Literary Explication: Nathaniel Hawthorne and Gender Constructs

As a writer, Nathanial Hawthorne often depicted humble, vibrant, striking women suffering at the hands of weaker, arrogant, ignoble men. As a person, Hawthorne struggled with his place in the rapidly changing world around him, struggling to be a "man" - he bounced back and forth between reputable, "honest work", and his career as a novelist.

A quiet, shy fellow prone to a genteel nature ill-suited to the aggressive competitive nature of the era's masculinity, Hawthorne struggled to rationalize and justify his writing career with the imagined indictment of his Puritan forefathers that he was a "mere scribbler, a story-teller". Perhaps threatened by women's natural, wild vivacity, maybe even dreadfully aware that as a "creator" he was encroaching upon a woman's world, Hawthorne often used his female characters in his writing as a cathartic way of working out his gender-related anxieties the validity of his chosen career safely, internally, though it is left up to doubt as to whether or not Hawthorne successfully resolved this conflict within.

Throughout the 1820s and 1830s, the cultural landscape of young America was in upheaval, as social shifts linked to gender, class, and socioeconomic standing worked to change the world Hawthorne lived and wrote in. This was a post-Revolutionary world that had thrown off the fetters of colonial rule; likewise, literary forces "flexed their muscles", so to speak, challenging old ways of thinking, prompting inward, introspective thoughts aimed at bettering the self. Social reforms aimed at prisons, mental institutions, child labor, and women's suffrage - the right to vote and be elected, to take part in shaping the future of America - were all factors at play.

Born out of these changes in thought, a new, somewhat humanistic, ecumenical and Transcendentalist movement clashed with the old ways of doing things - Puritan thought-modes and ways of life - causing people everywhere: of each gender, all social classes, and eventually races - to question their place in the world, and what was possible for them.

However, the revolutionary, liberal strains of Transcendentalism clashed with a developing stratification of social and gender roles. Rural domestic economy, self-sufficient and based on home labor, was declining, and the division between what was considered to be "men's work" and "women's work" came into being. Woman became isolated, more and more thought of as objects of display, sexual politics concerning behavior and comportment becoming more rigid.

These stratified gender roles clashed with Transcendentalist philosophies, providing fertile ground for social and literary discussions about where one belonged in society. In response to this, it could be asserted that feminism found its birthing, as women writers came to the forefront over the next several decades, gaining widespread popularity in their literary efforts to defend against this gender stratification: Dickinson, Warner, Fuller and Cumins.

The development of this period, the rise of feminism, and the evolution of Transcendentalism were all key factors in the formation of Nathanial Hawthorne's literary consciousness. Losing his father to an early death, watching his mother subsist only on the support of relatives, (Martin, 513), it's not much of a leap to imagine Hawthorne found great resonance with the growing uncertainty and dissatisfaction with established gender and class roles, given his own uncertain social status early in life.

Without delving too deeply into psychology and literary theory, by and large, writers write what they know - or what they associate most deeply with, even if only on a subconscious level. Bereft of a substantive father figure in his life, having to see his mother - a woman - always dependent on others, and growing up during this time of social, economic, and religious turmoil, it's only logical to assume that Hawthorne would have a great affinity for the themes he was most familiar with: questions regarding sex, gender roles/submission to those roles, social class and standing, guilt and sin, and the consequences of stepping out of established social and gender roles.

Though his works speak strongest of his gender anxiety later in his career, even his earlier works display affection for strong, female characters, and his writing carried a distinctly feminine, genteel tone (Martin, 14). In the beginning of his career, he wrote short stories for gift-book annuals, and it's recorded that his future sister-in-law Elizabeth Peabody thought his sister Elizabeth had written them, and despite The Gentle Boy's somewhat violent nature, contemporary feminist of the time Margaret Fuller believed the story to have been written by a woman (514).

