Hawthorne's stories

Nathanial Hawthorne might be another favorite author.  I don’t always understand his stories, but his writing is well organized, educated, and attention-getting; for instance, The Minister’s Black Veil started off with a mystery: “but what has good Parson Hooper got upon his face (409)?” everyone turns to look, but the reader does not find out the answer for a few more paragraphs.  I must admit that when I found out, I had to keep reading hoping that the veil would be removed and the mystery solved.

                Suspense is the word.  Hawthorne’s stories are tinged with mystery, intrigue, and suspense.  In Young Goodman Brown the reader had to read for some pages to find out what Brown was doing in the forest, with only furtive hints along the way that it was for some secret evil.  And Rappaccini’s Daughter flowed with dark mysteries around the doctor, Beatrice, the shrub, and Rappaccini’s experiments on Giovanni. 

                Honestly, I kept meaning to skim these stories, but I found that my eyes would stop and trace the words more closely to catch any revelation to the mysteries.  I was admittedly let down at the end of The Minister’s Black Veil, as I never got to see the man’s face, but it did not render the story any less fascinating.  All the stories were cryptic in their messages, so the fun of interpreting them remained. 

I found also that Hawthorne was very versatile; he could go from writing authentically of Italy and its people, of religious folk and their habits and fears, and he had an imagination for illustrating magical circumstances – those both faint, and the obviously supernatural.

                I hope to enjoy more of this author’s work, and if you enjoy what I have described then I recommend it to you as well!

Hawthorne,  Nathanial. “The Minister’s Black Veil.”  The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym and Robert Levine. 8th. A. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. 409. Print.