NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE' S USE OF WITCH AND DEVIL LORE

APPROVED:

Major Professor

Consulting Professor

Iinor Professor

f, sr. auifUvi

Chairman of" the Department of English

Dean of the Graduate School

Robb, Kathleen A., Nathaniel Hawthorne;s Fictional Use

of Witch and Devil Lore. Master of Arts (English), December, - v

1970, 119 pp., bibliography, 19 titles.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's personal family history, his boy-

hood in the Salem area of New England, and his reading of

works about New England's Puritan era influenced his choice

of witch and Devil lore as fictional material. The witch-

ci"aft trials in Salem were evidence (in Hawthorne's inter-

pretation) of the errors of judgment and popular belief which

are ever-present in the human race. He considered the witch

and Devil doctrine of the seventeenth century to be indicative

of the superstition, fear, and hatred which governs the lives

of men even in later centuries. From the excesses of the

witch-hunt period of New England history Hawthorne felt moral

lessons could be derived.

The historical background of witch and Devil lore, while

helpful in illustrating moral lessons, is used by Hawthorne

to accomplish other purposes. The paraphernalia of witchcraft

with its emphasis on terrible and awesome ceremonies or

practices such as Black Sabbaths, Devil compacts, image-magic,

spells and curses, the Black Man in'the forest, spectral shapes,

and familiar spirits is used by Hawthorne to add atmospheric

qualities to his fiction. Use of the diabolic creates the

effects of horror, suspense, and mystery. Furthermore, such

2

elements of witch and Devil doctrine (when introduced in The

Scarlet Letter, short stories, and historical sketches) also

provide an aura of historical authenticity, thus adding a v

dimension of reality and concreteness to the author's fiction.

In developing fictional characters Hawthorne uses witch

and Devil lore, too. Self-idolatry, inner predilections to

evil, and the presence of psychological inner "devils" or

"demons" are matters which confront Hawthorne's characters

in the language or atmosphere of witch and Devil tradition.

The diabolic and all its accompanying paraphernalia

even lends itself to humor and irony. Hawthorne often uses

his Devil and witchcraft material to emphasize the discrepancy

between appearance and reality. Whimsy, fantasy, and illusion

are the forms which Devil and witch lore adopt in less serious

contexts. Hawthorne uses the terminology of witch and Devil

tradition to satirize, amuse, and comment ironically on man

and society.

Whether employed seriously, humorously, or ironically,

Hawthorne's frequent use of the language, imagery, symbolism,

and atmosphere of witch and Devil lore indicates that he found

it to be a valuable literary tool. Manipulated in various ways,

the lore of witches and the Devil either adds historical con-

creteness to' ambiguous and fantastic plots or characters, or

it provides the necessary illusion and whimsy to make a plot

3

acceptably light and fanciful. Characters, settings, psycho-

logical insights, and themes revolve around witch and Devil

lore in a number of Hawthorne's works. v

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE'S USE OF WITCH AND DEVIL LORE

THESIS

Presented to the Graduate Council of the

North Texas State University in Partial

Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the. Degx-ee of

MASTER OF ARTS

By

Kathleen A. Robb, B. S.

Denton, Texas

January, 1971

PREFACE

In The Scarlet Letber and several short stories such as v

"Young Goodman Brown," "Alice DoaneTs Appeal," "My Kinsman

Major Molineux," "The Hollow of the Three Hills," and

"Feathertop," Nathaniel Hawthorne uses his conception of the

Devil and the historical background of the Salem witch de-

lusion. Hawthorne's ancestry partly accounts for his inter-

est in Salem witchcraft. One of his ancestors (whom he

mentions in the introduction to The Scarlet Letter) partici-

pated wholeheartedly in the witchcraft period of New England's

history. During the twelve years after 1825 that Hawthorne

spent in Salem in secluded study, he immersed himself in a

study of the history and legends of New England.

From his readings in various sources Hawthorne drew

material for the historical background of his writings.

Milton and Bunyan provided a classic Puritan description of

the Devil and his activities. Histories of New England were

factual sources for material on the Salem trials and exe-

cutions. By reading the accounts of the Devil and his con-

federates in the works of Cotton and Increase Mather, Hawthorne

derived information about seventeenth century New England

doctrine and mythology concerning the diabolic wonders of the

invisible world.

111

The many aspects of New England witchcraft which

Hawthorne uses contribute historical authenticity to his

work. Spectral evidence, Black Sabbaths, witches, wizards,

Devil compacts, the Black Man, demonic Indian sachems, be-

witched children, and familiars were all part of the para-

phernalia of the witch panic of seventeenth century New

England. I'ictional use of the Devil and witches or wizards

provided Hawthorne with a realistic and vivid historical

background, and qualities of horror, suspense, and mystery

in the Gothic tradition.

Hawthorne uses the Devil and his associates, however,

as more than just historic backdrops or elements of sen-

sationalism. The diabolic element is used to develop themes

and characters. Using the terminology of witch and Devil

lore figuratively and symbolically, Hawthorne employs the

language and composite elements of diabolicism seriously,

humorously, or ironically to achieve literary effects.

Often the diabolic is Hawthorne's device for exploring such

abstract concepts as sin, evil, and temptation in terms of

demons, devils, and witches. Hawthorne found the elements

of witch and Devil doctrine to be so adaptable to various

fictional purposes that he includes them in many of his

short stories, sketches, and novels. The diabolic was a

valuable and frequent fictional tool for Nathaniel Hawthorne.