Even as late as 1843, Hawthorne wrote and published a short story entitled "Drowne's Wooden Image" in Godey's Lady's Book for an exclusively female audience (514). Hawthorne himself was often described as being quiet, withdrawn, and somewhat of a "shy nature" - described often by friends and colleagues as almost a woman himself (Standford, Lecture Notes 2006). Contemporary Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was quoted as saying that "talking to Hawthorne was like talking with a woman" (Herbert, 523-524).

Indeed, Hawthorne had very close ties to the developing feminist movement; he was familiar with and even at times considered to be a friend of Margaret Fuller, his wife Sophia was sister to one of that era's most important feminists, Elizabeth Peabody, he was affiliated with the Brownings, as well as Harriet Hosmer, prominent member of a lesbian group of artists (515). Also, between the years 1841 and 1846, Hawthorne grew very close to the Transcendentalist movement, through his times spent in Concord and an eight month stint at Brook Farm, a Transcendentalist (Baym, 534).

He became very conversant with bedrock Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, going on long walks with the writer, talking and exchanging ideas (Standford, Lecture Notes, 2006). Around this period, the literary movement in New England began heading into a new, more liberal direction, and Hawthorne moved even closer to the "feminine world" with his marriage.

However, Hawthorne could hardly be considered an enthusiastic feminist or advocate for women, it was something he grappled with and felt great conflict about at best. Though many of the women in his short stories are portrayed as noble, virtuous women who suffer through no fault of their own, Dorothy in The Gentle Boy, Georgiana in The Birthmark, and Beatrice in Rappachini's Daughter, many others are portrayed as either wild, passionate, unpredictable - Catherine, Ilbrahim's mother in The Gentle Boy, or not to be trusted to be "what they seem"; Faith, in Young Goodman Brown (Giovanni's sense of betrayal over Beatrice's true nature works well along these lines as well, when he discovers the "hidden poison in her veins").

In the Custom House, the prelude to The Scarlet Letter, one of the most prominent symbols is the female American eagle poised over the Custom House's entrance, and it too is given a treacherous nature - though "vixenly", attracting visitors because "her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eider-down pillow," (Hawthorne, 8), like many of Hawthorne's other female characters, there is a wild, primitive vitality underneath this feminine exterior, because the eagle could turn at any time, with a "scratch of the claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows" (9).

In life, Hawthorne reflected this sentiment, numerous times expressing his vexation with his female contemporaries, possibly portraying his insecurity at relating to them through his own love and desire; his art, writing. At one point, Hawthorne complained to his publisher about these women writers, calling them a "damned mob of scribbling women" (513).

What he does in his stories to these interesting, compelling, oftentimes "vixenly" and striking woman is intriguing. With perhaps the exception of Dorothy in The Gentle Boy, all of these women suffer varying forms of rejection and/or suppression at the hands of men, many because they are not "what they seem to be" - Faith, Young Goodman Brown; Beatrice; Rappachinni's Daughter; or because they are wild, uncontrollable, unpredictable, such as Catherine of The Gentle Boy.

She is at once poignant and treacherous, exiled by the Puritans because she is a Quaker, suffering the loss of her husband and child; she also gives up Ilbrahim in the zealous pursuit of martyrdom that is aggressive in a decidedly masculine way. Not only is she "repressed and rejected", Hawthorne is possibly painting her as "not to be trusted to do what women should do - heeding their matronly duties", because her passion for her faith is so great, and it is this masculine aggression and assertiveness of his feminist contemporaries that he found so vexing when he called them all a "damned mob of women scribblers" (Herbert, 524).

It would seem Hawthorne found compelling affinity for these unpredictable; boundary breaking women by his continued creation of these literary characters, but his continued "shackling" of them is confusing. Is Hawthorne reinforcing the gender stereotypes of the day, saying that women are inherently misleading, with hidden natures? Faith, in Young Goodman Brown, could be emblematic of this, with her supposed wickedness that Brown "discovers" in the forest, and her portrayal as someone who needed strict guidance and governance.

As Brown leaves, she pleads with him because she was "afeared of herself" - ergo, what she might do - because of her dreams and "such thoughts" (Hawthorne, 64). Of course, he does go, and as a consequence he discovers Faith is one of the young women to be dedicated in a pagan celebration that night. The message here is potentially two fold: his wife Faith is not the 'good woman' she seems, is not to be trusted to control herself on her own, and because of this she must be rejected and repressed by the constraints of the story.

