Hawthorne's Faith and Religion: A Framework of Faith: Introduction
A Framework of Faith : Introduction
Material prepared by:
John
W. Stuart, Ph.D., Department of English
Manchester-Essex Regional High School, Manchester, MA
David
Donavel, Department of English
Masconomet Regional High School, Topsfield, MA
Charter Street Burying Point, established 1637; oldest cemetery in Salem(photography by Bruce Hibbard)
Born into a former bastion of
Puritanism and descended from prominent leaders of that faith, Hawthorne structured
so much of his fiction upon issues related to New England Calvinist theology
that he and his environment appear inseparable. While not a regular churchgoer
himself, Hawthorne wrestled passionately with the religious fundamentalism of
seventeenth century Massachusetts as well as its more secular manifestations
in the nineteenth century. Hawthorne's Salem was drenched in history and religion.
He met Sophia Peabody, the woman who would become his wife, in a house directly
adjacent to the Charter Street
Burying ground, the final resting place of some of his ancestors, including
the notorious John Hathorne, one of the judges at the witch trials of 1692.
The very fireback used in the sitting room of what is now known as The House
of the Seven Gables, once the home of Susan Ingersoll, one of Hawthorne's relatives,
depicts a scene from the Genesis tale of the fall of Adam
and Eve. It would have been impossible for any sensitive and intelligent
person growing up in Salem in the first half of the nineteenth century to have
escaped either a sense of the past or the influence of Salem's religious milieu.
