Origins of American Literature: Puritan Influences & the American Dream, Apuntes de Idioma Inglés

¡Descarga Origins of American Literature: Puritan Influences & the American Dream y más Apuntes en PDF de Idioma Inglés solo en Docsity! LITERATURA IV Crevecoeur was travelling through America while writing these letters. The American nation was seen as a rich land in natural resources waiting to be explored, extracted. "We're a nation of cultivators" Who is the audience of the letter? He is trying to convince people (Europeans) to move to America. The tone of this letter is exciting and optimistic. However, tone progresses through letters and it ends up less optimistic. He uses "we" in first person plural instead of "I". Who is that "we"? What does it mean to be democratic?? Romanticism in the text (fishermen and wood people)? Relation of Americans with work? TABLE I -Race -Space (sea, frontier, woods) -Types -Work -Religion -Europeans (vs. Americans) GROUP WORKS 1. Work as a way of creating a nation, a new nation. Idea--> p. 568 (conclusion). Work as a value. 2. Idea--> p. 561 ("Here individuals of all nations..."). Mixture of races (example of family of Englishman, Dutch, etc.). People in America are"melt together". 3. Differences between America and Europe. Liberty in US vs feudal/medieval system. 4. America as a nation of immigrants. Diaspora. 5. Idea--> p. 561 ("The American is a new man..."). Idea of new man, of newness. It is linked to p. 561 "What then is the American, this new man?". Idea of the myth of Adam, the new Adam, innocent, naked (before the fall). And so America is viewed as the new paradise. American as innovative. 6. Idea--> p. 560 ("Everything has tended to regenerate"). Americans are transplanted plants--> metaphor. Americans (former Europeans) can flourish (prosper) in America because they are free, but not in Europe because of the feudal system. 1. Puritan origin of the American mind From the very beginning this New World was full of mystery, and full of colonizers looking for adventures. American literature was built on adventure. Nature was described by the first colonizers (the Spanish ones) as a paradise, as ideal. America was seen as an exotic land, and the promised land (from a religious point of view). King James divided North America in two (Massachusetts and Virginia). The southern part (Virginia) was given to the merchants of London (The Virginia Company of London), and the northern part was given to the merchants of XXX, Bristol, and Plymouth (The Plymouth Company). They arrived in 1620 and founded Plymouth Plantation. They arrived in the boat Mayflower, and 30% of the passengers were Puritans. This is the seed of the Puritan origin of the American mind. The Great Migration started in 1629 and lasted until 1640. There was a motto in order to guide people: “Those who do not work shall not eat”. It was pronounced by Captain John Smith and comes from St. Paul’s letters. When colonizers arrived they discovered a new nature. They called it wilderness. This is the first paradox because this nature they found was a fertile one. But they defined it as the American wilderness, which means a waste land, a dessert (‘un baldío’). Why? Because the religious mind was projected, and this word comes from the Bible and refers to a spiritual wilderness. In this wilderness there lived native Americans. At first, they were friend, but later on Puritans ended up considering them as enemies. At the beginning, this Puritan mind was affected by Calvinism. They believed in predestination, and The Book is the Bible, for everything. There was not another book. In addition, they had their own Bible, with their own interpretations. Summarized, there were not middle points: everything was either good or evil. Life was dominated by this view in all its fields. Puritans lived in small colonies. They had a particular way of life. There was a governer, and he had both the political and the religious powers. They were, in general, very intolerant. They rejected everything coming from England (and from Europe in general) and they rejected all the other Protestant sects. They were very violent as well, and they believe in purification through violence. Puritan God was an angry one, whilst Christian God was a mercy one. In England in the 17th century there were three groups of Puritans: 1. Officialism: it was the biggest one. These Puritans were the ones who gave support to Oliver Cromwell, the Puritan leader. They wanted to change English political life because they did not agree with monarchy and the king. Several protests leaded by Puritans beheaded the king, and Cromwell proclaimed the Republic. Officialist Puritans wanted to form a federal republic, and at the end they achieved to do so, but not in English but in North America: the United States. 2. Separatism: they were against the Anglican Church and the Presbyterian Church. They wanted to found small communities inhabited only by Separatist and ruled by themselves. Since this was impossible in England, they exiled to America in the Mayflower and founded the Plymouth Plantation. 