A Companion to the American Short Story
Page 16
true artist to rise above the crude reality of a money - loving world and take delight
in the process of creation as intrinsically rewarding.
Hawthorne rarely gets the credit he deserves for helping to invent science fi ction, but
no other author of his time produced as many powerful works in this new genre. When
he moved to Concord, Massachusetts, in 1842, he turned away from historical fi ction
almost entirely and focused his energy on new forms, including stories about scientists
and the end of the world. This is partly because he was a serious writer actively seeking
ways to expand the range of his talents as well as searching for forms that might be
commercially viable. His turning towards the material of science fi ction probably also
refl ects the intellectual atmosphere of Concord, which exposed him to a world of bold
thinkers engaged in a variety of philosophical and cultural experiments, but also
enhanced both his own natural distrust of disembodied thought and his basic skepticism
about the idea of unlimited human progress. Another source of inspiration was clearly
the Millerites, whose predictions about the Day of Judgment coming in 1843 or 1844
resulted in two impressive stories about the end of the world. In “ The New Adam and
Eve ” (1843), the extinction of the human race is followed by the immediate creation of
a new Adam and Eve, two innocents who wander the remains of a now deserted Boston,
attempting to make sense of what they fi nd and giving the author the opportunity for
a wide range of moral refl ections. “ Earth ’ s Holocaust ” (1844) is much more pessimistic:
the bonfi re created to burn away all the “ worn - out trumpery ” of human folly also devours
works of literature, philosophy, and scripture, and Hawthorne concludes that all efforts
at human perfectibility are doomed to failure unless we fi gure out a way to purify the
human heart. Hawthorne ’ s fi ction had always called for a holistic recognition of the
importance of both head and heart, and much of the science fi ction he produced explicitly
calls for a greater recognition of the importance of the heart, of the emotional life, and
of the need for all human beings to recognize and accept their limitations.
Hawthorne ’ s scientists are usually victims of their own egoism who fail to under-
stand the world they attempt to control and change. Their arrogance leads them into
a cold - blooded violation of the human heart, which is usually represented by an
experiment on a woman who personifi es both the emotional component of human
experience and the fragility of human life. “ Dr. Heidegger ’ s Experiment ” (1837), the
earliest of Hawthorne ’ s experiments with the form we now call science fi ction, focuses
on an elixir that temporarily restores youth to a group of elderly friends. In “ The
Birth - mark ” (1843), Aylmer ’ s foolish and arrogant attempt to remove his wife ’ s single
66
Alfred Bendixen
physical blemish emphasizes our need to accept the limitations inherent in our mor-
tality. These themes are developed most fully in the longest and most complex of
Hawthorne ’ s tales, “ Rappaccini ’ s Daughter ” (1844), in which Giovanni falls in love
with the mysterious Beatrice only to discover that she has been transformed into a
poisonous creature by her father ’ s scientifi c experiments. Another scientist offers an
antidote, but it proves fatal to her. In this brilliant and intricately crafted work,
Hawthorne is enlarging the boundaries of his fi ctional territory to permit a fuller,
more complex engagement with multiple characters and the moral positions that they
embody. The story ends by appearing to ask us to judge who is responsible for the
death of Beatrice, but the fi nal answer is really everyone. In “ Rappaccini ’ s Daughter, ”
mistrust destroys love, the pretense to knowledge masks destructive pride, and the
only shared value is the failure to accept moral responsibility.
Hawthorne ’ s search for new literary forms in the 1840s also led him to experiment
with the possibilities inherent in allegory, and he even toyed with the idea of a series
of linked works that he planned to call “ Allegories of the Heart. ” Although he later
disparaged most of these works and his own tendency to indulge in allegory, he suc-
cessfully transformed the allegorical world of Bunyan
’
s
Pilgrim ’ s Progress
into the
brilliant satire of nineteenth - century life, “ The Celestial Rail - road ” (1843). These
experiments in allegory should be seen as part of Hawthorne ’ s continued attempt to
explore and expand the possibilities of fi ctional form. This process of experimentation
also led him to the retelling of classical myths for children in A Wonder - Book for Girls
and Boys (1851) and Tanglewood Tales (1853). Hawthorne, the fi rst major author to
provide English versions of the Greek myths for children, introduced some important
innovations. For instance, in the original versions of the Midas story, the king repents
of his golden touch when he discovers that he can no longer eat, because the food he
needs turns to gold. In Hawthorne ’ s version, his renunciation comes because he acci-
dentally turns his daughter into gold. We value Hawthorne today mostly for a rela-
tively small part of his literary work, the romances and tales that enlarge our
understanding of human psychology and history, but a full appreciation of his career
and achievements requires greater recognition of the diversity of his literary interests
and of his mastery of a wide range of literary modes.
