The Insecure American in Nathaniel Hawthorne's Tales
The study of the cultural phenomenan of insecurity in Nathaniel Hawthorne's tales.
The insecure American is someone who has been in existence since the time America was constructed. Thought one might deem this statement as a mere generalisation, history, literature as well as the electronic media have proven it to be true. Whether it was the Mayflower expedition in 1620 or the passing of the Homeland Security Bill in 2002, these events have contributed to the status of the insecure American. America may be the most powerful nation in the world today, but it also has the largest number of psychopaths, serial killers, delinquents and armed gangsters in the world.
The O.E.D defines insecurity as:
?The quality or condition of being insecure; the opposite of security. (1) The condition of not being sure; the want of assurance or confidence; uncertainty. (2) The state or quality of being unsafe, the liability to give way, fail, or suffer loss or damage. (3) Want of firmness on safety, a condition of danger.?
Insecurity is often a result of isolation or fear. Though insecurity is generally a psychological condition associated with children, adults suffer worse damage from this syndrome.
The tales of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe (and Herman Melville to some extent) illustrate the syndrome of the insecure American. Though these writers wrote in the romantic age of literature, their writing styles differed greatly from their English counterparts. The typical protagonist in a Hawthorne or Poe story is usually a haunted, alienated individual who is pitted against some dark, ambiguous fate. He suffers from an anguished state of mind, complete with the suffering of some sin. Even though the Gothic inspired the British Romanticists, their characters were not quite as paranoid as their American counterparts. Whether it was paranoia, psychic isolation or secrecy, it all contributed or, was the result of the general insecurity of the American in the story.
The tales of Nathaniel Hawthorne are mostly set in New England. They describe the Utopian American idealism present in the newfound land. They are either set in the present, or in the past. Melville saw a ?power of blackness? in Hawthorne. His characters are anxious people who derive most of their anxiety from a sense of sin. There is a constant emphasis on the existence of a reality, either good or evil, accompanied by efforts on the part of the protagonist to thwart or shun such a reality. While Aylmer and Owen try to do so by mechanically creating alternative realities for themselves, Goodman Brown and Mr. Hooper try to escape their realities by isolating themselves from the society. Sigmund Freud described isolation as:
?A defence mechanism of the ego. It consists of the interposing of a refractory period in which the individual refrains form thinking and acting. It is usually an aftermath of a traumatic or severely unpleasant experience.?
The insecurities derived form these isolations and escape routes do not reduce the burden of melancholy and sin on their shoulders. Deep and dark as these characters might be, death (in a physical or metaphorical sense) seems to be the only cure for all their problems.
{The Birthmark} is the tale of a scientist named Aylmer who is in search of the ultimate scientific challenge. He forcibly entwines his love for his wife with his love for science. Ambition is another trait that leads to his fall, wherein he is determined to rid the mark of nature from his wife?s skin. Hawthorne writes that the birthmark is seen as ?The symbol of his (Aylmer?s) wife?s liability to sin, sorrow, decay and death.? When it is really Aylmer?s Achilles heel. He tries to create a perfection that would be better than Mother Nature?s creation. It costs him the death of his wife to realise his arrogance and his sin. It is only then that he views reality for what it is.
Hawthorne once wrote in his journal that when man tries to make something better, he ruins it completely. Aylmer?s insecurity and restlessness plague his dreams, and as Hawthorne puts. ?He had not been aware of the tyrannizing influence acquired by one idea over his mind, and of the lengths which he might find his heart to go, for the sake of giving himself peace.? Every earlier experiment of his was a failure, yet he persisted in his quests for perfection, rather than questioning and correcting his flaws. In today?s world, U.S.A is constantly plagued by the actions of its neighbours. It also seeks to interfere under the pretext of intervention, but fails to realise its own shortcomings as a nation.
Owen Warland in {The Artist of the Beautiful} is, like Aylmer, a ?spiritual? person who is persistent in replicating nature. He sees his society as an evil force that hinders his own progress. Peter Hovenden is exemplary of the old, rational school of thought as against Owen the incurable romantic. Owen isolates himself in an attempt to create something perfect in the midst of what he thinks is an evil society. He even says, ?You are my evil spirit?you and the hard coarse world.? But Peter believes that all of Owen?s evils are concentrated in his creation.
