On Hawthorn's Idea About Evil

Nathaniel. Hawthorn( 1804-1864) was a representative romantic writer in the 19th century American literature, who was praised as" the first great novelist of American nation." His works include five completed novels like The Scarlet Letter and more than one hundred short stories such as Rappaccini' s Daughter and Young Goodman Brown. He exquisitely displayed his idea about the human nature. This thesis mainly discusses the manifestation, reason, function and influence of Hawthorn's idea about evil.First, the Calvinist Puritanism had deeply engraved in his ideology through his living condition and experience. So, he firmly believed the so-called "Original Sin" was the source of evil, which would present all kinds of crimes in the human lives. The sin of intellect was the most vicious one for its prototype was the "Original Sin". 'The essence of all the sin and suffering was the egoism that caused the "Original Sin".Second, there was deep contradiction in Hawthorn's idea about the evil of the human nature. Although he held the Puritanism viewpoint of life and behavior standard, he seriously criticized it. He hesitated between the sentiment and reason. He detested the evil but he affirmed its function of education. He sympathized with the evil of human nature and he was a friend of the sinner. The essence of the contradiction was the confliction between the Calvinist Puritanism and humanism which were two pillar of Hawthorn's idea about evil. Because this idea was the core of Hawthorn's world outlook, its contradiction was the basic reason of that of the writer's world outlook. From the point of the Character Psychology, the weakened patriarchy and the anima persona were the main reason of the complex and contradiction of the writer's idea.Third, being a Christian humanist while Hawthorn described and thought the evil of human nature, he positively sought the possibility of rescuing people's soul and perfecting their morality. He believed the key of preventing thedemoralization and social problem was purifying people's soul. There were several ways which were included confession and atonement, benevolent and fraternity, conscience and the nature, which all had obvious humanism characteristic.The thesis also analyzes this idea's significance in the literature history. There has a tradition of present the soul contradiction between good and evil from Banyan to Milton, to Gothic romance, to the early American writers Charles Brown and Allan Poe. On the foundation of the formers' results, Hawthorn's novels comprehensively revealed the evil of human nature. His achievement enlightened some followed novelists, such as Herman. Melville, Henley. James, and William. Faulkner.