Student Scholarship
Document Type
Research Paper
Abstract
This paper analyzes Nathaniel Hawthorne's complex treatment of sin, arguing that his views significantly diverged from the rigid doctrines of his Puritan ancestors. While the Puritans believed in the inherent guilt of all mankind through Adam, Hawthorne maintained that sin is not inherited but must be consciously committed by an individual to incur guilt. He portrays a world where most adults eventually fall into sin due to human weakness and the prevalence of evil, yet he also creates ethereal, spotless characters who remain untouched by worldliness, though they often lack human sympathy.
Central to Hawthorne's philosophy is the idea that sin can be constructive, leading to maturity, moral growth, and a deeper understanding of the human condition. This concept of the fortunate fall is illustrated through characters like Donatello, who gains intellectual and spiritual depth only after committing a crime. However, the document emphasizes that hidden sin is the most destructive force in Hawthorne's fiction. He classifies these into two categories: sins hidden from others by a guilty person, and sins of the intellect where the sinner is unaware of their own coldness.
The former, often driven by passion, results in self-inflicted torment, isolation, and physical wasting, symbolized by images like the scarlet letter or a gnawing serpent. The latter, resulting from a lack of compassion or scientific obsession, causes more harm to others than to the sinner, symbolized by the marble heart or a decaying mansion. Ultimately, Hawthorne remains optimistic, suggesting that while earthly justice is imperfect, an eternal providence ensures that even the vilest sinner can find salvation and that all moral imbalances will be righted in the hereafter.
Research Highlights
-
The Problem: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s theological divergence from Puritan dogmas regarding the origin, nature, and consequences of sin, specifically the destructive power of hidden vs. revealed sin.
-
The Method: A literary analysis of Hawthorne’s short stories and novels, including The Scarlet Letter, The Marble Faun, The House of the Seven Gables, and "Ethan Brand," to classify human weaknesses and their symbolic representations.
-
Qualitative Finding: Hawthorne rejected the doctrine of inherited "Adam's sin," positing instead that sin is committed through individual weakness or communicated through generations and social fellowship; he proposed that sin could have constructive effects, such as bringing maturity, spiritual growth, and human sympathy.
-
Finding: Hidden sins are categorized into two types: those concealed by the guilty person (sins of commission/passion) resulting in self-inflicted torment and isolation, and those unknown to the sinner but known to others (sins of the intellect/omission) resulting in the inhuman treatment of others.
-
Finding: Hawthorne utilizes specific symbolic entities to represent moral states, including a "gnawing serpent" and "scarlet letter" for secret guilt, a "black veil" for forced isolation, and a "marble heart" or "deteriorating mansion" for the sins of pride and intellect.
Publication Date
1-1965
Recommended Citation
O'Dell, Lyndia, "Hawthorne and Sin" (1965). Student Scholarship. 153.
https://digitalcommons.lindenwood.edu/student-research-papers/153
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Faculty Sponsor
Archive