RESEARCH PAPER ON NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

RESEARCH PAPER ON NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE - Essay Example â€Å"Nathaniel’s passivity and indolence appeared especially unmanly in the presence of Robert Manning’s energetic capabilities, not only to the uncle but to the boy himself. The resulting self-distrust was to be permanently in conflict with Hawthorne’s innate pride† (Erlich, 1984). His family’s Puritan past would weigh heavily upon him throughout his life and would be strongly reflected within his writings. Although he was strongly encouraged to take up the family trade and become a merchant marine, Hawthorne had decided, by age 17, that he wanted to be a writer. Hawthorne’s official education started at the age of 15 when he attended the Samuel H. Archer School as preparation for college. He entered the Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine by 1821 (Swisher, 1996). While he was there, he formed lifelong friendships with future literary giant Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, future president Franklin Pierce and future Navy Commander Horatio Bridge. He also spent another 12 years following college living in his mother’s house and educating himself in how to be a good writer by studying his Puritan past, nonfiction and fiction works of note (Swisher, 1996). While he always styled himself a writer, he held several small jobs necessary to support himself. These included magazine editor, customs house worker (in a variety of capacities) and as a farmer for a brief period at Brook House, an experimental commune (Swisher, 1996). After he moved to the Lenox countryside to escape angry Salem residents, he met Herman Melville who was to have a profound influence on The House of Seven Gables. â€Å"The presence of this brooding mariner, poetic soul such as Hawthorne’s father had been, stirred the deepest memories – and doubts – of the older writer. Melville’s talk of the sea, of time, eternity, death, myth, and literature, his metaphysical leaping, struck