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Nathaniel Hawthorne Essay
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Symbols and Symbolism in the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne's stories are frequently symbolic. He selects some object, token, or
utterance, in harmony with his purpose, and uses it as a symbol to
prefigure some moral action or result. The symbol may be an embroidered
mantle, indicative of pride; a butterfly, typical of emergence from a dead
chrysalis to a state of ideal beauty; or the words of a curse, which
prophesy a ghastly death. His choice of scene, plot, and character is in
harmony with the moral purpose indicated by the symbol. Sometimes this
purpose is dimly veiled in allegory, but even when his stories are sermons
in allegory, like The Snow Image , he so invests them with poetic fancy or
spiritual beauty as to make them works of art.
His extensive use of
symbolism and allegory has been severely criticized. It is unfortunate that
he did not learn earlier in life what The Scarlet Letter should have
taught him, that he did not need to rely on these supports. He becomes one
of the great masters when he paints character from the inside with a touch
so vivid and compelling that the symbolism and the allegory vanish like a
dissolving picture and reveal human forms. When he has breathed into them
the creator's breath of life, he walks with them hand in hand in this lost
Eden. He ascends the pillory with Hester Prynne, and writhes with Arthur
Dimmesdale's agony. He plays on the seashore with little Pearl. He shares
Hepzibah Pyncheon's solitude and waits on the customers in the cent shop
with Phoebe. He eats two dromedaries and a gingerbread locomotive with
little Ned Higgins.
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