IV

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE . . * iii

Chapter Page

I. HAWTHORNE*S USE OF THE HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND WITCHCRAFT 1

II, HAWTHORNE'S USE OF WITCHCRAFT PARAPHERNALIA . . 2k

III. HAWTHORNE1S CHARACTERIZATION OF THE

DEVIL AND DEMON!CS 56

IV. HAWTHORNE'S LIGHTER USE OF THE DIABOLIC . . . 90

V. CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . 117

CHAPTER I

HAWTHORNE'S USE OF THE HISTORY .OF

NEW ENGLAND WITCHCRAFT

The Devil and witchcraft are topics which figure promi-

nently in Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories, sketches, and

in two of his novels. Hawthorne was able to draw on history

and his own personal background for materials about witch-

craft in seventeenth century New England. Often he used

actual historical events and personages to lend authenticity

and realism to his work. He selected some historical and

traditional materials, and then altered history for literary

effects. The witch and Devil beliefs of the seventeenth cen-

tury are some external aspects of Puritan DeviL and witch-

craft doctrine which Hawthorne employs. He uses these be-

liefs to probe the hidden psychological or moral implications

of his characters' actions.

A great deal of Hawthorne's interest in the Devil and

witchcraft stemmed from the author'-s awareness of his Puritan

ancestry. Hawthorne could trace his Puritan background

through five generations, starting with William Hathorne who

came, to Massachusetts from England in 1630. "William Hathorne

became a distinguished early citizen of Salem. He held the

office of speaker in the House of Delegates and became a

2

major in the Salem militia.Hawthorne describes this

illustrious ancestor in "The Custom House" as, "this grave,

bearded, sable-cloaked and steeple-crowned progenitor" who

was "soldier, legislator, judge . . . and ruler in the

Church." Hawthorne found the "dim and dusky grandeur" of

his first ancestor to be further darkened by the fact that

William Hathorne was a "bitter persecutor" in his position

as a judge.^ The Quakers, whose lively and unconventional

forms of worship shocked staid Puritans, found Major William

Hathorne to be a harsh foe. The Major ordered the chastise-

ment of one Quaker zealot, Ann Coleman. She was publicly

flogged through the streets of Salem--a fact to which

Hathorne refers several times in his writings.3

Another early ancestor whose career interested Hawthorne

and influenced his writings was Judge John Hathorne, son of

Major Hathorne. Like his father, John Hathorne was a promi-

nent citizen of New England. He was one of the two original

justices of the preliminary witch examinations in Salem in

1692. Many magistrates at the trials took part in the pro-

ceedings at various intervals. Hathorne acted as judge almost

^Randall Stewart, Nathaniel feawthorne, A Biography (New Haven, 1948), p* 1. Stewart says that Hawthorne changed" the family name,by adding a "w" shortly after leaving college.

^Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Works of_ Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by George Parsons Lathrop ("Boston, 1883), V,~2^TT Citations from Hawthorne in my text are to theL-athrop edition, hereafter cited, as Works.

3Ibid., II, 92; III, 462-463; V, 24.

continuously through the trial period from its beginning

to its end.*"1" Hathorne's steady attendance and zealous

participation indicated to Hawthorne (as well as early

colonial and modern historians) that Judge John Hathorne

was a deep believer in the presence of the Devil in New

England and in the diabolic work of witches and wizards.

Judges John Hathorne and Jonathan Gorwin were, first

sent to Salem Village to conduct preliminary examinations

of accused witches on March 1, 1692. Transcripts of the

trials indicate that Hathorne conducted the examinations

and trials almost singlehandedly, although he presumably

had Gorwin's consent and moral support.^ For the most part

the Judge's conduct of the trials was not a model of equi-

table jurisprudence. The guilt of the accused was not in

doubt; the trials were conducted mainly to force confessions.

Nathaniel Hawthorne and historians have consistently viewed

Hathorne's judicial conduct with strong disapproval. Ac-

cording to a modern historian, Chadwick Hansen:

John Hathorne asked most of the questions and established the judicial attitude that was to prevail throughout most of the examinations and trials. Rather than adopting the stance of an impartial investigator . . . he acted more like a prosecuting attorney than a

^Chadwick Hansen, Witchcraft at Salem (New York, 1970), p. 61.

^Marion Starkey, The Devil, in Massachusetts (New York. 1949), p. 38.

magistrate, assuming the guilt of the person under examination and trying to force a confession with bullying questions . . . .6

The great-great grandson of John Hathorne was deeply im-

pressed by his ancestor's participation in the witch trials.

In "The Custom House" Hawthorne describes the judge as one

who had "inherited the persecuting spirit, and had made him-

self so conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches . . . .

Another of Hawthorne's ancestors, Philip English, was

also involved in. the Salem witch trials, but in a different

way. English was Salem's richest merchant and a leading

citizen. Despite his wealth and position, he and his wife

were accused of witchcraft and were forced to leave Salem

in order to save their lives.® Philip English is never -

mentioned by Hawthorne in any of the witch tales or novels.

Hawthorne's interest in early members of his family was

focused on those he considered guilty of crimes against

humanity, men capable of much evil as well as good.

Hawthorne expresses some concern about the sins his

misguided or over-zealous ancestors might have committed

and passed on to future generations of Hawthornes, for he

believed that the past reflects on and influences the present. *

Major HathorneTs persecution of the Quakers is regarded by

the writer as an almost indelible "stain" upon the age (as

^Hansen, pp. 58-59. 7Works, V, 2^. O "Hansen, p. 268.

5

well as the man) which would endure for generations. In

"Main Street" Hawthorne, implores, "Heaven grant that, as

the rain of many years has wept upon it [the trail of blood

0"

. . . . so there may have been a dew

of mercy to cleanse this cruel blood-stain out of the record Q

of the persecutor's life!"^ The remains of Judge Hathorne

also bear a "stain" from the blood of his victims, the exe-

cuted witches. "So deep a stain, indeed," writes Hawthorne,

"that his old dry bones . . . must still retain it, if they

have not crumbled, utterly to dusti""*"

Hawthorne believed that men must repent of their sins

in order to achieve salvation. In many stories and his

novels he advocates public confession as a means of "cleansing

the soul" of "stains" like those his ancestors had incurred.

