inhumanity” transforms him into his own antagonist. Hawthorne utilizes this
transformation to imply his disdain for Hooper’s selfishness and isolation from
others. Hawthorne ridicules Hooper’s piety by making him monstrous. Since Hooper
does not “accept the conditions of [his] fall, the facts of the fallen world, or
the knowledge by which [his] fall was accomplished, [he lives] disoriented in a
temporal, dark, and human hell” (239, 40). This self-created hell reflects the
evils of isolating oneself from the surrounding community. Hawthorne designs
this punishment for his character since he has committed the unpardonable sin.
Hooper’s obsession with the sins of others blinds him to his own sin of
self-righteousness and piety which isolate him from his fellow man.
Similarly, Goodman Brown becomes embittered after his encounter with the Devil
in the woods, which causes him to dissolve intimate ties with his society. At
the end of his life, there is “no hopeful verse upon his tombstone for his dying
hour was gloom” (“Young” 72). Brown’s experience removes his faith in God since
he unknowingly sells his soul to the Devil. In his article, “The Rewriting of
the Faust Myth in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘Young Goodman Brown’” (2012), Hubert
Zapf claims that “Hawthorne adapted and imaginatively transformed the Faustian
material into a unique, complex aesthetic response to the historical-cultural
conditions and mentalities of his time and society” (25). Rather than making a
deal with the Devil, Brown attempts to resist the Devil and overcome his
temptation. However, in doing so he falls into the Devil’s trap of
self-righteousness and piety traditionally associated with Puritan society.
Brown’s original faith and hope at the beginning of the story turn out to be an
“an illusion, which demonstrates Goodman Brown’s self-deception about his own
motives” (31). Originally, he believed he was being faithful by resisting the
Devil. However, his belief that he has resisted temptation unlike the rest of
the community costs him his faith and hope instead of strengthening them. Zapf
argues that Hawthorne is critiquing “Puritanism as an institutionalized cultural
ideology” (32). Due to the Calvinistic belief in the “elect,” Hawthorne portrays
the Puritan community as questioning this “elect” status if a person finds
themselves participating in sinful activity. Hawthorne rejects this status of
the “elect” because they are just as sinful as everyone else. In fact, he finds
the “elect” more sinful because they judge the other members of their community
and separate themselves from them so that the “elect” will not be contaminated
by the community’s sin.
This
judgment of others isolates members of a community from one another. Brown
commits Hawthorne’s unpardonable sin because he “is so overwhelmed by his
unexpected discoveries about the darker side of his own culture that he is
unable to cope with them except in the form of a universalized misanthropic
pessimism” (33). Like a good Puritan, Brown condemns his brethren for succumbing
to temptation. Therefore, he can never trust himself around them because they
are hypocritical and potential vessels for temptation. Hawthorne, in turn,
condemns Brown for his uncharitable feelings towards his fellow townspeople and
his inability to notice his own sin for not only judging them, but also
isolating himself from them. Hawthorne questions the Puritan ability to condemn
others since they claim all men to be sinful, yet their judgment causes members
to condemn others and in the process bring judgment upon themselves. While in
the woods, Goodman Brown is exposed to a “strangely joyless, hopeless, and
desperate world which reflects, rather than any wish-fulfilling fantasies, the
worst nightmares, fears, and demonic projections of the Puritan imagination”
(34). Contrary to typical fantasies about the Devil fulfilling the heart’s
desires, Brown becomes involved in a frightening ceremony that involves some of
the most pious members of his community as well as “wretches given over to all
mean of filthy vice” and “pale-faced enemies … the Indian priests” (“Young” 56).
Brown’s exposure to this horrifying ordeal hardens him to those around him. He
does not want to be tainted by their sin or negatively influenced by their evil
inclinations. Rather than finding common ground through mankind’s fallen state,
Brown utilizes his resistance to temptation as a platform to judge his fellow
community from. In the end, his “obsession with evil … closes [him] off from all
personal communication. His lonely misanthropy leads him into irredeemable
despair” (37). Brown’s isolation from the community makes him a miserable man.
Hawthorne does not uplift Brown as a hero; instead, he condemns him to a gloomy
life of misery. In this condemnation, Hawthorne expresses his disdain for those
who vainly separate themselves from the community because he considers community
something sacred.
Concluding Thoughts:
Due
to his emphasis on the sacredness of having a positive role within society and
the detrimental effects of isolation, Hawthorne rejects his Calvinist roots and
upholds the Romantic ideal of man’s corruption through exposure to society. He
mocks the Puritans’ blindness to their own hypocrisy through characters such as
Goodman Brown and Reverend Hooper. Since Hawthorne establishes them as
upstanding members of the community at the beginning of his tales, they appear
to be the victims of the story since they are more devout than their community
members. Although Goodman Brown knows that he leaves his house for a “evil
purpose,” he resists the Devil figure’s temptations throughout his journey
through the woods (8). Brown’s resistance suggests that he is faithful to the
end; particularly when he cries to the spectre of his wife, “look up to heaven,
and resist the wicked one” (68). This proclamation causes the vision of the
Devil’s induction ceremony to vanish and represents the idea that Brown has
effectively resisted temptation. Brown is the epitome of a devout Puritan man.