In Rappachinni's Daughter, the "hidden poison" in Beatrice's veins and her need to be "corralled" in the courtyard screams of Hawthorne trying to deal with this "something" in women that unnerves him enough to bind them all in his writing; she's innocent yet guilty, powerful yet dangerous, vibrant yet damaging. She too suffers repression; a more explicit sort at the hands of her father, who not only created her as such poison, but restricts her to the courtyard, never to venture beyond its walls. She's rejected by Giovanni, who recoils from her in horror when he realizes he's now been tainted by her poison too.

However, this is the problem with trying to decipher Hawthorne - meanings are not fixed, he plays with both sides of the coin in the same story. Though one could easily read the symbols in Rappachinni's Daughter in favor of some powerful, attractive "poison" lingering in women's veins, unlike some of Hawthorne's more timid female characters - Dorothy, Faith, Georgiana - Beatrice shows a decidedly more assertive spark at the end of the story, indicting both her father and Giovanni as loveless cowards:

"I would have fain have been loved, not feared….but now it matters not. I am going, father, where the evil which thou hast striven to mingle with my being will pass away like a dream - like the fragrance of these poisonous flowers, which will no longer taint my breath among the flowers of Eden. Farewell, Giovanni! Thy words of hatred are like lead within my heart; but they, too, will fall away as I ascend. O, was there not, from the first, more poison in thy nature than in mine?" (Macintosh, 209)

Many have argued that like Joseph Conrad's paradoxical unease with the horrors of colonialism and his inability to really think of a world without colonialism - he portrays the misdeeds and mistreatment of Africans in Heart of Darkness vividly, but does not go far enough to say that colonialism is wrong, or that the British Empire is wrong in their colonial efforts - Hawthorne was able to pinpoint his dissatisfaction of established gender roles, especially his own dissatisfaction with his location along the boundary lines.

Many feminists argue against Hawthorne because of his continued binding of female heroines, (Baym, 542-543), but it's interesting to note often enough in his stories, men pay a heavy price for rejecting them. Because of Goodman Brown's rejection of Faith, he becomes a miserable old man. Alymer takes advantage of his wife's trusting nature, gambles with her life because of his pride, and loses. Giovanni rejects Georgianna, and loses her, too. In The Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale does not have the courage to join his lover and child, and suffers heavily under the burden of guilt.

What's interesting is the thematic progression of these stories along the arc of Hawthorne's career - which many argue reaches its apogee or "destination" with The Scarlet Letter. The Gentle Boy, in which Catherine is a wild, unpredictable mother willing to abandon her child to pursue martyrdom, was published earliest, 1831, a version completed as early as 1829. Perhaps in all of these stories, womanhood is represented the worst in Young Goodman Brown - Faith is weak, unable to control herself, not to be trusted; and was first published in 1835.

Further along the progression, The Birthmark, which was first published in 1843, Georgiana is decidedly a fitter feminine character - clearly a superior to Aylmer in spirit and intellect - and her only fault is her submission to her husband's misguided ministrations. Finally, we reach Rappichinni's Daughter, who steps the closest to all these characters to defying the male characters with her dying words, and it was published in 1846. Perhaps not ironic is the corresponding dates of The Birthmark and Rappichinni's Daughter with his closest exposure to the ideas of the Transcendentalist movement.

