The 19th Century Prose of Nathaniel Hawthorne :: Biography Biographies Essays

Nathaniel Hawthornes 19th Century Prose Nathaniel Hawthorne, a master of American fiction, often utilizes dreams within the annals of his writings to penetrate, explore and express his perceptions of the intricate moral and spiritual conflicts that plague mankind. His clever, yet crucial purpose for utilise dreams is to represent, through symbolism, the human divergence conflict manifested in the souls of man during the dissipated Christian precepts of the Era in which he lived. As a aery in an extremely conservative Puritanical society, he c atomic number 18fully and successfully manages to depict humanitys propensity for sin and secrecy, and any resulting punishment or atonement by weaving dreams into his tales. The dreams he refers to in many of his writings are heavily symbolic due to his Christian foundation, and they imply that he views just about dreams as a pigmentation of reality. Hawthornes ability to express and subsequently bring to realisation the tru e state of mans sinful nature by parallelling dreams with reality represents non only his religious beliefs but also his true mastery of bill regarding the human soul. An examination of Hawthornes own narrative in his short story, The Birthmark, promulgated in 1850 during the latter part of the period of Puritanism expands his observations of mankind with keen insight. rightfulness often finds its way to the mind close-muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with uncompromising good faith of matters in regard to which we practice an unconscious self-deception, during our waking moments. (par.15) The prophetic tilt was made by Hawthorne to open the readers mind and perhaps inject an self-examining glimpse of his perspective that dreams do indeed contain precursors or warnings of future day conscious realities. He also contends that people often purposely brush off the contents of their dreams and do not face the realities that they are saluteed with wh ile in unconscious moments of slumber. Hawthornes writings are marked by intrinsic astuteness and a sincere desire to crawl inside of the characters he has created. He accomplishes this objective by allowing them to dream. He makes his presence known by ofttimes commenting openly throughout his prose and interject a narrative of his assertions. Hawthorne historically has his characters confront reality following a dream, or he reveals that