Beyond Convention: The Dynamics of Imagery and Response in Hawthorne's Early Sense of Evil

Abstract

vARLY in his career Hawthorne modeled his tales according to conventional literary structures. He combined the popular gothic and romantic conventions of his day with the more rigid doctrines of his cultural and familial ancestry, rooted in the Calvinist belief in the natural depravity of man. Puritan typology even offered itself as a kind of literary model: the minister's duty (like the writer's?) was to read and decode the sensible world as a system of signs revelatory of God's works and intent. Despite the pressure of these conventions, however, Hawthorne created his own unique vision. In this essay I shall examine two stories which serve for Hawthorne as tentative explorations that will later propel him beyond the limits of traditional forms.' In The Hollow of the Three Hills, Hawthorne uses conventional symbolic representations such as darkness, desolation, and witchcraft. Within this external framework, he creates an experience of evil that includes a series of perceptual impressions lacking in formal or objective detail, but which nevertheless have more far-reaching consequences than the predominant gothic terror. Narrative action and plot have been reduced to a bare minimum. A beautiful young woman afflicted with a strange untimely blight seeks the aid of