The possibility of repentance by Major William Hathorne and

Judge John Hathorne for their sins is pondered by Hawthorne

in the introductory essay to The Scarlet- Letter. Hawthorne

probably doubted that Major Hathorne repented of his treat-

ment of religious dissenters since the author was aware of

Puritan intolerance of other faiths. There is no historical

record that Judge John Hathorne ever recanted or repented

publicly his part in the trials (although many of his fellow

justices and citizens did. In "The Custom House," there-

fore, Hawthorne claims the right as a representative of his 9Works, V, 24-25. ^Ibid. -^Hansen, pp. 265-268.

6

ancestors to "hereby take shame upon myself for their sakes,

and pray that any curse incurred by them . . . may now and

henceforth be removed."*-^ This passage and several of his

witch tales may be taken as evidence that-part of Hawthorne's

writings on seventeenth century New England is a form of

exculpation for a feeling of ancestral guilt.

Hawthorne playfully suggests that a family curse

directed at ancient members of the family might account for

the Hawthornes' degenei ate condition in modern times.^ The

influence of the past on the present has serious as well as

humorous implications for Hawthorne. The idea of a family

curse was taken from Hawthorne's family history. It was a

traditional belief among the Hawthornes that a witch about

to die on the scaffold had flung a curse at Judge John

Hathorne and his descendents.^ The only historical precedent

for such a belief was a prophetic i-emark made by Captain

Nathaniel Gary in 1692. Mrs. Gary was examined on charges of

witchcraft by Judge Hathorne and his associates. Hathorne

conducted most of the proceedings himself, with his customary

severity and bias. Captain Cary was angered by the court's

"inhuman dealings" and "uttered a hasty speech Cthat God

would take vengeance on them . . . )."^5 But whatever the

basis for the tradition of a family curse, Hawthorne found

•^Works, V, 25. -^Ibid, ^"Stewart, p. 2.

^George Lincoln Burr, editor, Narratives of the Witch-craft Gases 16A-8-1706 (New York, 191 +), p. 351.

7

the idea fruitful, and he uses it in The House of the Seven

Gables.

•I-n The House of the Seven Gables the tradition of a

family curse is a central plot element, and Hawthorne adds

actual historical details to provide the substance of the

curse. Matthew Maule's imprecation is hurled from, the

scaffold at Colonel Pyncheon just as the convicted witch's

legendary curse was directed at Judge John Hathorne. The

actual words of Maule's curse are adapted from the execution

of a seventeenth century New England witch, Sarah Good. She

was executed for witchcraft with five other women on July 19,

1692. As she stood on the scaffold, the Reverend. Nicholas

Noyes reproached her once again with being a witch and urged

her to repent. She replied, "'You're a liar! I am no more

a witch than you are a wizard I If you take my life away,

1 fi

God will give you blood to drink:'" Hawthorne shortened

the form of the curse to a brief, "God will give you blood

to drink!" He also used the traditional story of Nicholas

Noyes1 death as a pattern for Colonel Pyncheon's death in

the novel. Noyes supposedly suffered an internal hemorrhage

and died while bleeding profusely at the mouth, thus physi-

cally fulfilling Sarah Good's prophesy.^ In The House of

Seven Gables, Colonel Pyncheon dies from undetermined causes,

^Starkey, p. 181. ^Hansen, p. 167.

8

but as with Noyes the curse is fulfilled with his death.

The Colonel and his descendent, Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon, die

seated, stained with blood about the mouth and throat, in

their habitual poses of stern judgment and unrelenting

severity toward others.

Hawthorne's ancestry undoubtedly influenced his choice

and treatment of the content of his writings concerning the

Devil and witchcraft. His familiarity with the historic

Salem area reinforced his interest in the past. Hawthorne

was born in. Salem and lived there until he was twelve. In

1816 he moved with his family to Raymond, Maine, but he

returned to Salem to attend school in 1819. After attending

Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, for four years, Hawthorne

again established his residence in Salem. From 1825 to 1837

he lived and, wrote under the social and historical influence

of S a l e m . H i s awareness of Salem's history and his strong

identification with his ancestors gave him "a sort of home

feeling with the past . . and the period of the witch-

craft trials was one of the most vivid aspects of the past

for Hawthorne.^ He often found the social atmosphere of

Salem to be stifling and oppressive, and yet its history was

so prominent and visible that his writings clearly reflect

the influence of the historic and picturesque area. As

Hawthorne remarks, his feelings toward Salem, though

I8Stewart, pp. 16, 26. I9Works. V, 24,

9

ambivalent, were always strong. He writes, "Though in-

variably happiest elsewhere, there, is within me a feeling

for old Salem, which, in lack of a better phrase, I must be

content to call affection,"2®

The landmarks and traditions of old Salem were aspects

of the ancient New England village which Hawthorne incorpo-

rated into his stories and novels. In "Main Street," for

example, he describes the tj>pical architectural design of

Salem houses with their huge central chimneys and "flues so

vast that it must have been easy for the witches to fly out

of them," and their gables, lattice windows, and overhanging

second stories.21 Gallows Hill is a favorite landmark.for

Hawthorne's witch tales and a novel. It is a part of the

setting of "Alice Doane's Appeal," "Main Street," and the

introduction to The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne found land-

marks like Gallows Hill to be so stimulating that (as he

remarks in "Alice Doane's Appeal"), "For my own part, I have

often courted the historic influence of the spot."22

Hawthorne's interest in the past and in the Puritan

Devil is evident in his choice of reading materials. He read

Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress as a boy and was familiar with

Milton's work. The historical American witch and Devil

tradition, however, is the element most strongly reflected

in his writings. Most of Hawthorne's devils, witches, and

20Ibid., p. 23. 2IIbid. 22Ibid., XII, 280.

10

wizards are shrewd, powerful, malignant and, occasionally,

almost sympathetic characters. He introduces into his work

the theories of Devil-worship and satanic temptation which ^

ministers like John Hale, Deodat Lawson, John Higginson, and

Cotton and Increase Mather accepted as proven f a c t .