The same is true for Reverend Hooper. His congregation is shocked that he
insists on wearing the black veil. He “had the reputation of a good preacher,”
yet after he begins wearing the veil, his congregation perceives it as a “symbol
of a fearful secret between him and them” (31). He falls prey to their judgment
as he appears to continually push for their recognition of their own secret sin
and confess this sin to the world. On his deathbed, he champions his conviction
by stating, “then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived,
and die! I look around me and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!” (67). Although
Reverend Hooper has been wrongly accused of hiding secret sin, he appears to
only be guilty of caring too much about saving the souls of his congregants.
Here, the monsters are the members of the congregation. Both men piously resist
the temptation to become like the sinful members of their communities. This
seems like a noble pursuit; however, on closer inspection, Hawthorne actually
interprets their isolation as wickedness.
Hawthorne ridicules the Puritans because they do not realize that their
stringent rules are divisive rather than unifying. Therefore, Hawthorne makes
Hooper and Brown the problem within the community, not the solution. It is
essential they begin the tale as good men so that they can be corrupted by their
exposure to society. Brown becomes corrupted by his realization of others’
hypocrisy. During his journey through the woods, he realizes that the Devil is
familiar with his grandfather and father, Goody Cloyse (the woman who taught him
his catechism), and leading elders in his church. Through this realization he
becomes judgmental and embittered, which causes him to lose his faith and as a
result, isolate himself from his community. Rather than taking comfort in the
notion that no one is without sin, Brown uses this knowledge to create a divide
between himself and his community members. Reverend Hooper also becomes aware of
the sinfulness of his congregation. In his sermon on the morning he first dons
the veil, he preaches about “secret
sin, and those
sad mysteries which [people] hide from
[their] nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from [their] own
consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them” (14). In his
attempt to save his congregation from their sin, he utilizes the physical
barrier of the veil to portray the seriousness of their sin. However, his
obsession with secret sin does not unite his community behind his efforts.
Instead, the veil creates a rift that causes him to be isolated
from his congregants. The rift corrupts his mission to save his congregation
because he has become sinful without realizing it. He distances himself from his
congregation because of their refusal to acknowledge their sin. He becomes
corrupted by his realization of their unrepentant sinful condition. The fissure
created by both Hooper’s and Brown’s rejection of others’ sin is unhealthy. By
portraying their corruption in this way, Hawthorne adheres to a Romantic
understanding of Original sin. People are not born innately sinful but corrupted
by exposure to the sins of others and a hypocritical response to that sin.
Hawthorne’s emphasis on social isolation as an unpardonable sin unveils his
concern for being an active member within society. These members uphold this
society by contributing to the greater good through works of service. Part of
being a participating member of this ideal society includes accepting the good
in others along with the bad. He moves away from attempting to reach perfection
by not breaking Biblical laws. Attaining perfection by attempting to uphold the
Biblical law is an unachievable goal that ends up breaking down the community.
Instead, perfection can be achieved through doing good deeds and striving to
selflessly serve others within the community. Pride and self-deceit are harmful
to the community because these vices promote unconfessed wrongs that fester and
are not dealt with in a healthy manner. These ideals about involvement in the
community align Hawthorne with other Romantic writers of his time.
Works
Cited
Askew, Melvin. “Hawthorne, the Fall, and the Psychology of Maturity.”
Critical Insights: Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Ed. Jack Lynch. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2010. 231-41.
Donoghue, Denis. “Hawthorne and Sin.”
Christianity and Literature. 52.2 (2003): 215-32.
Georgieva, Margarita. “The Burden of Secret Sin: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Fiction.”
Critical Insights: Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Ed. Jack Lynch. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2010.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Minister’s Black Veil.”
Online Texts for Craig White’s Literature
Courses. n.p. n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2016.
---.
“Young Goodman Brown.” Online Texts for
Craig White’s Literature Courses. n.p. n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2016.
Newberry, Frederick. “The Biblical Veil: Sources and Typology in Hawthorne’s
‘The Minister’s Black Veil.’” Texas
Studies in Literature and Language. 31.2 (1989): 169-95.
Reynolds, Kimberly. “Perceptions of Childhood.”
British Library. British Library
Board, n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2016.
Ronan, John. “‘Young Goodman Brown’ and the Mathers.”
The New England Quarterly. 85.2
(2012): 253-80.
Zapf,
Hubert. “The Rewriting of the Faust Myth in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘Young Goodman
Brown.’” Nathaniel Hawthorne Review.
38.1 (2012): 19-40.
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