3. Congregationalism: this group was in the middle of the previous ones. They were not as radical. During the Great Migration thousand of Congregationalist Puritans went to America. They needed heroes in their society. The first pioneers were called Founding Fathers. They needed soldiers, scholars, politicians, etc. And they also needed to create a community of values. They created a visionary image of America. They were very sure that America will be a reference, a lighthouse, for the world. Plenty of idealism. This visionary image of America is the American Dream (the first and the original one). But through the 19th century, this idealism evolutioned to materialism and pragmatism. Then, the original American Dream became the American Way of Life, that is, immigrants in the 19th century and from then on did not travel to America because of ideals, but looking for a new life and encouraged by materialism, seeking a fortune. Literature developed in Massachusetts and Virginia. In Virginia there were many farms, and they lived in isolation. It was very difficult to find book in Virginia, so they brought books from England to support their culture (and wealthy people went to England to study). In Massachusetts they rejected alienation caused by their exile of their homelands. They suffered many different situations of stress (political, religious, spiritual, social, etc.). They felt foreigns in America. Archetypal journey -Rites of initiation: a special kind of rite (witchery, masonic, hunters, etc.). -Rites of passage: you are suffering trials and you progress. Typical in archetypal journey. In an archetypal journey there is exile and return. It is a circular journey. It is necessary to acquire a knowledge in the archetypal journey. For example, in Moby Dick the protagonist learns (and so do we) that it is not good tobe obsessed with something, because if you are obsessed you will end up in tragedy (in Moby Dick, Captain xxxx is obsessed with hunting the whale, but it was almost impossible, and his EMPECINAMIENTO ends up in the HUNDIMIENTO of the ship and the death of all the crowd except one). After the experience (usually hard experience, with hardships and trials), it is necessary that the mind of the character suffers a change. If not, there is a failure in the archetypical journey. *Comings of age There are trials in the archetypical journey. At the beginning of the archetypical journey, the protagonist is ignorant, but after suffering trials he/ she acquires knowledge.There is a progress: Ignorance---------Knowledge; or, what is the same: Darkness-------------Light. In xxxxxxxxxx, written by Jack London, there is an archetypal journey. The protagonist, a foolish man, is obsessed with crossing xxxxxxxx, a very dangerous and frozen region of Alaska. He wants to reach a campament on the other side of the region, but actually he never arrives. He travels with a husky. There is an exile from his village of origin and there are trials and hardships because it was a risky region. At the end, the man died (there is no return and not a great progress from ignorancee to knowledge) and it was the husky that arrived to the campament. Place: the landscape is nature indeed. Sometimes the ocean (as in Moby Dick), or the forest (as in Chicamoga), or the ICELAND (as in XXXXXX). Time: summer is very important, and also 31st October (Halloween). LITERATURA IV ||| 8-3-2014 Rip Van Winkle Most part of the society of the story are Dutch people. At the beginning it was the colonial period. The hierarchy, at the top, is King George. The familiar environment of the hero: married, living in a farm, and has two children (a son and a daughter). The social environment of the hero: everybody likes him (because he collaborated with all his neighbors). He is not the typical American hero, because though he helps his community he does not do so in his own family and farm. This goes against the traditional American mind and the Calvinist mentality (“those who do not work shall not eat”; success→ predestination; etc.). He can be considered an anti- hero in this respect. He is individualist. He follows the tradition of the American lonely hero. He suffers alienation from society. He only feels comfortable when he goes for a walk in the woods. He does not like his wife. She oppressed him. He, before falling asleep, went out from home because he did not want to listen to his wife anymore. He escapes to the Kaatskill mountains (nature). When he arrives at the top of the mountain, he looks at the valley and river Hudson. Hudson was an adventurer who discovered that area. He sees a raven (that is, a symbol of death). Then he sees a man wearing strange clothes (Hudson). (...) Amphitheatre -magical space-. A circular (symbol of perfection) place surrounded by perpendicular rocks. There is a narrow passage, the threshold (“umbral”). This action of crossing the threshold is necessary. It is a rite of passage of the archetypal journey. The man in strange clothes who leads Rip through the threshold is the shaman, almost always present in a rite of passage (or of initiation). When he crosses the threshold he “died”, and inside that magical place he sees a lot of people drinking (Hudson and his crowd), all dead people, and he drinks with them because he is also dead. The nest sequence is that he falls asleep and he wakes up outside the magical space, in the mountain, but with a different nature and a different passage. This literary device is dream vision (or dream allegory). When he wakes up, he sees everything