Notes
1
There are numerous biographical studies of
2
Alfred Weber, who has made the fullest
Hawthorne, which take a variety of psycho-
attempt to reconstruct Hawthorne
’
s
Story
logical viewpoints, but the books by Mellow
Teller , believes that it would have contained
and Wineapple listed in the References section
“
Young Goodman Brown
”
and that there is
provide the clearest guide to the available
not enough evidence to place “ The Minister ’ s
facts. The fullest Freudian study of his fi ction
Black Veil
”
in it. These conclusions differ
remains Frederick Crews ’ s brilliant book, but
substantially from those developed later in
readers should know that Crews himself
this chapter, which share many of the views
has repudiated both much of that book and
presented by Richard P. Adams in his
Freudian approaches in general.
article.
Hawthorne and the Short Story
67
3
The ideas expressed here and throughout the
concepts, please see the book by Frederick
section on history owe a great deal to Michael
Crews cited in the References.
Bell ’ s brilliant study of the historical tales. The
5
Nina Baym ’ s The Shape of Hawthorne ’ s Career
fullest exploration of Hawthorne
’ s extensive
/> provides the fullest overview of the many
knowledge of the Puritan past may be found in
aspects of this literary career.
Michael J. Colacurcio ’ s impressive book. Roy
6
These reviews and more may be found
Harvey Pearce
’ s comments on Hawthorne ’ s
in
Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Contemporary
historical imagination remain invaluable.
Reviews , edited by John Idol, Jr., and Buford
4 For the fullest consideration of the idea of the
Jones .
return of the repressed and other Freudian
References and Further Reading
Adams ,
Richard
P.
“ Hawthorne ’ s
Provincial
Gollin , Rita K. Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Truth
Tales . ” New England Quarterly 30 ( 1957 ):
of Dreams . Baton Rouge : Louisiana State Univer-
39 – 57 .
sity Press , 1979 .
Baym , Nina . The Shape of Hawthorne
’
s Career .
Hawthorne , Nathaniel . Tales and Sketches . New
Ithaca : Cornell University Press , 1976 .
York : Library of America , 1982 .
Bell , Michael . Hawthorne and the Historical Romance
Idol , John , Jr. , and Buford Jones , eds. Nathaniel
of New England . Princeton : Princeton University
Hawthorne: The Contemporary Reviews . New York :
Press , 1971 .
Cambridge University Press , 1994 .
Bell , Millicent . Hawthorne ’
s View of the Artist .
Male , Roy R. Hawthorne ’
s Tragic Vision . Austin :
New York : New York State University Press ,
University of Texas Press , 1957 .
1962 .
Martin , Terence . Nathaniel Hawthorne
. Rev. edn.
Bell , Millicent , ed. New Essays on Hawthorne
’ s
Boston : Twayne , 1983 .
Major Tales . New York : Cambridge University
Matheisen , F. O. The American Renaissance . New
Press , 1993 .
York : Oxford University Press , 1941 .
Colacurcio , Michael J. The Province of Piety: Moral
Mellow , James R. Nathaniel Hawthorne in His
History in Hawthorne ’ s Early Tales . Cambridge,
Times . Boston : Houghton Miffl in , 1980 .
MA : Harvard University Press , 1984 .
Miller , J. Hillis . Hawthorne and History: Defacing It .
Crews , Frederick . The Sins of the Fathers: Haw-
Cambridge, MA : Blackwell , 1991 .
thorne ’ s Psychological Themes . New York : Oxford
Pearce , Roy Harvey . Historicism Once More . Princ-
University Press , 1966 .
eton : Princeton University Press , 1969 .
Doubleday , Neil Frank . Hawthorne ’ s Early Tales: A
Reynolds , Larry , ed. A Historical Guide to Nathaniel
Critical Study . Durham, NC : Duke University
Hawthorne . New York : Oxford University Press ,
Press , 1977 .
2001 .
Erlich , Gloria C. Family Themes and Hawthorne
’ s
Turner , Arlin . Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Biography .
Fiction: The Tenacious Web . New Brunswick, NJ :
New York : Oxford University Press , 1980 .
Rutgers University Press , 1984 .
Von Frank , Albert J. , ed. Critical Essays on Haw-
Feidelson , Charles , Jr. Symbolism and American Lit-
thorne ’ s Short Stories . Boston : G. K. Hall , 1991 .
erature
.
Chicago
:
University of Chicago Press
,
Waggoner , Hyatt H. Hawthorne: A Critical Study .
1953 .
Rev. edn. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University
Fetterley , Judith . “ Women Beware Science: ‘ The
Press , 1963 .
