A Study Of The Image Of Scientists In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Three Short Stories

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a prominent American writer in the nineteenth century who has written seven romances during his life, such as The Scarlet Letter, The House of Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun. Hawthorne is also well-known for his short stories and he has authored over140short stories which were published into seven anthologies. Authors, like Hawthorne, with such far-reaching influences, have grasped many scholars’ attention. According to the related materials, the majority of the studies of Hawthorne at home and abroad focus on his classic novel The Scarlet Letter from various traditional perspectives, such as feminism, structuralism, psychology and so on. However, in many of his short stories, such as Rappaccini’s Daughter, The Birthmark, Doctor Heidegger’s Experiment, The Red Carbuncle, scientists always play the "dark" and "evil" roles. Hawthorne proposed the negative image of scientists at the time when America enjoyed tremendous scientific and technological progress. And Hawthorne posed a negative attitude towards science and rationality at large. In order to address the forementioned phenomenon, the present thesis is on the purpose of studying the image of scientists in Hawthorne’s short stories with a view to finding out the reasons of shaping such image; the influence of the image of scientists in Hawthorne’s short stories over other authors in the nineteenth and twentieth century; Hawthorne’s attitude towards science and rationality; as well as the unveiling of the modern problems underneath such image which are manifested mainly by the loss of humanity and morality, the estrangement among people and the alienation between human and nature The thesis is a qualitative research assisted by the method of text analysis and the method of the literary sociology from the perspective of aesthetic modernity. The research is conductive to addressing the modern problems of the estrangement among people and the alienation between human and Nature. According to the detailed and thorough analysis in this thesis, some findings can be concluded as follows. First, the image of scientists in those short stories reflects the influences of Puritanism, Transcendentalism and Enlightenment on Hawthorne. Second, Hawthorne criticizes the estrangement among people and the alienation between human and Nature caused by people’s obsession of science. Finally, such image of scientists serves as warnings for modern people in the light of balancing personal life and scientific progress.The present thesis consists of five chapters:The first chapter is an introduction to research background, research subject, research objectives and the significance of the research.The second chapter involves literature review. This part gives a brief introduction to Nathaniel Hawthorne and his literary works and then makes a survey of previous studies at home and abroad. According to the literature review, the existing problems and research questions are pointed out from the perspective of aesthetic modernity. The innovation of the present research is also elaborated in this chapter.The third chapter explores the social influences upon the formation of such image of scientists in Hawthorne’s short stories from the perspectives of Puritanism, Transcendentalism and Enlightenment Movement. The influences of Puritanism, Transcendentalism and Enlightenment Movement upon Hawthorne are analyzed.The fourth chapter deals with the images of scientists in three of Hawthorne’s short stories, Doctor Heidegger’s Experiment, Rappaccini’s Daughter, The Birthmark and the modern problems of the loss of humanity and morality, the estrangement among people and the alienation between human and nature behind such image. The image of each scientist is explored with the assistance of the method of text analysis and then the general image of the scientists in Hawthorne’s short stories is summarized. Those social problems are unveiled with the assistance of the method of literary sociology from the perspective of aesthetic modernity. In addition, the profound influence of such image of scientists in Hawthorne’s literary works over those authors in the end of the nineteenth century and in the twentieth century during the cold war is illustrated through the demonstration of the image of scientists in those authors’ literary works.The last chapter is a conclusion which includes major findings of the present study, limitations of this research and suggestions for future studies.