A Critical Response to Hawthorne’s Puritans Essay -- Literacy Analysi

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) is critically acclaimed for the portrayal of New England Puritans in his fiction. The grim picture of the rigid and forbidding Puritan community in his works reflects the widespread attitude towards Puritans, yet Professor Deborah L. Madsen, in her paper, â€Å"Hawthorne’s Puritans: From Fact to Fiction† claims that this monolithic portrayal of Puritanism results in a ‘powerful misrepresentation of the actual puritans [and] of the dynamics of Puritan theology’ (Madsen 1999, p 510) . The present response is a critical review of Madsen’s paper. The title of the paper is appropriate. While ‘Hawthorne’s Puritans’ implies a difference between actual Puritans and those conceptualized by Hawthorne, ‘From Fact to Fiction’ extends this idea by suggesting the disparity between history/fact and Hawthorne’s fiction. Madsen’s study argues that Hawthorne attempts to defend his puritan ancestors by creating a monolithic Puritanism, in which the conduct of all authoritarian puritans resembles that of his own ancestors such as John and William Hathorne. The ultimate goal of Hawthorne, according to Madsen, is to excuse ‘the sins of his fathers by showing that they were incapable of acting otherwise’ (Madsen, 1999, p. 510). What Madsen means by ‘a monolithic Puritanism’ is one that here allows ‘only one interpretation of itself and its significance’ (Madsen, 1999, p.516). In other words, it is an essentialist and stereotypical representation that does not take into account the complexities and the changeability of puritan behavior in an attempt to portray its underlying and unchanging essence. The outcome is a fixed and commonly-held image of puritans as a ‘grim and gloomy race, impatient with human weakness and m... ...h they are written and the social sphere in which he moved, his background, and various other influences on him. In conclusion, she brings out how Hawthorne’s fiction creates a biased and monolithic portrayal of the puritans ignoring the complexity of their theology and culture. Ideally, Madsen should have shed some light upon this complexity which could have substantiated her claim that Hawthorne denies the existence of any sophistication in puritan culture and theology. Works Cited Hawthorne, N., 1850. The Scarlet Letter available at: http://www.forgottenbooks.org Montrose, L. A., 1989. "Professing the Renaissance: The Poetics and Politics of Culture," in Veeser, A., 1989. The New Historicism, New York, London: Routledge. pp. 15-36. Madsen, D.L., 1999. Hawthorne’s Puritans: From Fact to Fiction. Journal of American Studies, 33 (1999), 3, 509-517