第7章　霍桑、麦尔维尔和坡

Questions for Discussion and Writing Assignments

1What are the commonalities of the three writers that allow us to group them in this chapter despite their idiosyncrasies? How do they differ from the main doctrines of Transcendentalism?

Key: They all belonged to the group of romanticist writers and their literary achievements marked a new level of maturity in 19th century American literature. The three are strikingly similar in one aspect, namely: they are all masters of negative capability. The negative capability, by immersing us in ambiguities, doubts and other negative emotions, in fact strengthens us and improves our judgment by complicating our existing system of judgment. It is therefore a sign of the kind of aesthetic sophistication found only in good poets. Poe, Hawthorne and Melville were all healthy skeptics. Their ability in doubts, irony and detachment enabled them to interrogate the innocence of the age.

Of the three, Poe was not associated with Transcendentalism or any other noticeable -isms of his age. Hawthorne and Melville were marginally associated with the ideas of Transcendentalism, but they would often take a critical distance from that movement. Hawthorne was quite suspicious of the Transcendentalists’ sunny optimism. He also disapproved of their experimental community called Brook Farm. Melville’s skepticism about Transcendentalism is evident in what he says in Moby Dick: “He who hath more of joy than sorrow in him … cannot be true—not true, or undeveloped.” Poe is unique in that his interest in the complex dynamism of the human psyche made him a precursor to the 20th century phenomenon of psychoanalysis.

2What is “negative capability?” Briefly discuss how “negative capability” is manifested in Hawthorne, Melville and Poe.

Key: The phrase, “negative capability,” was first used by the British romantic poet John Keats. In a letter written in December 1817, Keats defined it as the capability in good poets of including uncertainties and other negative emotions without stretching for reason and without losing reason. Keats wrote: “... that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” The negative capability, by immersing us in ambiguities, doubts and other negative emotions, in fact strengthens us and improves our judgment by complicating our existing system of judgment. It is therefore a sign of the kind of aesthetic sophistication found only in good poets.

Hawthorne was good at using ambiguities in his works. Melville created many mysteries in his works, such as in Moby Dick, the ship, the whale, the sea… are all mysterious images. Poe was good at setting up special conditions to create mysteries, thus arousing negative emotions of characters as well as readers.

3How is Hawthorne connected with Salem witch-hunt trials?

Key: Hawthorne was a native of Salem, Massachusetts. One of Hawthorne’s ancestors was William Hawthorne who came from Cheshire to Massachusetts in 1630 among the earliest settlers and who, according to Hawthorne, had “all the Puritan traits, both good and evil.” William had a son who served as a judge in the Salem witchcraft trial and, in Hawthorne’s thinking, was stained by Puritanism’s own sins. Hawthorn was intensely conscious of the wrongdoing of his ancestors, and this awareness led to his understanding of evil being at the core of human life, so he seemed to be haunted by his sense of sin and evil in his life. A theme evident in Hawthorne’s writings is the guilty stains of human nature.

4What is Hawthorne’s own moral vision as compared to the Puritan tradition? Which story is a good illustration of your point?

Key: Hawthorne is not only connected with the Puritan heritage but is ambivalent towards it. The Scarlet Letter is a very typical example to illustrate my opinion. When examined more closely, this work is not so much a retrospective look at the Puritan past, to be more exact, it is Hawthorne measuring how distanced the Puritan “past” is from the Transcendentalist “present” in terms of the emotional, literary and religious patterns. The gray iron-bound law of Puritan society, one which meted out its law to Hester and her daughter Pearl, is shown to be sharply contrasted to the world of nature allowing the “freedom of speculation,” one which is the space for Hester and Pearl. The “Boston” depicted in the novel is thus inclusive of these two worlds. Beside the scaffold, Hawthorne juxtaposes the prison— “the black flower of civilized society”—with the wild rosebush, a “sweet moral blossom” symbolizing” the deep heart of Nature.” The Hester who comes out of prison, bearing the letter “A” in her bosom and holding Pearl in her arms is an image of life. With her strong will and honest way of living, Hester transforms the meaning of “A” so that it signifies, to her community and to the reader, not Adultery but Able or Angel. Pearl is even freer from this world and its “moral” laws. She is a child of natural innocence roaming in a forest that seems to promise a transcendental release from the fallen social world of guilt and sin. It is in Pearl, more than in the other characters, that the Emersonian idealism sneaks into Hawthorne’s moral vision.