Hawthorne, however, shades his tales with skepticism, inserts

psychological motivations for mankind's beliefs and actions

in the place of seventeenth century superstition and cre-

dulity, and moralizes about the results of blame and suspicion

during the witchcraft period of New England history.

Hawthorne's knowledge of the Puritan era was derived

from his readings in histories, sermons, and diaries of New

Olx

Englanders.During the twelve years after 1325 which

Hawthorne spent in Salem, he devoted much of his time to

reading about the history and legends of New England. Early

histori.es which Hawthorne read included Samuel Sewall's Diary,

Joseph B. Felt's Annals of Salem, John Winthrop's Journal,

and Thomas Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts.^^ Most in-

fluential in terms of sources of witchcraft and Devil materials

were the works of Increase and Cotton Mather, for their writings

provided studies of "afflicted children," details of witch

23Burr, pp. 145-162, 395-425, 389-402.

^Marion Kesselring, Hawthorne's Reading 1828-1850 (New York, 1949), passim.

? 5 ~ Arlin Turner, "A Study of Hawthorne's Origins," un-

published doctoral dissertation, Department of English, Uni-versity of Texas, Austin, Texas, 1934, p. 32.

11

trials, theoi ies about the development of witchcraft, and

reasons for defection to the Devil.

Two of Cotton Mather's works, The Wonders of the In-

visible World (1692) and Magnalia Christi Americana; or The

Ecclesiastical History of New England (1702) were particularly

influential sources for Hawthorne. In The Wonders of the

Invisible World, Mather reports on five witch trials "not as

?6

an Advocate but as a Historian."- Mather chose five "witches"

as illustrative examples of the workings of the Devil in New

England. He records the events of the trials of Martha Carrier,

George Burroughs^ and three other accused persons with the zeal

and scientific observation that matters pertaining to the

supernatural aroused in him.27 Occasionally he recorded his

observations and theories like an advocate rather than as a

historian. Mather's record of Martha Carrier's trial, for

example, is concluded with a subjective note: "Memorandum.

This rampant Hag, Martha Carrier, was the person, of whom the

rest, agreed, 'That the Devil had promised her, she should be OO

Queen of Hell.'" Hawthorne lifted Mather's words from The

Wonders of the Invisible World and used them almost verbatim

in "Young Goodman Brown." As Brown observes the witches1

induction ceremony in the forest he sees Martha Carrier "who

had received the devil's promise to be queen of hell." 26cotton Mather, The Wonders of the Invisible World,

(London, 1862), p. 110.

27Hansen, pp. 221, 226. 28Mather, p. 159.

12

Hawthorne further characterizes Carrier by saying, "A rampant

hag was she."29 Hawthorne utilizes Mather's characterization-

of Martha Carrier in "Young Goodman Brown" in order to empha- m

size Brown's conception of evil.

In another story, however, Hawthorne revises the charac-

terization of Carrier to achieve a different effect. Mather's

suggestion of Carrier's ambition as the basis for her bargain

with the Devil is further developed by Hawthorne in "Main

Street." Pride becomes Martha Carrier's motivation for Devil

worship and her character and appearance are elevated to fit

the role. Thus in "Main Street" Hawthorne describes Carrier

as a woman "with a dark, proud face that has been beautiful,

and a figure that is still majestic." Hawthorne's witch is

a woman "whom the Devil found in a humble cottage, and looked

into her discontented heart, and saw pride there, and tempted

30

her with his promise that she should be Queen of Hell."

Martha Carrier undergoes an imaginative treatment as Hawthorne's

witch, but the idea behind her characterization can be traced

to Mather.

Reverend George Burroughs was-the subject of another of

Mather's illustrative examples. Burrough's trial is recorded

with fascinated horror by Mather who regarded a minister's

transfer of allegiance from God to the Devil as significant

29Works, II, 103. 30Ibid., III, 469.

13

evidence of the Fiend's progress in New England. Burroughs

was considered by many to be the leader of Satan's New England

conspiracy.3^- In The Wonders of the Invisible World Mather

reports that Burroughs was "one who had the promise of being

a King in Satan's Kingdom, now going to be erected . . . jt32

As in the case of Martha Carrier, Mather interprets Burroughs'

motive for becoming the disciple of the Devil to be a desire

for power. Hawthorne's sketch of the minister-wizard in

"Main Street" develops a different characterization of

Burroughs. In this story, pride of intellect rather than

desire for power makes Burroughs a victim of "the very

strength of his high and searching intellect."33 Reverend

George Burroughs of "Main Street" is an individual who yearns

for knowledge: "He went groping onward into a world of '

mystery; at first, as the witnesses have sworn, he summoned

up the ghosts of his two dead wives, and talked with them of

matters beyond the grave; and then . . . he called on Satan

."

Hawthorne's treatment of George Burroughs is thoroughly

imaginative and only superficially based on historical fact.

To emphasize the sinfulness of questing for forbidden know-

ledge, Hawthorne gives his character the intellectual appetite

of a Faust. The real Burroughs was not an astute or pax'ticu-

larly intellectual man. He did not defend himself ably at

31Hansen, pp. 108-109. 32Mather, p. 120.

3%orks, III, 469. 3**Ibid., pp. 469-470.

Ik

his trial, perhaps because of the nature of the charges or

because of elements of his personality which impressed the

judges and jury unfavorably.-^ The transcripts of the trial

record that Burroughs was not accused of summoning the dead.

On the contrary, witnesses testified that the ghosts of the

minister's two wives (whom he. supposedly bewitched, to death)

had left their graves to seek retribution.^ Hawthorne does

observe historic fact in his description of the dignified

manner in which Burroughs met his death, appearing less like

a guilty man than "a Christian saint . . . now going to a

martyr's death."^7

To add historic authenticity to his stories and novels,

Hawthorne often uses the names of actual citizens of Salem.