different. He is shocked and he returns home. The first place he visited was his farm. He does not see his wife and his family. He then goes to the village and sees a tree, and there he sees himself. It is like the tree of knowledge (biblical symbol). He suffers now a total crisis of identity. He is not conscious that 20 years have passed. He sees people but does not understand them. He does not recognize them and his neighbors do not recognize him either. But there is an old man who does recognize him. He tells the story to his neighbors, and they accepted totally his narration. It agreed with a legend, and they believed him and nothing happened. However, he did not change even though he lived a rite of passage, trials, alienation, etc. He spent the rest of his life telling people his story. After the reincorporation of the hero to his community there should be communication between hero and society. However, in this case there is no communication apart from telling his story. In sum, after this archetypal journey the hero does not change. So, it can be considered a failure. This is not a short story, but more properly a tale, a fairy tale. And it belongs to the oral tradition. From a political point of view, the archetypal journey before he woke up, before the reincorporation, was the precolonial period. When he returns to the village, when he reincorporates, it was the post- colonial period. Irving is reflection in this fairy tale the change of society. The name of Rip Van Winkle is also very significant. RIP→ rest in peace; Van→ Dutch origin. Irving uses a literary device, metafiction (fiction within fiction). He uses different authors. LITERATURA IV ||| 13-3-2014 Quotations 4. 1st poem: America is a new paradise, a new Garden of Eden. It is new, with new possibilities. He uses the biblical image of Adam and Eve meaning that Americans are not going to make the same mistakes. They are going to fight against evil. 2nd poem: this stanza describes nature. America is a beautiful place (boundless, etc.). He uses the paradox of “Gardens of the Desert” because this desert does not refer to nature itself, but to wilderness, the spiritual deser. 11. America is a melting-pot (“crisol”). Idea of “E pluribus unum”. America is not a pure melting- pot, because only Europeans could be put together in this melting-pot. 13. The same idea of the melting-pot. 14. America is a patch-work quilt→ another expression to describe American society (“una colcha hecha con retales” [trozos con diferentes colores, diseños y patrones]). He refers to pilgrims (in Chaucer and those going to Mecca). 15. Not a historical book, but he describes accurately American character in general. American did not understand European way of life, they did not know how to amuse themselves. American were ignorant, and consequently innocent. On the contrary, Europeans knew a lot about life, and they represented corruption. 22. “The Red Man’s America” was a poem written by a Sioux woman writer, a defender of the native American cause. She denounces the genocide that her people is suffering from the 19th century. 24/03/2014 The Power of Sympathy was the first American novel published in the United States in 1789. It is important the role of newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, etc. In the United States it is important the number of these media to spread news around the country. The number of readers was bigger than in Europe. The rising middle class was fond of reading books, especially novels. And women readers were very important. Many writers took into account the feminine readership in their books. The national copyright agreement came in 1790. American authors had to be paid. But the signing of this law took place in 1890. Another characteristic was the lack of literary materials. Debate between romance and novel properly. Debate about the nature of reality. Romance was developed in the Middle Ages, and used by Gothic writers in the 18th century. It is a type of fiction that ignores the limit of ordinary life, of reality, and emphasizes the mysteries of life, and they preferred to set the times in a remote past (though this was difficult in the United States). The use of romance was associated to Romanticism. Usually the term romance was “contaminated”, and eventually restricted to love stories, while it was not so. • Romances show the romantic nature of reality. • Romances are often set in a historical past. • Romances describe the unrealistic themes and emotions. • Romances describe complex feelings and extravagant settings. • Describe adventures, frequently presented in the form o a quest. • Have the form of a journey, often archetypal. • Focus in non-realistic and melodramatic events. • Romances use ambiguity. • Romances are marvelous. • Romances present archetypes. • Characters are discriminated in a peculiar dichotomy: • Masters and victims. • Heroes and villains. • Flat characters. Novels, in contraposition, have certain characteristics: • Fictional attempt to give the effect of realism. • Complex characters (round characters). • Describe society. • Real tradition and manners. • Three Rs: realism, rationality, and reality. Romance novels combine in one work all the elements Novels of formation Initiation novels. The hero is at the beginning an ignorant about life. Then