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Chelliah.Pdf Merit Research Journal of Agricultural Science and Soil Sciences (ISSN: 2350 -2274) Vol. 5(11) pp. 116 -121, November, 2017 Available online http://meritresearchjournals.org/asss/index.htm Copyright © 2017 Merit Research Journals Review The Fictional Forte and L iterary Achievement of Nathaniel Hawthorne with a Focus on Spiritual Development through Sin and Suffering as Pictured in His Marble Faun: A Brief Analysis Dr. S. Chelliah, M. A., Ph.D Abstract Professor, Head and Chairperson, This paper is an attempt to examine the fictional art and forte of Natheniel School of English and Foreign Hawthorne with a special focus on his literary achievement and also languages and School of Indian spiritu al development attained through experience of sin, guilt and Languages, Department of English sufferings, by projecting him not only as an American novelist and short – and Comparative Literature, Madurai story writer but also a new England Puritan disapproving severe and harsh Kamaraj University MADURAI-21(TN)- India codes of the Puritan morality and a psychologi st delving deep into the study of human nature. It studies and reveals how Hawthorne used fiction as a E-mail: [email protected] me dium for pursuing poetic truth; that is the truth of human heart and used Mob: 9442621106/ 7339129324 his novel especially as a tale of human frailty and sorrow by pouring all the passion of his sensitive and lonely heart into his fictional composition. It finally attests to the fact that the outraged suffering humanity must learn to live with the blackness that lies everywhere beneath us. Key words: Fictional forte, curious coinci dence, spiritual development, sin, guilt, human suffering, Puritan morality, poetic truth, sensitive heart. INTRODUCTION Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), American novelist and setting for his work. Claiming the privileges of a short-story writer, was born into an old New England Romancer he deplored the lack of material for the artiste family in Salem, Massachusetts . It was a curious in contemporary America, which he called a land of coincidence that he was born in 1804 on July the 4 th , shadowless daylight. His precise, almost classic prose which is the day of the American Independenc e. style decorated with symbol and allegory, made a great Hawthorne was American to the core, a New England er, impression not only on his contemporary Melville, but descended on both sides from early Puritan settlers and also on later American writers like Henry James and steeped in their traditions. He was very much aware of William Faulkner. He has to his credit publication of such his ancestors. The Hawthorne’s had participated in the notable works as 1. The Scarlet Letter 2.The House of notorious Salem witch rails in the sev enteenth century the Seven Gables , 3. The Blithedale Romance 4. The and later in the Quaker persecutions. Nathaniel Marble Faun and many short stories. Hawthorne, reflecting on the past, always felt a sense of It is said that Hawthorne wanted to use fiction as a guilt and this is a theme that dominates many of stories medium for pursuing poetic truth, that is, the truth of the including his novels. Turning to the historical past, human heart. Being a descendant of the Puritans and an Hawthorne found Puritan New England a congenial avid student of New England history, he was fascinated Chelliah 117 by the problems of sin and salvation and by the questions Hephzibah and Clifford, and their tormentor, Judge of right and wrong that had preoccupied his ancestors. Pyncheon. The House of the Seven Gables uses To produce literary masterpieces that could challenge the physical degradation and decay to mirror the spiritual literary achievements of such literary giants as decay that the pyncheon family suffers. The house of the Washington Irving, Fennimore cooper and Edgar Allan seven gables itself is an obvious symbol of the declining Poe was more than a feather in Hawthorne’s literary cap. pyncheon fortunes. Hawthorne himself describes his novel as a tale of Hawthorne, with his faith in humanitarianism, human frailty and sorrow’. He calls it ‘a hell-fired story’. democracy and reform found vices and divergence He poured all the passion of his sensitive and lonely between theory and practice. The imperfections and heart into his fictional composition. The Scarlet Letter is evils of society have engendered a doubt and scpticism a story of sin, repentance, suffering death and salvation. in his attitudes. He has lashed the vices with his satire Hawthorne, like Melville, believed that there is and irony he has introduced powerful ironical situations preponderance of evil in this world. He thought that all lending poignency to his satire in his The Blithedale person may be classed a sinner, only