Three women who were tried and sentenced to death in 1692 by

Judge John Hathorne were Martha Carrier, Sarah Cloyse, and

Martha C o r e y . I n "Young Goodman Brown" the novelist uses

Mather's epitaph for Carrier and refers to Goody Cory as

"that unhanged witch."39 Goodwife Cory was hanged on

September 22, 1692. Hawthorne's reference to Cory as an

^Hansen, p. 108.

^Charles W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft (New York, 1959), II, 160.

Works, III, k70,

SS'premaine McDowell, "Nathaniel Hawthorne and the "Witches of Colonial Salem," Notes and Queries, CLXVI (March 3, 193*+), 152. The woman's name was spelled either "Corey" or "Cory."

39 Works, II, 9U„

15

unhanged witch dates his story before 1692, but more im-

portantly it emphasizes the emotional estrangement that many

Salemites felt from their fellow men during the witchcraft

period. For instance, after seeing the forest witchcraft

ceremony, Brown regards all his neighbors as converts of

Satan, followers of evil. A witch who has not yet been

caught and executed can be identified simply, in Goody

Cloyse's words, as "that unhanged witch."

Sarah Cloyse has a fairly large role in Hawthorne's

"Young Goodman Brown." She is more than an historical prop-

she is a witch with a personality, like Mistress Hibbins in

The Scarlet Letter» The personality of Goody Cloyse in

Hawthorne's tale parallels what is known of the personality

of the real Sarah Cloyse. A woman of good reputation, piety,

and charity, her Salem neighbors were shocked in 1692 to

discover that one who appeared to be of the elect was in

reality (according to the "afflicted children") a foul

witch.^ In the short story, Hawthorne emphasizes that

Goody Cloyse was believed to be "a very pious and exemplary

woman, " •l Brown, however, realizes that she is in reality

an old friend of the Devil. Brown's words, "That old woman

taught me my cathechism," indicate his growing awareness of

evil and loss of faith in those he trusted with his very

soul.^

40Upham, II, 326. ^Works, II, 93. 42Ibid., p. 95.

16

Another historical witch is Mistress Anne Hibbins of

The Scarlet Letter. She was tried for witchcraft twice,

but was not executed until 1656. Her case was one of the

it

first prior to 1692. Hawthorne's Mistress Hibbins is

identified by the novelist as "Governor Bellingham1s bitter-

tempered sister, and the same one who, a few years later,

was executed as a witch. History records the. argumentative

or "bitter-tempered" nature of Mistress Hibbins--she was once

censured by her church for quarreling, and a quarrel with two

neighbors resulted in a charge of witchcraft and her death.

In calling her Governor Bellingham's sister, Hawthorne is

repeating a traditional belief. Hawthorne's Mistress Hibbins

is an old, sour, and somewhat humorous witch. She urges

Hester to take part in orgies in the forest with the Black

Man, but Hester cannot be tempted with the crude forbidden

pleasures of the witch tradition. Mistress Hibbins' Devil

is the mythological Black Man with his book; Hester,

Dimmesdale, and Roger Ghillingworth are lured by subtle temp-

tations and their Devil is the true master of evil.

Even in his most historical writings Hawthorne accepts

and rejects personages and events freely. Using seventeenth

century materials, he makes nineteenth century value judgments

and always observes the past in terms of the present. Re-

vising and rearranging historical facts (and sometimes

^Hansen, p. 35. ^Works, V, ^5Hansen, p. 35,

17

ignoring actual history) is a technique which Hawthorne fre-

quently uses to achieve the best effects in realism, interestt

pathos, and irony. Realism is a major objective of Hawthorne's

historical sketch of Salem in "Main Street." In giving a

panoramic view of the development of the town, he introduces

a variety of historical figures, especially when discussing

Salem witchcraft.

The names of those involved in the trials are mentioned

by Hawthorne to give the sketch authenticity, and he lists

accused witches like George Jacobs, Senior; John Willard;

John and Elizabeth Proctor; Martha Carrier; and George

Burroughs. Those involved in trying or accusing the witches

(Sheriff Curwen, Chief Justice Sewall, the "afflicted children")

are also brought to the reader's attention.^ Hawthorne ig-

nores historical fact when he mentions the tormented fit of

"Mercy Parris, the minister's daughter." At the time of the

trials, Parris had only one daughter, Elizabeth, who was sent

away from the town shortly after its witchcraft troubles

began. The only juvenile in his family to take part in making

accusations with the other "afflicted children" was Parris'

niece, Abigail Williams.^ More than one girl named Mercy

was a "bewitched" child.Perhaps Hawthorne chose to

emphasize the behavior of the minister's daughter and to

46Works, III, 466-468. 1+7Starkey, p. 47.

^Ibid. , pp. 20, 257.

18

name her "Mercy" in order to point out the irony of the

merciless accusations made by children, and to indicate the

spread of witchcraft madness into the homes of the most pious.

Hawthorne again changes history by picturing John Proctor

and his wife Elizabeth in "Main Street" as senile Salemites

who went to death together, hand-in-hand, with courageous

devotion to each other. John Proctor was a vigorous and in-

dependent individual, not a feeble old man when he was exe-

cuted for witchcraft. His wife Elizabeth was sentenced to

hang, but her execution was suspended and she was eventually

pardoned.^ Hawthorne pictures the Proctors "as they go

tottering to the gallows" as pathetic victims of "Universal

Madness." He emphasizes the falseness of the charges made

against the Proctors by sarcastically paraphrasing the charges

made against "the pair of hoary reprobates who have whisked

up the chimney, both on one broomstick" and who have pur-

portedly "shown their withered faces at children's bedsides,

mocking, making mouths, and affrighting the poor little f t C A

innocents in the nighttime. u

Pathos is also achieved in "Alice Doane's Appeal" by a

combined use of fiction and history. The narrator of the

story confesses that in picturing'the events on Gallows Hill

he is trying to evoke compassion and sorrow. He describes

five individuals who represent those who died in 1692 on

**9Ibid. , pp. 198-202. 5QWorks, III, 468.

19

charges of witchcraft. The first two individuals are com-

posite figures, for the qualities assigned to them were

typical characteristics of many persons accused of witch-

craft. The first is a woman "in her dotage, knowing neither

the crime imputed her, nor its punishment.Old age was

a common characteristic of many accused of witchcraft—their

physical infirmities made them less able to defend themselves

in trials, less aware of the import of legal proceedings, and

more apt to be the subject of blame and suspicion. Hawthorne's

second witch is a woman "distracted by universal madness, till

feverish dreams were remembered as realities, and she almost

believed her g u i l t . M a n y of those confronted by the wild

behavior of the "afflicted children" and the incontestable

"proof" of spectral evidence became almost convinced of being

unwillingly guilty and in desperation confessed to uncommitted

53 crimes.