Still, the reversals of gender roles and men and women acting as they were not expected continued to be a source of vexation for him, and it's doubtful that even though he worked to portray these strong women and weak men, wrestling with his own issues, that he ever came to resounding resolution of the matter. His unease over the dichotomy between the feminine and what they were supposed to be hit home with the arrival of his daughter Una. Perhaps not ironic is Hawthorne's expressed unease in his journal about his daughter's strange qualities, shortly before writing The Scarlet Letter:

There is something that almost frightens me about the child - I know not whether elfish or angelic, but, at all events, supernatural. She steps so boldly into the midst of everything, shrinks from nothing, has such comprehension or everything, seems at times to have little delicacy, and anon shows that she possesses the finest essence of it; now so hard, now so tender; now so perfectly unreasonable, soon again so wise. In short, I now and then catch an aspect of her, in which I cannot believe her to be my own human child, but a spirit strangely mingled with good and evil, haunting the house where I dwell. (Herbert, 522 - 523)

How ironic - or perhaps not - that this child should portray the likeness of Pearl, or vice versa, with such resonance. Here bundled in one package, under Hawthorne's own roof, is the very juxtaposition of the things he's grappling with: what is expected of the era's gender constructs. At this time, conceptions proposed womanhood and manhood as two distinctly opposite spheres, and here comes little Una - with everything all rolled up into one.

Hawthorne's unease over such paradoxes within himself and his conflicted treatment of his female characters came from a divided perspective within himself about gender and what men and women should do, as well as his divided vision of what he should do: was it "manly" enough to be a writer, "a scribbler" just like these other "damned mob of women scribblers", and what did it say about him that he found so lackluster his attempt to rejoin the "patriarchal body" by working in the custom-house, a "male preserve" (Martin, 514), a "sanctuary into which womankind, with her tools of magic, the broom and mop, has very infrequent success" (Hawthorne, 17)?

Where can these paradoxes be found in his short stories? If we are to take that everything is symbolic in Hawthorne's writing, and that these symbols all point to his grappling with the issue of gender constructs, then the symbolism is widespread and diverse - sometimes too much so to adequately get a firm handle on. The earliest story written of the bunch, The Gentle Boy, takes Hawthorne's griping about "those damned mob of scribbling women", and personifies them in Catherine.

She stands out as the most vivid representation of what Hawthorne felt the most uneasy about the mass of emerging feminist writers around him; aggressive, passionate, exerting her will upon others and circumstances, attempt to bend them to her own bidding, rather than acting as a "good woman" should - much as Dorothy is painted in this same story. In fact, many critics have commented on this trait of Hawthorne; that he was constantly polarizing what a "good" or "light" woman was against that of a "bad" or dark woman.

There are clear sexual connotations in Young Goodman Brown, as Goodman Brown is leaving his bride behind during the days when new Puritan couples traditionally consummated their marriage (Stanford, Lecture Notes 2006). Single while writing this story, perhaps Hawthorne feared the sexuality of a woman, which has historically been repressed by Puritans and other patriarchal belief systems. Even Biblically speaking, within the Catholic Church as well, women were considered spiritually unclean during their monthly period and after childbirth - of course because of sexual interaction. This is a giant bedrock of anti-feminine repression that could explain Hawthorne's conflicted attempts to paint strong, noble heroines who are still shackled because of their nature.

There are of course repeated rumors that Hawthorne was a closet homosexual and had an affair with Melville and that this was he reason why he feared sexual intercourse with women, but that need not be the case - perhaps ever present in Hawthorne's mind was the Salem Witch Trials and the "beguiling nature of woman", and it's been recorded that for all his grappling and musing on Transcendentalist beliefs, he remained very prudish to the end - on one trip to Europe, he even draped hand-cloths over the genitals of nude statues.

There's a breadth of difference between these earlier stories, and The Birthmark and Rappichinni's Daughter, which were written very near to his encounter with Transcendentalism, his marriage and the birth of Una Hawthorne, and The Scarlet Letter. Paradoxes still exist, though they seem to reflect a different mindset. In both stories, women clearly painted as Hawthorne's "good, light" women suffer at the hands of arrogant, churlish men - and they willingly submit, in both stories…although perhaps less so in Rappichinni's Daughter, as it seems she had less choice in the matter.

Here again, perhaps Hawthorne is struggling with the shifts inside himself concerning the place of women in society and their supposed subservience to men. In both these stories, the women die tragically - willingly - and it is the men who suffer because they have rejected these women (although this symbolism exists in Young Goodman Brown as well).