because he Romance which is an indictment of the idea of reform, thinksof sin without his even committing it. He may be idealism and Transcendentalism which Hawthorne guilty, because of his guilt in dream but Hawthorne is not acquired through his association with ‘Brook Farm’. The oblivious of the difference between thinking of guilt and Blithedale Romance is nothing but a critique of the its execution. The Scarlet Letter is a novel in which the Brook Farm experiment and superb analysis of the urge sin perpetrated before the commencement of the story is to utopia the corrupting effects of unexamined desires for the type of the original sin. It is a novel imbued with deep leadership and the undetermined and tragic effects significance enshrining the cramping Calvinistic doctrine feminist emancipations. For his last completed novel, which frustrated gratification of legitimate human urges. The Marble Faun (1860), Hawthorne places his action in What was entered in his ‘Note Books’ in 1844 is, “The life Italy; the Italian count Donatello, the mysteriously of woman, who by the old colony law, was condemned European Miriam and an American couple form a always to wear the letter ‘A’, sewed on her garment in triangulation of his familiar themes. The Marble Faun is token of her having committed adultery.” In The Scarlet a story of the fall of the man into evil. It reveals the guilty Letter , Pearl is the result of the sinful acts of Hester and conscience of man, “the impact of the past on the Dimmesdale. Hester is made to put on the letter ‘A’ on present, the relations of head and heart, of the past on her bosom for her sin, but it has the effect of cross on a the present, the relations of head and heart and the path nun’s bosom. Though the man wishes to indict and to redemption through the union of the two all brought punished her for her sin by making her put on the letter together in a structure dominated by the Eden myth. ‘A’, this enables her to adjust with the milieu and “With this theme has ben juxtaposed the concept of environment. Thus, the good comes out of evil and the European culture and American morality”. The plot of the sin improves human nature. romance centers round count Donatello’s love for a Hawthorne, a New England Puritan disapproving woman Miriam who has some past sense of guilt in severe and harsh codes of the Puritan morality is Room. The count is an innocent person who is more essentially a moralist, a metaphysician, preoccupied with natural in his traits and is unscrupulous. He commits the problem of evil, sin and guilt and a psychologist, murder for her love. He has his knowledge of good and delving deep into the study of human nature. His evil and his friends also are involved in the sin. Hilda is a romances and short stories like “Wakefield”. “Ethan pure woman who dreads the idea of sin but later is Brand”, “David Swan” enshrined his moral concern. actively entangled in human life. Kenyon has more Hawthorne professes faith in the inexhorable working of contemplative interest and wonders whether sin is fearful. natural laws and the inevitability of consequences. He proposes Hilda who has cautioned him against the Similar to Emerson, his faith is in the inevitable result of dangers inherent in his speculative ideas. Thus, both are the cause and effect. Most of his moral questions link united. The story has symbolic significance and the then to the human guilt. The House of the Seven meaningful images. The count Donatello has his furry Gables is nothing but the study of human guilt. James ears which represent the modern faun. Kenyon suggests Russell though The House of the Seven Gables better head. Hilda and Donatello, the two innocent characters than the better known The Scarlet Letter and called it are pure and innocent, residing in towers. “the most valuation contribution to New England history The Marble Faun (1860) is a romance of crime and that has been made”: (Batra in Preface). The novel punishment, a myth of the fortunate and necessary fall admirably blends realism and fantasy with a moral from innocence to maturity and the relative purity on New outlined by Hawthorne himself in the preface: “The world youth in wicked old Europe His career is at the wrong doing of one generation lives into the successive center of the American tradition of apprehension ones and…..becomes a pure and uncon- concerning the nature of permanent evil in a society trollable mischief”. This is illustrated through the tale of dedicated to and capable of infinite progress. Hawthorne 118 Merit Res. J. Edu. Rev. was deeply preoccupied with the modern themes of behavior, the result of thinking himself too good or too alienation, isolation and guilt consciousness and with bad. Our sin, in short, is both original and ever renewed.
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