The other three individuals who. climb Gallows Hill in

"Alice Doane's Appeal" are patterned more closely after actual

individuals. Hawthorne's description of "One, a proud man

once, who was so broken down by the intolerable hatred heaped

upon him, that he seemed to hasten his steps, eager to hide

himself in the grave hastily dug at the gallows" may be a

sketch of John Proctor, who was hanged on the same day as the

5IIbid., XII, 293. 52Ibid.

3^Hansen, pp. 147-150.

20

last two witches in the story, Martha Carrier and George

Burroughs.Hawthorne's description, of "a caother who

looked behind, and beheld her peaceful dwelling; she cast •

her eyes elsewhere, and groaned inwardly yet with the

bitterest anguish, for there was her little son among the

55

accusers" suggests Martha Carrier. Carrier's sons did

testify against her (they were tortured until they accused

their mother of being a witch).^ Hawthorne makes Martha

Carrier an object of pity in "Alice Doane's Appeal"--a

distinctly different treatment than she was given in "Main

Street" and "Young Goodman Brown." The last figure in the

procession to Gallows Hill is Reverend George Burroughs.

Hawthorne writes, "I watched the face of an ordained pastor,

who walked onward to . . . death; his lips moved in prayer;

no narrow petition for himself alone, but etnbracing all his r *7

fellow sufferers and the frenzied multitude . . . Again,

history is used as a means of achieving realism and pathos.

Hawthorne was interested in the writings of Cotton Mather,

for they provided excellent insight into the workings of the

seventeenth century New England mind in supernatural and

theological matters. As a nineteenth century thinker, however,

Hawthorne could not interpret the witchcraft period through

Mather's eyes. What Mather saw as necessary action to thwart

Satan's activities in New England, Hawthorne interprets as 5 -Works , XII, 293. 55];bid, 56Burr, p. 363. 57Works, XII, 293-294.

21

"the frenzy of that hideous epoch.Writing as an artist,

not as a historian, Hawthorne describes (in "Alice Doane's

Appeal") Mather's intervention in the execution of five *

witches (Carrier, Burroughs, Willard, Proctor, and Jacobs)

in 1692. Before the executions, Burroughs, who had mounted

the -scaffold, repeated the Lord's Prayer. It was a common

belief that a witch or wizard could not pray. Burroughs

said the prayer flawlessly and movingly. His deportment and

the calm dignity of the rest of the condemned was so im-

pressive that the crowd became restless. Mather was present,

and to prevent a mob attempt to release the accused, he rode

into the crowd, telling the citizens to proceed with the

necessary executions.

Hawthorne refers to this historical incident in "Main

Street." He summarizes the situation and Mather's impromptu

speech saying, "Listen to wise Cotton Mather, who, as he sits

there on his horse, speaks comfortably to the perplexed

multitude, and tells them that all has been religiously and

justly done, and that Satan's power shall this day receive

its death blow in New England."^® In "Alice Doane's Appeal,"

Hawthorne characterizes Mather as "a friend of the fiend"

who was the "representative of all the hateful features of

his time; the one blood-thirsty man, in whom were concentrated

58Works, III, 20. 59Starkey, pp. 207-208.

60Works, III, 470.

22

those vices of spirit and errors of opinion that sufficed

to madden the whole surrounding multitude.

Hawthorne uses the history of witchcraft in New England

in a variety of ways. Trials, executions", actual events, and

citizens give his writings an aura of historical authenticity.

From reading histories and from his awareness of his own

family background, Hawthorne was able to glean interesting

plot elements and materials for character development and

motivation. Themes which are prevalent in Hawthorne's

writings are supplemented by his knowledge of history. Thus

the theme of the influence of the past on the present is a

part of The House of the Seven Gables in which seventeenth

century witchcraft casts a shadow across other generations.

Hawthorne's concern about the sin of willful separation of

an individual from his fellow men is a theme of witch tales

like "Young Goodman Brown" and "Main Street." Lack of faith

in others or inability to share in the general condition of

human society is a frequent theme in Hawthorne's writings.

In the history of Salem witchcraft trials, Hawthorne sees

the corrosive effects of fear and suspicion, for then "friend

JjLookedJ askance at friend, and the husband at his wife, and

the wife at him, and even the mother at her little child.; as

if, in every creature that God has made, they suspected a

, fLO witch or dreaded an accuser."

6IIbid., XII, 29b. 62Ibid.

23

From the past Hawthorne believed mankind could shape

a better future. The witch trials could teach "that the

influential classes, and those who take upon themselves to

be leaders of the people, are fully liable to all the passion-

ate error that has ever characterized the maddest mob."^3

In men like John and William Hathorne and Cotton Mather,

Hawtho:cne detected the strength of will and character which

can be a fatal flaw, making a man liable to error. Hawthorne

advocates that men acknowledge the shared sins and errors of

mankind and set up a "monument" to the witchcraft period

which is "sadly commemorative of the errors of an earlier

race, and not to be cast down, while the human heart has one

infirmity that may result in crime.

63Ibid. 64Ibid., XII, 295.