Owen?s insecurity stems out of the series of failures he experiences in not just creating the beautiful, but in his relationship with Annie. He is so wrapped in his ideas of beauty, that he criticises almost everyone around him, including the healthy, active child of Annie?s. Even though his butterfly is smashed into bits at the end of the tale, he ironically feels a sense of triumph, as he was able to create the perfect butterfly. Hawthorne writes, ?When we desire life for the attainment of an object, we recognise the frailty of its texture. But side by side with this sense of insecurity, there is a vital faith in our invulnerability to the shaft of death while engaged in any task that seems assigned by Providence.? Unlike Aylmer, Owen strives to perfect the same creation over and over again, after a series of failures. Aylmer only makes a record of his failures in his logbook. Neither of them can tolerate being laughed at or scorned by others. They are ready to go to lengths to be powerful, but they also fear whether they will remain powerful for long or not.
The title {Young Goodman Brown} suggests the tale of a common American man. It also suggests the tale of a fairly innocent, innately good person. The actual tale is really a contradiction of what its title suggests. We are thus introduced to the concepts of appearance and reality. If Faith is ?aptly named?, there lies another contradiction. The character of Goody Cloyse is significant of the presence of evil among the so-called good. It is reminiscent of the lines from Macbeth (Act 1, Scene 1):
?Fair is foul and foul is fair.?
Brown?s ancestors persecuted the Quakers as well as the Indians, yet he commends himself from coming from a ?good? family. He refers to the natives as ?devilish Indians.? Such an attitude is quite similar to the extremist stands of certain religious groups who indulge in destruction in the name of God. Hawthorne presents a serious social situation in this tale, where one is forced to question the notion of ?good?. Goodman Brown is well aware of the evil surrounding him, yet initially he chooses to become a part of it. As soon as he realises that almost all the people of the town are involved in deviltry, he cannot tolerate it. He feels cheated when he sees Faith in the group. Of course, he never questioned himself when he tried to cheat her in the first place. He lives a life filled with distrust and insecurity from then onwards, until his death. Rappaccini?s Daughter like Young Goodman Brown is also a tale of isolation. The poison in Beatrice?s life isolates her from society. It is an allegory to the poisons and evils in our own lives.
Mr. Hooper?s veil in {The Minister?s Black Veil} is symbolic of all the insecurities and sins of the people around him. His veiled face is only a reflection of their own faces, which shows the presence of deceit and hypocrisy among them. The people of the congregation experience ?A feeling of dread, neither plainly confessed nor carefully concealed.? Adding to it is the problem of pretence that Hawthorne beautifully depicts in this tale. The same people, who were amiable with the minister, can no longer stand the sight of him when he is veiled. The symbol of the veil is so powerful that it brings about a complete change among the people of the congregation.
The minister also experiences a sense of alienation and insecurity. He shudders at the sight of his veiled face, just as much as he shudders from the hypocrisy in his society. Unlike Goodman Brown, the minister participates in the game of pretence by actually donning a black veil. Only he seems to be aware of the fact that the Omnipresent is watching over his people. The minister is released from his torture through death.
{My Kinsman, Major Molineaux} is the tale of a country lad named Robin who steps into America to earn a living. He is typical of a rustic ?outsider? who is treated with hostility, making him feel ?ashamed of his quiet and natural gait.? When he enters a tavern, he sees various classes of people, which is the first sign of democracy in the town. We come to realise that Robin was excluded from the warmth of his home and came to the Promised Land to join his rich kinsman who is a British official. The Americans like Robin, also left their homes in search of the Promised Land. But on arriving there, they chose to reject all ties with mother England, as they could not tolerate colonial oppression. Robin?s ?noble? kinsman falls in honour in front of his own eyes. He is left all alone, and is forced to fend for himself. The townsfolk constantly laugh him, yet he has to realise that he can ?Rise in the world, without the help of your kinsman, Major Molineaux.? Robin experiences loneliness on many occasions, and the church does not offer him any solace. Yet he is portrayed as a ?shrewd? person who is ready to seek an identity of himself, by himself.
