Hawthornes Brilliant Mind Essay -- Literary Analysis

Whenever reading a short story or novel, sometimes many questions pop into the mind wanting to know why the author writes in that particular fashion. In each circumstance, every author has a motivation that fuels them into their writing styles. For Nathaniel Hawthorne, influences came from every direction. Born from a puritan father, Hawthorne was unendingly taught that god was the number one priority in his life. That he should always follow the rules and live without guilt or sin. When his father died at age 4, Hawthorne became more and more interested in literature and was inspired by Spenser, Bunyan, and Shakespeare (Pennel 2). These authors had a significant influence on Hawthornes style as a writer (Pennel 2). For his puritan heritage and his personal experiences influenced Hawthorne in his short story Young Goodman Brown, and his novels The Scarlett Letter and The House of the Seven Gables.One of the biggest influences of Hawthornes writing was his puritan heritage. During the late sixteenth and 17th century, a group of sight sought to purify the Church of England of remnants of The Roman Catholic popery left over from Queen Elizabeths I reign (Encyclopedia Britannica). The puritan people believed that one must be in convention with god in order to redeem one from ones sinful condition. Later this reformation was an essential building block when founding colonies in America and establishing the Puritan way of life. Hawthornes great-great-grandfather father, John Hathorne was a Puritan and was one of the founders of the Massachusetts Bay colony in the 1630s (Pennel 2). So for Nathaniel Hawthorne, his Puritan heritage can be traced back to one most important people to have settled in America and establish his influence t... ...l about his interesting life.Works CitedMarks, Patricia. Critical Survey of Long Fiction, Fourth Edition capital of Oregon Press p1-10. Literary Reference Center,. Web 8 May 2012Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864). Short Story Crit icism. Ed. Sheila Fitzgerald. Vol. 3. Detroit Gale Research, 1989. 152-197. Literature Criticism Online. Gale. Glendale Community College. Web 8 May 2012 Pennell, Mellissa McFarland. bookman Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne. Westport Greenwood Press, 1999. PrintPfister, Joel. The Production of Personal Life. Class, Gender, & the Psychological in Hawthornes Fiction. Stanford Stanford University Press, 1991. PrintPuritanism. Encyclopdia Britannica. Encyclopdia Britannica Online. Encyclopdia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 08 May. 2012Terence, Martin. Nathaniel Hawthorn. Revised Edition. Boston Twayne Publishers. 1983. Print