CHAPTER II

HAWTHORNE1S USE OF WITCHCRAFT PARAPHERNALIA

The paraphernalia of witchcraft (compacts with the

Devil, Black Sabbaths, familiar spirits, enchanted animals,

broomsticks, sacrilegious baptisms, and so forth) are notice-

able elements in Hawthorne's writings involving witchcraft

•and the Devil. Occasionally Hawthorne uses elements of white

witchcraft (harmless or magical witchcraft without the malefic

design of black witchcraft) as the basis of his work. In

some of his most striking literature, however, he uses tra-

ditional aspects of black witchcraft to develop characters,

plots, and themes. The author also introduces some elements

of black witchcraft because of their atmospheric qualities;

thev .evoke..£eel-ing-s- of horror, mystery, and suspense.

Hawthorne derived his knowledge of witchcraft from the

historical and theological treatments of witchcraft by seven-

teenth century New England ministers. The clergy of New

England had a thorough background in traditional English folk

tales and superstitions having to"do with the supernatural.^

They were also familiar with such popular and well-known

works on witchcraft as William Perkin's Damned Art of Witch-

crafty (1608), Josepri Glanvil's Saducismus Triumph at us (1.681),

•'•George L. Kittredge, Witchcraft in Old and New England (New York, 1929), pp. 363, 3%ZZ

Oh.

25

and Richard Baxter's Certainty of the Worlds of Spirits

(1691), not to mention the treatment of the Devil in Milton,

Calvin, and the Bible.2 Increase and Cotton Mather incor-

porated many of the traditional beliefs of witchcraft in

their writings, and in some cases they recorded the oz^iginal

twists in witchcraft doctrine which were invented by the

residents of the New World. From reading the Mathers and

other early New England theologians, Hawthorne gained a

familiarity with the elements of witchcraft-devil doctrine

which are prominent in his writings.

Various aspects of witchcraft doctrine became system-

atized on the continent in the fourteenth and fifteenth

centuries, and in England somewhat later. Accepted beliefs

about the Devil and his confederates were transported to the

New World by immigrating religious dissenters.^ Thus in New

England as well as in Old England, people sincerely believed

that the Devil's activities followed certain patterns and

were conducted in established ceremonies% The Witches'

Sabbath, for example, was considered to be the Devil's

version of "a combined religious service and business meeting,"

attended by devotees and converts to Devil worship J* Hawthorne

uses certain elements of the New England version of a Witches*

Sabbath in "The Hollow of the Three Hills," "The May-Pole of

^Hansen, pp. 52, 204, 230. "^Kittredge, p. 375.

4Ibid., p, 234.

26

Merry Mount," "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," and The Scarlet

Letter. Only in "Young Goodman Brown," however, does Hawthorne

use nearly all the traditional elements of the Black Sabbath

in his story. In the others he separates elements from the

Witches' Sabbath tradition and develops each element (be it

wild dancing, unholy baptism., a diabolic compact with the

Devil, or whatever) apart from the full context of the tra-

ditional Witches® Sabbath.

iDancing and feasting were considered to be important

aspects of the Black Sabbath by those who believed in witch-

craft. Many "eye-witness" descriptions of the *Black Sabbath

include details of orgiastic dances.^ One "witness" at a

Salem witch trial testified that he had "many times been

transported to places, where the witches were gathered to~

gether, and that he saw feasting and d a n c i n g . I n Puritan

tradition, according to Norris Yates, dance represents "col-

lective evil, . . . pagan sensuality, and lack of restraint."

In the witch, tradition dance is an integral part 6t Devil-

worship. Hawthorne uses a dance motif in several of his

witch tales to emphasize a surrender of body and soul to a

frenzied worship of evil.^ Reflecting the traditional/

^Rossell Hope Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology (New York, 19597* p- <+21,

6Upham, II, 533.

^Norris Yates, "Ritual and Reality: Mask and Dance Motifs in Hawthorne's Fiction," Philological Quarterly, XXXIV (January, 1955), 70. .

27

Puritan thinking about dance and the Devil, Hawthorne re-

marks in "The May-Pole of Merry Mount" that the. "wild

revelry" of the Merry Mounters seemed to Puritan on-lookers

to be comparable to the masques and dances of "those devils

and ruined souls with whom pPuritanj, superstition peopled

the black wilderness."®

The Merry Mounters dance around the may-pole, a "flower-

decked abomination," using it as an'altar . . . of worship"

like "bestial pagans" worshipping an "idol" in the interpre-

tation of Puritan observers.^ The may-pole is symbolic of a

misplaced devotion to frivolity and unreality. Worshipping

gay and thoughtless pleasure, the Merry Mounters conduct a

kind of Devil-worship in their forest revels. Endicott, the

Puritan leader, destroys the may-pole and ends the pagan

antics of Merry Mount. In doing so he saves two individuals,

Edith and Edgar, from the "systematic gaiety," "wild mirth,"

and "vanities" which worship of the may-pole entailed. Edith

and Edgar renounce the carefree existence they had previously

known when they join the Puritan band, and in so doing they

also escape "the fiend, and his bond slaves, the crew of

Merry Mount."*-0

The devil-dance motif in "My Kinsman, Major Molineux"

is developed by Hawthorne as he describes a fantastic midnight

^orks, I, 72. 9Ibid., pp. 80-81.

10Ibid., p. 78.

28

processional. The hero of the story, Robin, searches for

his uncle the best part of an evening and is finally told

that if he waits in a certain location his uncle will make

an appearance. While waiting Robin hears "the sounds of a

trumpet. In New England witchcraft tradition "the. sound

of a diabolic trumpet" summoned the society of witches to a

Sabbath.^ Robin, as he waits, observes a kind of diabolic

dance (really a parade or procession) which is preceded by

shouts, "frequent bursts of music from many instruments of

discord," and "wild and confused laughter." The music be-

comes a "tuneless bray" of "fearful wind-instruments" which

adds to the turmoil and confusion in the street where Robin

stands waiting with citizens of the town.^-3 Spectators are

illuminated by the glaring red light of torches, and in these

hellish surroundings Robin catches a glimpse of a strange

parade.

