Oriental Elements In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Works

This dissertation adopts a qualitative approach, and analyzes Oriental elements in Hawthorne’s ten works, including "The Story Teller","The Great Carbuncle","Rappaccini’s Daughter","The Man of Adamant:an Apologue","The Birth Mark","Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment", The House of the Seven Gables, The Marble Faun, The Blithedale Romance and The Scarlet Letter. The dissertation examines the structure and theme, three heroines, and other Oriental elements, trying to find out the reason why Hawthorne employed these Oriental components in his writings.Hawthorne turned to the structure of framing device and stories within stories in The Arabian Nights to create "The Story Teller" No. I and "The Story Teller" No.II. The theme of journeying forth and homecoming in The Arabian Nights was observed in Hawthorne’s "The Great Carbuncle". The theme of the poison-damsel traced in Oriental literature could be found in Hawthorne’s another romance---"Rappaccini’s Daughter". The results showed that the type of structure Hawthorne built in his text and the kinds of themes he circulated in his text added up to address the reader, contain the Orient and finally represent it or speak it in its behalf. However, Western representation of the East was always a way of controlling the redoubtable Orient. Hawthorne’s heroines were filled with Oriental personalities. Miriam was of Jewish blood, and she was so obsessed with the woks of an Oriental woman who acted the part of a revengeful mischief towards a man. These proved that she was a dangerous Oriental woman. Zenobia, whose pseudonym, regal beauty, queenly dignity and masculine power identified her immediately with Oriental Syrian queen. Hester shared the similarities in beauty, needlework, lust, silence and static situation with Oriental women. Three Oriental women with tragic fates sufficiently showed Hawthorne’s Orientalism that he still did not know what to think about the Oriental Other, or what was proper to think. Anyway, the Orient must be dominated. Even worse, they were Oriental women. Western men, comparatively wealthy, were allowed not only to possess them physically but also to abandon them at his will. The architecture, hieroglyphics and talisman, and alchemy, the Elixir of Life and antique medicine were also full of Oriental features. This dissertation studies Oriental architecture, such as caves and caverns in "The Man of Adamant:an Apologue", a harem with specific Oriental connation in "Rappaccini’s Daughter", and all Roman works and ruins assumed an Oriental odor in The Marble Faun. The Egyptian hieroglyphics were applied in The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne. The talisman which appeared frequently in The Arabian Nights was used by Hawthorne for magical atmosphere in The House of the Seven Gables and The Blithedale Romance. The East was a fount of alchemy, the elixir of life and antique medicine, of which Hawthorne made use describing a number of scientists, such as Aylmer in "The Birth Mark", Dr. Heidegger in "Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment" and Roger Chillingworth in The Scarlet Letter. The findings suggested that the Orient was always ancient, mysterious and unchanging in Westerns’eyes.Hawthorne’s structure and theme borrowed from The Arabian Nights, his three Oriental heroines bore the name of the East, and his other Oriental manifestations originated from the East indicated that Hawthorne knowingly allied his work with the Orient. Passion, novelty and exoticism were three most important things that the Romantic writers needed to fill in his romance. When the West could not realize his needs or satisfy his readers, Hawthorne turned to the East. In his eyes, the East was wonderfully synonymous with the exotic, the mysterious, the profound and the seminal. In Western countries, one can speak of an Oriental personality, an Oriental atmosphere, an Oriental tale, Oriental despotism or an Oriental mode of production, and be understood. Hence, Hawthorne could penetrate, wrestle with, and give shape and meaning to the East. In all, the relationship between Hawthorne and the Orient was textual, so Hawthorne’s Orient was definitely biased and manipulative.