So the paradox changes, but still a paradox remains - Hawthorne has been exposed to freer ideas, social changes have paved the way for him to make a living as a writer, and the tone of his stories takes a marked shift - but still conflict exists. It's very clear in The Custom House that even at this point of his career, when his reputation is blooming; he's still coming to terms with his chosen profession as a writer. He struggled with the idea that at best, writing was "unmanly" and not a good use of time; at worst a sin, especially in the eye of his Puritan forefathers, who he imagined saying this as they watched him write his novel:

"What is he?" says one ancient shadow to another. "A writer of story-books! What kind of businesses is this in life - what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind is his day and generation - may that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!"

His retreat to the custom house from his exposure to Transcendentalism, which made him uncomfortable with their freer thoughts and ideas, (ironically, while at Brook Farm, he got nearly no writing done), to become a "man of business" inevitably finds him wanting, not measuring up to the masculine standard (Martin, 517). Of course, this position - which he's received from the most masculine of all sources, patriarchal patronage from the current President of the United States in office at the time - is taken from him when that president loses the election, and he's ousted from the world of men - rejected, tossed back as unfit or unworthy.

The Scarlet Letter, easily one of the most recognized pieces of literature, in many ways could be looked at as the culmination of all Hawthorne was working on his short stories, especially in his crafting of Hester. Before Hester, his women characters are somewhat incomplete, one-sided, or not nearly as powerful. Hester is the combination of all these women characters rolled into one: the essence of Hawthorne's own conflict concerning gender and their constructs. She's feminine yet passionate and aggressive, strong, wise, long-suffering. However, there is a foreboding wildness there; if not for Pearl, she would have easily given herself to the Black Man halfway through the novel. Is this possibly a statement by Hawthorne on the saving graces of the maternal instinct? Once again, the paradox - this woman, who is so vibrant, so alive, needs constrictions to control her, or to make her "better".

The strongest essence of The Scarlet Letter is found in looking at it as a means of catharsis for Hawthorne, of grappling with his issues of Puritanism, what is "men's work" and "women's work", the sudden abundance of women writers around him, and his own conflict between his life's calling - writing - and what he believed he should be doing as a man. As characters, both Hester and Dimmesdale are reflections of Hawthorne's internal conflict.

His affiliation with Hester is almost too clear; Hester is the wild, imaginative, creative side of a writer shackled by the oppressive, male-dominated dictates of Puritanism - as Hawthorne struggles with his own sense of being and belonging. Hester has given birth to this "elfish" child that defies description and codification; likewise, not only in his life has Hawthorne brought into the world his own little strange 'Pearl' in Una, but his life's work, his creations are analogous to Pearl - creations that defy description, category, and meaning.

There are several parts of the narrative where Hawthorne's own voice breaks into the story, where he speaks directly through the narrative or Hester herself. On page 108, the narrative says, in regards to Hester: "It is remarkable, the persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society. The thought suffices them, without investing itself in flesh and blood of action. So it seemed to be with Hester".

The image of someone speculating boldly - ie. dreaming, imagining, as Hawthorne was often wont to do - speaks very loudly as a bit of Hawthornian meta-fiction. That, and Hester conforming with "the most perfect quietude" is symbolic of what Hawthorne felt he should do, or try to do - especially given his periodic break from writing to engage in 'real work'; to do what society and more importantly, his internal set of Puritan values, expected of a man.

On page 128, there is another passage describing Hester that parallels Hawthorne nicely. The narrative says that "she had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness; as vast, as intricate and shadowy, as the untamed forest".

Could these untamed forests be the halls of Hawthorne's mind, as he constantly dreams and imagines things that his Puritan shadow-fathers find scorn over, wondering if his dreaming was God-honoring. This same passage also describes her as being "not merely estranged, but outlawed from society", and this resonates with Hawthorne's tendency to consider himself an outsider, separate and forever apart from those around him. He did not engage well with other men, even those he liked - Ralph Waldo Emerson, his erstwhile walking partner, often commented on his friends reticent verbal interaction on these walks (Stanford, Lecture Notes 2006). (going to re-read Custom House to look at male constructs concerning his attempts to connect with men)

It's interesting to hear Hester entreat Chillingworth to leave she and Dimmesdale alone, saying to him that they "are here wandering together in this gloomy maze of evil, and stumbling, at every step, over the guilt wherewith we have strewn our path" (113). Is Hawthorne maybe using the affair between Hester and Dimmesdale - a burst of uncontrolled passion - as symbolic of his bursts of creativity in writing? Did his musings often make him feel as if he was "wandering in a gloomy maze of evil"?