5How do irony and allegory work in Hawthorne’s stories to convey his moral vision? Discuss with two or three of his stories.

Key: The combination of allegory and irony is characteristically Hawthornian. For example, “Young Goodman Brown” is the dream experience of Goodman Brown who is young, innocent and, as his name suggests, an average man. Brown is newlywed and one night, he leaves his wife “Faith” behind to go on a journey in the forest. The forest, in Hawthorne’s allegorical tale, is the abode of sin and evil. There in the forest Brown discovers the Puritan community in its entirety, engaged in a collective confession of their association with evil and sin. But the greatest shock is that he finds his “Faith” to be among them, at the devil worship. Just as he calls up his “Faith” to refuse the baptism of evil, Goodman Brown wakes up. Thereafter, whenever he sees his Salem Puritan neighbors, he sees them not as what they claim to be, but as secret and hypocritical sinners. Allegorically, the tale reveals that the Puritan community has an inclination towards evil in that they secretly harbor sin and the attendant guilt. What is interesting is that Hawthorne both confirms the Calvinist/Puritan tenet of original sin and exposes the hypocrisy in how the Puritan community, in their practices, tried to hide their sins. Another tale is “The Minister’s Black Veil”. Reverend Hooper wears a thin black veil for life because he feels a sense of personal guilt not confessed. The veil is a symbol of universal guilt concealed by hypocrisy. By wearing it and thus by drawing attention to the existence of the hypocrisy, the black veil enhances the ministerial power of Reverend Hooper.

6With appropriate stories, discuss the kinds of internal conflicts in Hawthorne’s characters.

Key: The internal conflict in Hawthorne’s characters is often moral in nature and should be read in the Puritan context, as we have discussed. That’s why Hawthorne’s characters—such as Goodman Brown, Reverend Hooper, Ethan Brand, and John Endicott—are obsessed with sins. Some of the characters suffer because of unconfessed sins (e.g., Dimmesdale). Some others—such as Beatrice in “Rappcinni’s Daughter”) — suffer for their ancestors and fathers. Hawthorne depicts “sin” not for its own sake. He allows us to study the effects of the sin on the sinners and on people related to them. However, doctrinarian morality is not the substance of Hawthorne’s moral vision. At least for his characters, the moral vision is acquired through an inner struggle or exploration which first places them in unfamiliar territories. The journey ends with the loss of innocence, and typically does not conclude with a life lived happily ever after. Some of the characters do not know what to do with their new selves or newly gained knowledge. Goodman Brown is a case in point.

7Discuss the allegorical roles of Hester Prynne, Pearl and Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter.

Key: In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne, being the one penalized by the community for her adultery and thus the one bearing the scarlet “A” openly, gains a sympathetic knowledge of the existence of sin in other hearts. In that sense, Hester embodies this Hawthornian moral tenet: “if the truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth from many another bosom.” In contrast to Hester Prynne who finds salvation by willingly acknowledging her guilt, Arthur Dimmesdale conceals his sin so deeply that he is eventually destroyed when Roger Chillingworth coldly probes into his heart. But Dimmesdale’s weakness is in a sense also his healing power. Pearl is even freer from this world and its “moral” laws. She is a child of natural innocence roaming in a forest that seems to promise a transcendental release from the fallen social world of guilt and sin. It is in Pearl, more than in the other characters, that the Emersonian idealism sneaks into Hawthorne’s moral vision.

8Which of Hawthorne’s stories illustrates an irresponsible search for knowledge? Give the gist of the story.

Key: Hawthorne is critical of any morally irresponsible search for knowledge, and for that reason he has created images of a certain scientist. He shows how the scientist’s search for human perfection ironically becomes inhuman. Alymer, in “The Birthmark,” is such a scientist. Alymer is obsessed with a birthmark on his wife’s cheek and he spends all his efforts to remove it, ending up destroying her and their felicity.

9Write an essay to compare Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne in their uses of “dream” as an allegorical device. Review the portion related to Irving in Chapter 5.

Key: In Washington Irving’s famous tale “Rip Van Winkle”, the main metaphor for the emerging American nation is a dream, the tale tells of an American dream, albeit a dream very different from the common version of American dream. For that reason, we should call Irving’s story a narrative of “the other American dream” that tells the more complex truth. Rip’s 20-year-dream is a very long span of time, in which everything has changed.

