An Analysis of Rappaccinis Daughter: Nathaniel Hawthornes Most Complex Short Story :: Rappaccinis Daughter Essays

An Analysis of Rappaccini's Daughter: Nathaniel Hawthorne's Most Complex Short Story Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on the forth of July in Salem, Massachusetts. He writes of the sentimental affection for the town of his birth - he described his feeling "to the deep and aged roots which my family has struck into the soil" (DLB 144). Hawthorne's work is unique because of the combination of these three ideas: "love of his ancestral soil, a strong sense of the richness of the American past, and that moral quality of the human heart" (DLB 145). Because he loved life and his background and where he was from and enabled him to be a better writer. Interestingly to me, Hawthorne attended college and when he graduated he moved back home with his mother (his father died when he was only four). He had started writing some in college and soon published his first work after graduation. He said this was a lonely and difficult time for him because he earned little money, but did learn a lot. The first thing he published was Fanshawe (1828). Soon after he did, he learned that publication of his work was a mistake and he wanted all copies destroyed. He disposed of all the ones that he could get his hands on and asked his family and friends to do the same. A fire at the local bookstore destroyed all of the rest of the unsold copies. This must have been a sad time for him. To be able to actually write something and publish it and then deliberately trash all of them. On the ninth day of July in 1842, Hawthorne married Sophia Peabody. He wanted to marry her long before this time, but was not making very much money and was afraid he would not be able to support. He did slow down writing for a while and worked at a farm to try to earn some money so he could have the money that he wanted. He learned fast that manual labor left little energy for anything else (DLB 153). Edgar Allan Poe described Hawthorne as a man of "truest genius". Others said he was a "truly American literary voice".