he does a journey motivated for a quest for something (escapes from something or somebody, looks for something or somebody, is eager for adventures, etc.). In this journey he suffers trails and has to overcome them to continue his journey, and to be able to find out what he was looking for. When finally he gets what he wanted, he acquires a knowledge about life and afterwards returns (complete journey) or not (journey failure). From the very beginning to nowadays American literature is a constant and everlasting journey and a constant and everlasting quest for identity. The American xxxxxx period lasted between xxxxx to xxxxx. All romances and novels published during this period were based on sentimental domestic novels. (…) Before the publication of Precaution (1820), one third of all American novels were published by women. (…) Male critics considered women novels as tearful, very sentimental. This was the problem. Consequently, they underestimated them, and they took them out from the canon. American female writers were completely identified with sentimental and domestic novels. 27/03/2014 FOTOCOPIAS HANDOUT PROSA DE FICCIÓN, POESÍA Y ENSAYOS Sentimental novels. Women suffer degradation and rejection, and their only way to survive was prostitution or committing suicide. Chronology of outstanding works and authors: • William Hill Brown: author of the first American novel, published anonymously in 1789. The Power of Sympathy. This is a domestic and sentimental novel. There is incest and a romantic death (suicide). • Susanna Rowson: • Xxxxx • Charles B. Brown: two epistolary novels (Clara xxxx; Jane xxxx), the rest of them were a failure. • Jame F. Cooper: in Precaution he was imitating Jane Austen’s Progression. • Edgar A. Poe: wrote one novel and none domestic and sentimental novels. But he used many female characters in his tales, because he was conscious that a great part of the readership were women. • Hawthorne: very conscious that female writers had a great literary success and sold many books, and he was very angry of them. His most important work was The Scarlett Letter, that follows the pattern of sentimental novels. He used many female characters in the other novels he wrote. • Southwork: wrote 60 novels. First, Retribution. The protagonist was a female that, in her behavior, was “more handsome than beautiful”. • Susan Warner. • Harriet Beecher Stowe: she earned a lot of money in the United States. Uncle Tom’s Cabin deals with the issue of slavery???? • Ann Sophia Stephens: deals with the mixture of races (xxxxxx). It is a dime novel. • Mary Jane Holmes. • Louisa May Alcott. • Henry James: used the pattern of the domestic and sentimental novel. Under the influence of N. Hawthorne. • S. Crane: first work we can include in Naturalism in the United States. Style was Naturalism and Determinism. • Kate Chopin: best American novelist during the 19th century. He wrote many short stories and tales, but not many novels. He wrote The Awakening, the protagonist is a woman. “The Storm” was a short story, but she could not publish it in life. • T. Dreiser: Sister Carrie. GOTHIC NOVEL In Gothicism we can see different devices. Setting is very important. Normally we have to consider architecture. There were many castles, but in the United States there were no castles, so they were substituted by mansions. Dream experience. Violence is very important, because it produces tragedy. This violence is not only physical but also psychological. In Gothic novels we have the two extremes of protagonists, both heroes and villains. HOW TO ANALYZE A WORK 1. Time: year and movement. 2. Author: strategies he follows. 3. Intention and devices of the author. 4. We have to analyze the characters and the plot, and also the external forces (social conditions, etc.). 5. Distinguish between the protagonist and the antagonist. 6. Analyze the manipulation of the author. Direct presentation: the author presents straight out how the character is. Indirect presentation: we guess how the character is through his actions and words. This presentation is more real. Flat character: very simple character, with very few traits, and in which there is no evolution. For example, Rip Van Winkle. • Aesthetic of death. • Descriptive exuberance. • Didactic metaphysics (moods are associated to the realities one sees). To all these features, North American Romantic writers add the following ones: • Pantheism (in the sense that they believed that everything is interrelated). • Great vitalist optimism. • Spirit of endless quest. • Exaltation of the values of the American democracy. • Nature as the source of spirituality (nature is the visible manifestation of the Divinity). • Great instinct of change. North American writers group together all these characteristics even though maintaining a certain internal variety both in style and forms. Those who most exalted nationalism were Emerson and Walt Whitman. There was a writer, Edgar Allan Poe, who did not agree with Transcendentalist features, was not nationalist, was not socially committed, did not talk about nature… and indeed is the best Romantic American writer. He is, in principle, the purest one, and the one who most resembled to the European Romantics. Apuntes Literatura IV abril Lit IV // 7/04/2014 Realism and Naturalism Origin in France. From