Hawthorne’s story “Young Goodman Brown” is the dream experience of Goodman Brown who is young, innocent and, as his name suggests, an average man. Compared with Rip’s dream, Brown’s dream is a much shorter one, but he experiences many things happening around him just like in reality. The same thing is that after Brown awakes, there are many things changes and he himself also changes.

By using “dream” as an allegorical device, they can depict everything that changes dramatically in a very natural way, and there will be no doubt about their truth and there be a sense of mystery and ambiguity.

10Melville’s tough life is his schooling. What events in Melville’s life could account for the presence of suffering, torment and endurance in his fiction? In what sense is such presence in literature a desirable quality according to Melville?

Key: When Herman Melville was 11 years old, his father suffered heavy financial losses and soon died from worry and illness. The death came as a shock because Melville idolized his father. The family moved to Albany where Melville attended Albany Classical School for a while. Then his restlessness and his tension with his mother brought an end to his education.

Herman Melville grew up a displaced person in a world of alienating and harsh reality. He drifted into various occupations: a store clerk, a bank messenger, a country schoolteacher, a sailor and so on. He once said that a whaling ship and the extensive reading he did while he was at sea was his Yale and Harvard. The world in Melville’s fiction mirrors the world he saw—defined by the rough seas and the ubiquity of evil. What’s more, Melville believed in the nobility of labor and common man, and he believed in the preeminence of democracy as the basis for government.

11Why was Melville so fascinated with Hawthorne and vice versa?

Key: Because for Melville, Hawthorne was as worth-reading an American writer as Shakespeare for his time and place. What fascinated Melville was that Hawthorne had a “black conceit” that persuades him through and through, and that Hawthorne was “deep as Dante” with a “great, deep intellect, which drops down into the universe like a plummet.” This perception of Hawthorne is also a self-portrait of Melville. The two writers were good friends. There was mutual admiration between them.

12The Pequod, headed by Captain Ahab, undergoes a journey which is the plot of Moby Dick. What are some of the important details regarding Ahab, his crew, their mission, the different phases of the voyage (including what happens before the voyage)? Offer a symbolic or allegorical reading of these details in connection with American culture and history.

Key: The novel tells the strange story of the possessed and implacable Captain Ahab risking his life, those of his crew and his ship on the rough seas in search of a monstrous white whale. But Ahab’s mad presumption in this quest ends in catastrophe. Ahab and everyone else died, except Ishmael who survived in the coffin left behind by the strange “savage” Queequeg. Thus, Ishmael lived to tell the story. The book begins with his self-introduction: “Call me Ishmael.” Ishmael the common sailor narrates the events, the operations in realistic and sometimes minute details, but the voyage takes on symbolic significance nonetheless. The Pequod, with its polyglot crew and harpooners representing the red, black, yellow, white, and brown races under the command of Ahab, is a Ship of the World or, as one might also suggest, is the microcosmic representation of the multicultural, cosmopolitan society of the United States. The goal of this ship is to discover in Moby Dick, the white whale, the ultimate force governing the cosmos. Moby Dick, the symbol of nature, is ubiquitous, creative and destructive, all too powerful and indestructible. The human society as symbolized by the whaler cannot be compared to the vastness of the whole ocean which is Moby Dick’s realm and kingdom. One feels that he is a god-head. As if Melville wanted to crack a joke, he inserted chapters in which a dead sperm whale’s head was anatomized and measured, giving us a hint of how huge whales can be. The reader will remember that before the voyage Father Maple gives a sermon in which he retells the biblical story of how Jonah is swallowed into a fish’s belly. This foreshadows the spiritual magnitude of what is to follow. It is a foregone conclusion that Moby Dick finally triumphs over the human.

13At the end of Billy Budd we learn that later records falsely show Billy Budd as the reckless killer and Claggart as the patriotic sailor. Why is it we as readers would not agree with this characterization? With the story as your evidence, refute this characterization. In the process, suggest how you feel about Captain Vere and his role in this story. This can also be an essay topic.

Key: Because that Billy Budd is innocent and Claggart plots against him; in fact, Billy Budd is the victim of the whole thing. Although Captain Vere was aware of the complexity of the situation, he hurriedly summoned the Court Marshal aboard ship because the memories of recent mutinies are still fresh and the need to maintain law and order seems paramount. They have to follow maritime laws. We can see that Vere is selfish and only concerns about his own interest. He is a representative of rules and laws, rather than morality and emotions.

