The Tale Teller's Preoccupation: Hawthorne and the Art of Story-Telling

Nathaniel Hawthorne's art of writing marks a specific point in the history of American Literature. The revolution brought with it libertine outcomes from adherence to strict Puritanical creeds of life. A little later, Romanticism intensified this break even further by glorifying the individuality of the author and his role in creating a novel American voice. Writing within such context, one can find the translation of such religious and political activities into the literary sphere of Hawthorne's fiction as he attempts to break former rigid perspectives, replacing them with a stance which is in no haste to confine meaning and cause of events, introducing a different perspective from which to see the world and its inhabitants. As a writer who is self-conscious of his art, intervening at points in the event of story-telling, Hawthorne leaves his texts open to various interpretations as he hints at alternatives to the stories and sequence of events. While heavily influenced by the history of his country, he is simultaneously attempting to emancipate from its confining restrictions.