Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina Wilmington 2009. / Title from PDF title page (January 11, 2010) Includes bibliographical references (p. 42-44)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin, 1960. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 251-267).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1981. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 523-530).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1969. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Summary of Thesis (Ph. D.)--Vanderbilt University, 1937. / "Private edition, distributed by the Joint university libraries, Nashville, Tennessee."

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1957. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 364-373).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1952. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [384]-405).

The purpose of this thesis is to present a systematic examination of the major groups of nature symbols used by Hawthorne in his novels and tales treating moral isolation. Since Poe's and Melville's early remarks on Hawthorne's love of allegory and his power of blackness, many critics have studied the extensive use of symbolism and the detailed analysis of human nature in his works. While critics have not ignored the numerous examples of nature symbolism contained in the works, none has made a comprehensive analysis of Hawthorne's systematic patterns. Such an analysis reveals a significant aspect of the already acknowledged depth and genius of his symbolic method and shows that his use of nature symbolism, differing from that of both his puritan ancestors and transcendentalist contemporaries, serves as further evidence of his great artistic originality. In Chapter Two, an examination of The Scarlet Letter, in which nearly all the nature symbols are used, reveals the great richness and complexity with which Hawthorne develops them. The journey into the wilderness is the chief symbol, giving not only a structural unity to several vital chapters in the centre of the novel, but also revealing the extent of the moral isolation of the characters. Within this major pattern, several other patterns emerge: the interplay of sunlight and darkness, the physical nature of the wilderness itself, and the attitudes of the various characters to nature symbolise the moral natures of Hester, Pearl, and Dimmesdale. The following chapters examine the systematic application of each set of symbols to a specific aspect of moral isolation. Moral innocence and attempts to regain or retain it are symbolized by sunshine, flowers and the harmonious relationship of individuals with nature; moral evil and guilt by the journey into the wilderness, the wild nature of the forest itself, and darkness. A third group of symbols relating to the garden reflect another aspect of isolation, that of the isolated individual attempting to enter into contact with others. Within each of these three symbolic patterns, the individual symbols are modified to reflect the unique moral conditions of the particular characters. Hawthorne's use of nature imagery takes on added significance when considered in relation to his allegorical method. It becomes an integral part of the method by which he was able to retell old material and common themes in such a way as to give each a new life and meaning. It is a part of the method which has helped to establish his position as a major American author. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

In Hawthorne criticism there is a tendency to categorize The Scarlet Letter as allegory and then fail to distinguish it carefully from traditional forms of this literary mode. Hawthorne is not, in this work, an allegorist of the same ilk as Bunyan or Spenser because his allegory is not a didactic strategy imposed from without but an emblematic structure that evolves from and is governed by internal necessities of the tale. A failure to understand the nature of these necessities leads us to an overly theologized view of Hawthorne’s purposes and achievement in The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne's own moralizing editorials tend to complement the brazenly emblematic function of characters such as Pearl and Chillingworth and create the appearance of traditional religious allegory. Pearl and Chillingworth are punitive, avenging figures and resemble the stock allegorical images of guilt and penitence that afflict Hester and Dimmesdale in the aftermath of their crime. Their distinction lies in that they are not everyman's guilt, as a Bunyan of Spenser might depict them, but they specifically incarnate the self-torment Hester and Dimmesdale are prey to. Their roles fulfill primarily a psycho-allegorical scheme rather than any patently Christian parable of sin and expiation. The clues to this psychological priority Hawthorne gives his allegory are contained in the author's frequent allusions to the "mutability" of the substantial world and the extent to which the perturbed perceiver may "extend his egotism over the whole expanse of nature", creating events and omens which reflect his internal disorder. There is evidence that Dimmesdale himself inflicts Chillingworth on his person just as he, miraculously or otherwise, carves an "A" upon his bosom. It is Dimmesdale who consents to being attended by the leech by reason of his "fascination" for this man of science with his probing intellectuality. Dimmesdale's culpability in creating the presence of Chillingworth is further underlined by Hawthorne's observation that the minister's only "real existence on this earth, was the anguish in his inmost soul." Chillingworth's appearance and the increasingly demonic nature of his character is thus an inevitable byproduct of Dimmesdale's increasing introversion into the turmoil of his mind. Similarly Pearl's emblematic being usurps the humanity of her character as a result of her direct relation to Hester's psyche. Hester dresses Pearl in lavish finery with "morbid purpose" just as she embellishes the appearance of the letter on her dress. These are the superficial clues to the extent to which Hester creates the punishing role Pearl's personality fulfills. Hester's sense of guilt, like Dimmesdale's is sufficiently severe to re-create the realities of the external world and create the embodied phantoms of her inward strife. Hawthorne's psychological allegory creates a state of surreality in the world of The Scarlet Letter; a dream state where "the Actual and the Imaginary" do meet and the meeting ground is the interior of the human heart. Our insight into the minds of Hester and Dimmesdale derives from our participation in their anguished distortion of experience and their projected allegory. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

A study of the shorter fiction of Nathaniel Hawthorne reveals a rich experimentation with narrative techniques, all working towards what Edgar Allan Poe, Hawthorne's first critic, called a 'certain unique or single effect'. The aim of this dissertation is to show how Hawthorne's concern with the complex nature of man's temporal existence governs both the theme and structure of his fiction. Time implies both change and flux, and is inextricable from the historical, social and psychological evolution of Hawthorne's characters. As theme, time is used to disclose patterns of withdrawal and return, the problem of the individual alienated from his society, and the tension between the realm of art and the world of actuality. As structure, time is used in various ways to govern the pace of a particular story and, most certainly, to govern the unfolding sequence of events. Hawthorne consciously experiments with different generic modes, with a diversity of beginnings and endings, in order to explore the inexhaustible manifestations of human time.