the late 1850s to the late 1880s. Most important French authors were Flaubert and Zola. In America, the most important authors were Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, and Jack London. American writers added Transcendentalism to this movement. American Realism and Naturalism are admitted to be different to the European ones. Realism Industrialization → revolutionary process. It affected American mind regarding politics, society, etc. In literature, it affected to the point of rejecting the old values and substituting them for new values. In addition, in general they rejected Romantic ideas. Realistic fiction was usually opposed to Romantic fiction. Romanticism presents more adventures, whilst Realism presents life in a more accurate imitation of reality. They try to omit the negative sense of human nature and the negative aspects of social life. Naturalism Naturalism developed out of Realism. A realistic character usually acts (takes decisions, does actions, etc.) in the novel by himself, it is his decision, he masters his life and does what he wants to do; it does not matter if they make mistakes. Naturalism is more evolutioned. It is more accurate. It was developed by a group of authors with a particular philosophical view of life. They used realistic methods but with a particular philosophy. They said that everything was acts of nature, and that everything had to be explained by natural and material reasons. Religion is out of their minds, and they preferred scientific methods. Their most important influence was Charles Darwin. Everything that exists is part of nature, and so are human beings. Everything begins and ends in nature, so they do not believe in spiritual world. They considered human beings as animals (of course, animals of a higher order). Human beings are under the influence of different forces, associated to heredity and environment. As animals, we inherit instincts. Human beings are also under the influence of social and economic forces, and family and the place where one is born are very important to understand a person’s behavior. The most important American naturalist authors were Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, and Theodore Dreiser. They tended to choose characters which show (...) Lit IV // 10/04/2014 Mark Twain “Huckleberry Finn” (p. 96) It is a realistic text because of the usage of the language. Twain tries to reproduce a low language and un purpose he makes mistakes both in spelling and pronunciation. This is a socio- linguistic experiment. He tries to adapt language to the character. In addition we could say that in this case it can be considered local-color realism (the area of the Mississippi). W. Dean Howells “The Rise of Silas Zaphay” He is rejecting Romanticism. We see this in the rejection of “a false ideal of self-sacrifice”. Chickamoga Page 20 Tale, or short story, written by Ambrosse Bierce. Very interesting. Objective description of impressions. it is an impressionist text, and impressionism is part of Naturalism. Impressionist Naturalism. Based on ambiguity. Page 21a It is disgusting. It is extreme Naturalism. A realist text would never go like this. It describes like a photography, but adds some impressionist touches (the author adds his own metaphor). Page 21b Impressionism. Page XX Pure extreme naturalist description. No opinions. Jack London “To Build a Fire” 1) Naturalistic text. Struggle between man and nature. It talks about instincts. The dog follows its instincts. This man is an ignorant regarding instincts and will not be able to survive. 2) More or less like 1). Stephen Crane Chapter I Impressionist. Very subjective. It does not define anything. Not extreme description. It is not defined. It is full of dots and indetermination. Chapter XVIII The verb “seem” is very impressionistic, and it appears frequently here. Kate Chopin It is naturalistic itself because it tells the story of an adultery. However, language is not very strong. It takes sentences from the Bible. Frank Norris I) Naturalistic. Instincts. Sex and money. Sexual materialism. II) Nihilism (which is inside Naturalism). Lit IV // 21/04/2014 Washington Irving In his literary career we can distinguish four different stages: 1. Jonathan Oldstyle and Driedrich Knickerbocker were his first pen names. He wrote “The letters of Jonathan Oldstyle” and “A History of New York (...)” respectively. He also wrote and edited the magazine “Knickerbocker (...)”. 2. He used the pen name Geoffrey Crayon. This is the stage in which he decided to be a professional writer. In this stage he wrote probably his most famous work, “The Sketch Book (...)” (1819), dedicated to ¿Walter Scott?. He also wrote “Bracebridge Hall” (1822), a collection of tales, and “Tales of a Traveller” (1824). He lived in Madrid from 1826 to 1829. 3. He used the pen name Fray Antonio Agapida, and wrote “The Alhambra Tales” (1832). He mixes his personal views with fantastic aspects. He focused in the Muslim past of Spain and the oriental past of Spain. He was more famous more famous in Europe (especially in Britain, where he published his books due to the copyright law) than in the United States. Most of his stories are set outside the United States. He also wrote “A History of the Life and (...) of Christopher Colombus”, “Legends of the Conquest of Spain”. When he stopped being ambassador in Spain, he made a tour through his own country. Afterwards, he wrote “Tour (...) Prairies” and “The Adventures of Captain (...)”