Birthmark. ’ ” The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Wineapple , Brenda . Hawthorne: A Life . New York : Approach to American Fiction . Bloomington :
Knopf , 2003 .
Indiana University Press , 1978 . 22 – 33 .
Wright , John W. “ A Feathertop Kit . ” Norton
Fogle , Richard H. Hawthorne ’ s Fiction: The Light
Critical Edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne
’ s Tales .
and the Dark . Norman : Oklahoma University
Ed. James McIntosh . New York : W. W.
Press , 1964 .
Norton , 1987 . 439 – 54 .
5
C harles W . C hesnutt and
the Fictions of a “ New ” A merica
Charles Duncan
By the end of the nineteenth century, the American short story had, of course, been
fi rmly established. Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and
Herman Melville each “ Americanized ” to some extent the European models from
which they had found source material or narrative pattern, or tone and diction. Later,
fi gures such as W. D. Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Sarah Orne Jewett, and
Mark Twain offered fi ctions that particularized American characters and settings, often
delivered in more distinctly
“
American
”
voices. But when Charles W. Chesnutt
appeared on the American literary scene in the late nineteenth century, readers began
to hear more extensively from previously muted American voices. While other writers
had included African American and mixed - race characters, no other American writer
had so assiduously (and so interestingly) probed the profound and growing diversity
of the US and, indeed, the central role race has played (and continues to play) in the
formation and evolution of the country. As the United States struggled to remake itself
following the Civil War, Chesnutt – the fi rst African American fi ction writer to earn
a national reputation – explored the complexities, origins, and consequences of that
national remaking through his writings, particularly in his short stories. And while
Chesnutt had new American stories to tell and new voices to deliver, his best work
generally refi ts, and sometimes appropriates, traditional American narrative patterns
and plots – the “ plantation ” story, the slave narrative, the sentimental love story, the
local - color story, among others – in ways that both expand our national narrative and,
at times, challenge and even subvert it. In doing so, Chesnutt contributed to the
delineation of a new national narrative, one that still had at its core the Founding
Fathers ’ democratic ideals but that was far more inclusive and complicated.
No fi gure could have been better prepared to articulate this “ new, ” more diverse
post – Civil War America, one in which African Americans (men at least) could, for the
fi rst time, vote and run for political offi ce. Charles W. Chesnutt ’ s life and works
bridged many, if not all, of the seeming oppositions that defi ned, and in many ways
continue to defi ne, America. As a man of mixed race – he identifi ed himself as African
Charles W. Chesnutt
69
American – who vowed in his journals to educate white readers about African Ameri-
cans and who served as teacher and principal of a Normal school, Chesnutt offered
readers nuanced accounts of both Af
rican Americans and white Americans of virtually
every economic, social, and educational type. Similarly, he lived signifi cant portions
of his life in both the South (he resided in North Carolina for nearly twenty years) and
the North, having moved to Ohio, where he spent the rest of his life, at age 26. Simi-
larly, his fi ctions contain narrative and thematic oppositions as well – he explored the
past and the present, often within the same text, the white and the black, the North
and the South, and he generally did so in multiple voices, including various dialects.
In fact, Chesnutt ’ s handling of voices defi nes, in many ways, his short fi ction. In
his efforts to re - narrate this new America, Chesnutt often uses embedded narratives
– long, highly personal stories told in the individual voices of an array of characters
with a range of education, background, and experience – as a primary storytelling
method. Sometimes, these embedded narratives refl ect the characters ’ attempts to re -
form their families, as happens in a story such as “ Her Virginia Mammy, ” in which
the two women protagonists, according to Susan Fraiman , tell long personal narratives
as a way to “ piece together their common past ” (446). At other times, the quoted
narratives express resistance to the new America, as happens in “ The Doll, ” in which
a Southern politician tells a long, violent tale to illustrate his racial theories, especially
in regard to the rights of African Americans. There ’ s something undeniably compel-
ling about Chesnutt ’ s willingness to let so broad an assortment of characters – men
and women, blacks and whites, Northerners and Southerners – speak for themselves,
and in their own voices. And Chesnutt ’ s skill at rendering the dialects and voices of
so many disparate Americans likewise makes these stories resonate.
Generally speaking, Chesnutt ’s short stories can also be divided by setting. He sets
roughly half of his short works, as well as most of his novels, in the South, most
usually in North Carolina, the state in which he grew up after the Civil War. In “ The
Goophered Grapevine, ” the fi rst of the conjure tales to be published (in the Atlantic
Monthly , in 1887), the narrator, a transplanted Ohioan (like Chesnutt) who has moved
to the South for health and business, describes his new milieu as “ a quaint old town,
which I shall call Patesville, because, for one reason, that is not its name ” ( Conjure