While it was possible to cite instances of insecurity from some of the tales of Nathaniel Hawthorne, it is necessary to dig deeper and analyse the root cause of the basis of American insecurity. The Puritans who left England were a minority of dissenters, who were forced to seek out the Promised Land. Those who did stay back were in opposition with the king. The restoration of the Stuart monarchy saw the castigation of Puritanism from the Church of England, making them an even smaller minority. America was their new home, but its borders still had to be defined. It lacked the tradition of strong English households and was infested with the native Indians, who were viewed as consorts of the devil (as shown in Young Goodman Brown.)
America had to create an identity for herself in the midst of all this. The absence of an established, stable society added to the crisis. The Bible and the congregation were the main sources of security for the new inhabitants of America. The congregation filled the place of a family. Still, the Calvinist concept of Predestination encouraged every man to save himself - thus addressing the importance of the self over the family. Thus every man was stuck in a dichotomy between the individual self and the family. Along with this, he had to develop a strong self in order to resist temptation. The War of Independence resulted in the formation of the United States of America as a recognised nation, but it also resulted in its separation from the parent country that was England. America now had to carve a niche for itself as an important member of the world, with no more assistance from England.
Like the country, Hawthorne too had no particular liking for his ancestors. He was so ashamed by the acts of his forefathers, that he changed the spelling of his name by incorporating a ?w? in it. He says,
?In every half century, at least, a family should be merged into the great, obscure mass of humanity, and forget about its ancestors.?
To contradict this point of view, Thoreau says,
?The masses of men lead lives of quiet desperation.?
Hawthorne was thus on one side, in favour of the transcendental theory of the importance of the self, but at the same time fervently believed in merging into the mass of humanity. Adding to this Blair says,
?Hawthorne is a striking example of the persistence of the Puritan point of view in an age of liberalism and progressivism.?
Hawthorne was then probably insecure about his own stand as an author. He radically differed in ideology, and once even isolated himself for a period of 12 years. Competition from other authors like Melville added to his insecurity. His friend Horatio Bridge once wrote in a letter to him,
?The bane of your life has been self-distrust?Although you have not much property, you have god health and powers of writing?. It seems to me that you never look at the bright side with any hope of confidence.?
Hawthorne?s own feeling of despair, loneliness and insecurity may have thus been reflected in his tales. Yet in spite of their sombre quality, his tales are popular even today. Poe once wrote -
?Mr. Hawthorne?s distinctive trait is invention, creation, imagination, originality.?
To conclude, I would like to add that Hawthorne?s tales are quite relevant even in today?s day and age. The themes and emotions that he wrote of still hold true. Families are breaking up in the U.S and the need for an identity is getting stronger everyday. The electronic media and popular culture are the temptations the average American fights against nowadays. The high rise in crime has forced Americans to suspect and distrust one another. Shootouts in schools, the rise of psychological disorders along with threats of terrorism have begun to disrupt the already flimsy security of the American people. The Homeland Security Bill that was passed on September 09, 2002 gives the Governor of a State the power to assume the control of emergency response goods, which include seizing property and evacuating people. Though America has its fair share of problems, the rest of the world is not lagging behind.
Insecurity proves to be one of the worst feelings in the human heart today, which invariably kick-starts a series of unpleasant events. To quote Hawthorne,
?The fiend in his won shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of man.?
WORKS CITED.
1. [u]The Heath Anthology of American Literature[/u], Volume One, ed Paul Lauter, Heath and Company, 1994.
2. [u]Twice-Told Tales[/u] by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Dent: London, 1967.
3. [u]The Literature of the United States[/u], Volume One, ed Walter Blaire, Scott, Foresman and Company, 1953.
4. The Oxford English Dictionary.
5. [u]The Dictionary of Behavioural Science[/u], ed Benjamin B Wolman, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1973.
6. [u]The Encyclopaedia of Religion[/u], ed Mircea Eliade, Macmillan publishers, 1987.
7. www.usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs.
8. www.literarytraveller.com/hawthorne.
