Nathaniel Hawthorne Influence On Society

Authors throughout time have been influenced by their culture, travel, and pieces of literature. These factors have inspired many authors to create beautiful stories that take readers to another place and into another’s shoes. One author that has followed this path is Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne is known for his amazing stories that take the reader into a different time and place while sharing his own views of society through allegories along with other rhetorical strategies or devices. These places, times, and scenarios, that he takes his readers into was inspired by his surroundings. Hawthorne was inspired by his father’s travels, his visits to the East India Marine Society museum, and his contact with literature so much so that they strongly …show more content…
Edward B. Hungerford in his article “Hawthorne Gossips about Salem” states that “Hawthorne’s grandfather and father had both been members” (451) of this society. According to George Adams in The Salem Directory and City Registry Containing Names of the Inhabitants, Their Occupations, Places of Business, and Residences with Lists of City Officers, Banks, Insurance Offices, Societies, &c. Names of the Streets and Wharves; and Other Useful Information, the East India Marine Society consisted of people who had “navigated the seas beyond the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn” (119). This society had a large impact on Hawthorne’s life because its first objective as a society was to “assist the needy widows and children of deceased members from the funds of the society” (119). This included Hawthorne and his family. Since this society would be a major part of Hawthorne’s life, he had formed a great love for the society and visited …show more content…
This is discussed in Jee Yoon Lee’s "The Rude Contact of Some Actual Circumstance," wherein she talks about how Hawthorne’s description of Hester Prynne “as ‘Oriental’ is provocative in its ethnic reference” (949). The “Orient,” in Hawthorne’s time era, would have referred to the cultural, commercial, and geographical areas of Asia. The people in these areas would have been called “Oriental” or “Easterns” due to the people of that time terming the area as “Orient” and “the East.” Since “Hawthorne, in keeping with his time, did not make any regional or cultural distinctions among East Asians, Southeast Asians, or Middle Easterners, to name a few geographic sectors important to Salem,” (949) he doesn’t see these societies as having any particular differences. Due to there being no specific distinctions between these cultures and their people, these terms were considered to be synonymous and, therefore, could be used interchangeably despite what the accurate term actually was. Nevertheless, his interest in the Orient prevailed. This interest in the Orient could have been sparked from his father’s curios, souvenirs, and logbooks along with the items exhibited in the East India Marine Society. These interests inspired him to write The Scarlet Letter and illustrate his main character with the prominent characteristics