Turning an eye towards Hester's scarlet letter 'A' - what does it represent to Hawthorne? We know the context of the story; the letter stands for 'adultery' and is the public mark of Hester's shame, but ironically as she lives a quiet life of repentance and servitude, others in the community soften their outlook in light of her good and charitable works for the poor, and her unquestioning acceptance of her punishment.

In fact, the narrative notes that in the minds of some, the meaning of the letter transmutes to 'able', rather than a connotation of her sinful act of lust. I wonder where the significance is in this, if any? Is his writing career Hawthorne's scarlet letter? Did he feel so conflicted by this that he felt its mark upon him wherever he went, and did it transmute itself over time as his popularity grew in the eyes of those around him?

It's very telling that when Hester tries to rid herself of the scarlet letter in her clandestine, forest meeting with Dimmesdale, Pearl no longer recognizes her - therefore, Hester is no longer the mother she knows. This image evokes the periods of Hawthorne's life when he tried his hand at different types of employment - throwing off the 'scarlet letter' of his writing endeavors - but of course his employment ends and he always ends up writing again, because just like Hester is lacking something important in the eyes of Pearl without her scarlet letter, Hawthorne lacks something intrinsic to himself when he's not writing.

Looking at Dimmesdale as a reflection of Hawthorne's troubled psyche is intriguing as well. Dimmesdale is the mostly ineffectual, stinging aspect of Hawthorne's conscience that is forever "wringing his hands" over whether or not following his heart's call: to imagine, dream, write - ergo, freeing Hester from her bonds - is something he can make acceptable with his inconsistent yet ever present internal Puritan barometer, the vexed conscience that always pricks Hawthorne's spirit about his writing career's 'eternal value'.

As Dimmesdale laments about his guilt to Hester in the woods, we hear Hawthorne's voice, lamenting of his divided mind concerning himself and his life. On page 123, Dimmesdale mourns that if only he'd been a man "devoid of conscience", he'd have a measure of peace concerning his sin. Perhaps if Hawthorne had not been besieged by the "shadows of his forefathers", he would have been much more at home with his calling to write.

Finally, Dimmesdale's temptation to act sinfully on his way home from his meeting with Hester is evocative, perhaps, of Hawthorne's latent Puritan fears of the unchecked forces of his imagination, his writing, his passion. Because Dimmesdale has entered into this plot with Hester to flee with Pearl and seek out a new life, possibly even peace, he's now tormented by desires to "do some strange, wild, wicked thing or other" (139), because he's allowed room for the thought of doing something for himself and his own heart's desire, because he's been "tempted by a dream of happiness" (141), and he's given himself to it - by deliberate choice, something he's never done before, given in to "what he knew was deadly sin" (141). I wonder what was Hawthorne's "dream of happiness"? This passage creates a resonating image that heeding the heart's desires opens one up to absolute, moral degradation.

In conclusion, Hawthorne's works reflected the man inside for much of his life - at odds with established society yet at odds with himself, constantly fighting with his Puritan blood and the desire to dream, imagine, and create. Whatever position is taken concerning Hawthorne - that he was a closet homosexual afraid of women, that he was really a feminist in disguise, or that he truly believed women should be kept in subservient role because of his constant "shackling" of his heroines, it is clear he struggled and grappled with the issue at great length. Given the amount of mixed symbols and images that have no fixed meaning, it is clear that like Joseph Conrad and The Heart of Darkness, though Hawthorne imagined of a different world, he was still colored and touched by his background and heritage - that of being a Puritan.