. His Spanish was not very good when he arrived (he made mistakes when writing), but it improved a lot until he reached a final perfect Spanish. 4. He wrote above all biographies. A very good writer of biographies. He wrote a biography about Mohammed and his followers, not his best one but very famous because this topic was very uncommon. William Bryant (1794-1878) First American romantic poet. American Romanticism began in 1820 and ended in 1865. He could not live by his poetry. He reflected his feelings about the American life. He was not a 2nd stanza 3rd stanza 4th stanza He is following the Niger. He dreams he is a king riding on a horse. 5th stanza He reaches his village (near the river). He follows the flamingoes. Flamingoes are positive animals, and they guide this man to the light. We can also see “tamarind”, which is a negative symbol. 6th stanza These animals are passing through his mind. But obviously they are metaphorical animals (lion→ strength; hyena→ death; river-horse→ instincts; etc.). 7th stanza Voice of nature is there. “Started” here means “se sobresaltó”. It refers to when he listens to those sounds, because they are the sounds of liberty, of his land Africa. 8th stanza He is not going to suffer anymore. We do not have the image of God in this poem, and this is curious. However, it is a transcendental poem, because it says that soul is the only thing that can survive forever. The effect of the poem is very romantic, describing nature and landscape, the feelings of the slave, and it is very subjective (because the slave is nearly dying and he can say anything). “The Sleeper”, Poe 1st stanza The sleeper is death, and so he is sleeping. In line 2 the poet presents himself in first person, alone. Parallelism in “rosemary” and “lily. Irene is the name of a woman, a beautiful woman who is death. 2nd stanza “Lady bright” Line 35: “palidez” and “mortaja”. There is certain transcendence in this poem. Lit IV // 28/04/2014 Transcendentalism Two important names: Emerson (1803-1882) and Thoreau. The leader of this movement was Emerson. Transcendentalism is not a religion, it is a pragmatic philosophy, a state of mind, a form of spirituality. Emerson belonged to the Unitarian Church. Unitarianism is a reaction against the concepts coming from Calvinism. For example, optimism was a distinctive sign of Unitarianism. The influence of Emerson lasted until XXXX. From a philosophical point of view, Kant is the reference for Transcendentalism. (...) There are some ideas that help to explain this conception: -Solitude -Nature (...) They joined reason and faith (...) Key sentences: • Simple perfection of natural things is a delight: in simple things we can see perfection. This is not original, it comes from Puritanism and its symbology. • Beauty is the mark God sets up on virtue: this is dangerous, because if you do not reflect beauty it is because there is something bad in you. In The Birth Mark, Emerson made this interpretation of beauty. A young woman was beauty but had a birthmark, she married a Protestant priest. He was in love at the beginning, but soon he became obsessed with that birthmark because it was the symbol of imperfection, and he finally killed the woman. • Every natural effect is a spiritual one: this is the purest understanding of this philosophy. Every natural and simple effect is reflecting God. • The world is emblematic: when they say “world” they mean nature. • The whole nature is a metaphor of the human mind. • Association of art and philosophy. • The happiest man is who learns from nature the lesson of worship: the Bible was not necessary for Transcendentalists. Nature was enough. Emerson fought against the association of faith and predestination. He was optimistic and rejected determinism. Inherent goodness was in man. Thoreau Intelectual. He studied in Harvard. Very practical. He wanted to live the life by himself, with his hands. His most important book is Walden. In it he tells his own experience of living alone. He is considered to be a pioneer of anarchism (he rejected excessive urbanization, industrialization, criticized the government, etc.) and of ecologism. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) Descendant of Puritan immigrants. One of his ancestors was a judge in the Witch Trials of Salem, and Hawthorne was that obsessed with this that he changes his surname (from Hathorne to Hawthorne) to mark the difference with his ancestor. He received a Puritan education, but he was not a Puritan indeed. However, he was obsessed with sin and evil, and these concepts are present in all his works. He concentrated on sin and blame. He believed in purification through violence. He used the legends of New England in his tales and stories. He was the first one to use woman in a different (positive) way. (...) Man in, by nature, simple, and requires regeneration, and this regeneration is achieved finally with the death of the body. And many of his tales end with death. He was a very good friend of Emerson and Thoreau, so he was very influenced by their Transcendentalism (though he was very conservative regarding politics). He used allegories because (...)