14Can “Bartleby” be an allegory on the human condition in the modern world? Please explain. Do you know other similar tales?

Key: Yes, “Bartleby” can be an allegory on the human condition in the modern world. With the development of science and technology, more and more people are confined to work like machine, which means that they just do some reproduction work without their creation and enthusiasm. What’s worse, in order to make greater profit, capitalists drive their employees to work excessively, and the workers are overdrawn by work, thus, people in modern time become automatic in a way. For a long time, they will realize that the truth and reality of their life and work, which will arouse a sense of desperate and meaninglessness. Perhaps, they will rebel against their life and work just like Bartleby. Gogol’s “The Overcoat” is the other similar tales.

15In what sense is “Benito Cereno” Melville’s commentary on slavery?

Key: “Benito Cereno” is based on a mutiny of slaves on board the Spanish slave ship Amistad. The story depicts an unwitting Captain Delano who misinterprets the situation on San Dominick; he looks at a group of mutineers and still thinks that with “a little training [they] would make fine sailors.” He never comes to understand that Babo’s desperate deception comes from the enslavement of him and his fellow Africans. The slave-trader, Don Benito, is portrayed as goodness imposed upon by misfortune. In this tale, Melville’s attitude towards slavery is unfortunately ambiguous.

16Compare Poe with Emerson on their views on nature, the human mind, symbolic representation and romanticism. Review the section related to Emerson in Chapter 6.

Key: Both Emerson and Poe adventure into the human mind.

(1) When Emerson sees nature, he sees emblems of the divine security; he sees order; and his seeing is inspired by and is instrumental of the Over-Soul. Nature, to Poe, is disorder, offering no security. Where Emerson discovers the cosmic force of the Over-Soul, Poe discerns an elusive beauty and with it, the shadow of death, destruction and disintegration.

(2) If Emerson embraces romantic affirmation, Poe embraces romantic agony. Poetic imagination becomes a means with which Poe ventures into the labyrinthine and haunted world of the human mind.

17Compare Poe with Hawthorne on their different perceptions of the human mind.

Key: Poetic imagination for Poe meant an honest exploration of the human psyche. But Poe’s understanding of the secrets of the human mind was not morally driven, as it is the case with Hawthorne. Poe was not obsessed with morality. In fact, he assaulted the union of the aesthetic and the moralistic, believing that such a union would obstruct the free enterprise of the imagination.

18The force of Poe’s stories comes, in part, from his ability to place his characters in a special situation so that their psychological states can be detailed and sharply delineated. With this in mind, discuss two of his short stories.

Key: “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Cask of Amontillado” are cases in point. In these two stories, Poe sets tense and terrible atmosphere in which the characters’ psychological states are vividly shown and expressed.

19With Poe’s stories as examples, argue that Poe’s thinking and writing anticipated some of the insights in 20th century psychoanalysis.

Key: Poe is interested in people’s inner world and psychological states, which becomes the focus of the 20th-century writer, and he is very good at creating special situations to reflect his characters’ psychological states. So we can say that Poe is unique for his interest in the complex dynamism of the human psyche made him a precursor to the 20th century phenomenon of psychoanalysis.

A good example is Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”, in which Roderick and Madeline Usher are placed in a very old-fashioned house, in which they feel very nervous and depressed. As time goes on, their mental state and physical condition are ruined and collapsed, and in the end, they all fall ill and die.

20What is the predominant mood in Poe’s poetry? Discuss with two poems as examples.

Key: In poetry, Poe is a master of moods. He conveys a mood through internal and external rhyme, regular rhythm, carefully chosen onomatopoeia, and subtle suggestiveness. Poe’s poetry seems to illustrate this belief: if the end of poetry is the contemplation of the beautiful, then the best manifestation of beauty is associated with sadness.

A subject matter chosen for the expression of melancholy is the death of a beautiful woman. “The Raven” captures the mourning of the narrator for the loss ofhis beloved when a raven monotonously repeats the word “Nevermore.”

“Ulalume” is another example, written as Poe’ mourning for the death of his wife. The tormenting sadness is expressed as the dialogue of his soul: he tries to console himself but meets only the finality of the tomb.