A procession of wild figures comes into view. Seeing

his tarred and feathered uncle, Major Molineux, as the chief

spectacle of the procession, Robin joins in the mad, hys-

terical laughter about him. His shout "was the loudest

there" when he joins in the spirit of the wild scene. The

procession's leader, a devilish figure with a two-colored

countenance, an "infernal visage," resumes the forward march.

"On they went, like fiends that throng in mockery around some

•L1-Ibid. , III, 636. I2Upham, p. 535. 13Works, III, 637,

29

dead potentate, mighty no more, but majestic still in his

agony. On they went, in counterfeited pomp, in senseless

uproar, in frenzied merriment, trampling all on an old man's

heart. Robin is swept up by emotional- strain into a

temporary alliance with the wild, senseless surrender to

evil which engulfs his fellow men. Although tempted previ-

ously the same evening by evil (the desire to strike rude

citizens and. the urge to succumb to a prostitute's charms),

Robin:surrenders to an evil impulse "only in a period of

community frenzy and demonic activity. The moment of temp-

tation and surrender passes, leaving Robin pale and shaken

by hi^ experience, yet nevertheless wiser for it. He desires

to go home--to the place where only love and innocence were

known to him but, as a street companion tells him, he cannot

return, "not to-night at least . . . ." Robin's experience

with evil has shown him to be a "shrewd youth" and with his

new awareness he "may rise in the world without the help of

1 5 his kinsman, Major Molineux."

Even in his writings which do not deal primarily with

witchcraft, Hawthorne often equates dance with Devil-worship

or with the forces of evil.^ Thus, in The Blithedale Ro-

mance, the community's members stage a masquerade party in

which music is provided by an individual disguised as the

Devil. The "Devil" quips that his music lures those who are

l4Ibid., p. 640. I5Ibid, p. 641. l6Yates, p. 66.

30

1 7

"always ready to dance to the Devil's tune.I,J_/ In their

forest setting the dancers take on imaginary characteristics

of the seventeenth century period. Hollingsworth looks like

"a Puritan magistrate holding inquest of life and death in a

case of witchcraft," Zenobia becomes "the sorceress herself,

not aged, wrinkled and decrepit, but fair enough to tempt

Satan with a force reciprocal to his own," and Priscilla

seems to be "the pale victim, whose body and soul had .been 1 8

wasted by . . . spells."™

A dance comprises a portion of The Marble Faun, too.

Miriam and Donatello initiate a frenzied, paganistic, im-

promptu celebration of life in a dance which, gay as it

appears on the surface, conceals a deeper "doom and sorrow.

The model, the Devil-figure of The Marble Faun, interrupts

the festivities by suddenly appearing before Miriam, dancing

wildly.20 in Hawthorne's writings dance scenes display the

discord, frenzy, unnatural mirth, and uncontrolled emotion

which are all indications of the dark recesses of men's souls

where the Devil reigns and demands worshipThe brotherhood

of evil is recognized in communal activities like dance or

the Black Sabbath in Hawthorne's works. 'Dance is thus associ-

ated with Devil-worship both in the context of the Witches'

Sabbath and by itself: 17Works, V, 559. ISlbid., p. 562..

19Ibid., VI, 110. 20Ibid.

31

-An unholy baptismal ceremony is another element of witch-

craft common in seventeenth century witchcraft theology and

associated, with the Black Sabbath.Deodat Lawson, a Salem

minister, recounts a diabolic baptism in which the Devil,

<the great officer of Hell^ took his converts and, "putting

their heads into water, said over them, 'Thou art mine, I

have full power over thee' and there upon they engaged and

convenanted to renounce God, Christ, their sacred baptism;

and the whole way of Gospel salvation . . . As Lawson

states, the Devil's baptisms were always profane parodies of

the Christian ceremony of baptism, and. they mimicked go? re-

9 9

versed portions of the holy rites. ^

Hawthorne describes satanic baptismal ceremonies in two

of his short stories, "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Hollow

of the Three Hills." In "Young Goodman Brown" the baptism

is a portion of the theme of the story and also serves as a

prop in the. Witches' Sabbath setting. Brown and his wife,

Faith, stand before the Devil waiting to be baptized. The

Devil, in a parody of the Christian ceremony, looks and

behaves like "some grave divine of the New England churches.

Brown observes a natural baptismal font where "a basin was

hollowed . . . in the rock." He wonders, "Did it contain

water, reddened by the lurid light? or was it blood? or, 1h

perchance, a liquid flame?"

2^Kittredge, p. 243. "'2Uphani, p. 436.

23Works, II, 102. 24Ibid . , p. 104.

32

'In witch tradition both in the Old and New World, the

Devil's mock-religious ceremonies always employed blood as

the liquid substitute for communion wine or holy water„25

The possibility that blood or liquid flame is to be used in

Brown's baptism adds a note of horror and suspense to

Hawthorne's story. In his burlesque of true religion, Brown's

Devil imitates the Christian ceremony of baptism by dipping

his hand into the unholy fluid as he "prepared to lay the

mark of baptism upon their foreheads, that they might be

partakers of the Eiystery of sin . . . in a reversal

of the Christian ceremony, Brown and his wife will "partake

of the mystery of sin" rather than the mystery of salvation.

Brown calls upon Faith to resist the awful ceremony, and with

his words the society of witches disappears. Had Brown sub-

mitted to a baptism by "the shape of evil" he would have

delivered his soul entirely to evil. As it is, his faith in

others is so shaken by the Devil that he surrenders to the

sins of doubt and lack of faith thus giving himself informally

to Satan. To renounce faith in God and one's fellow man is

to submit to the Devil.

The baptism of a character by the Power of Evil is an

element of "The Hollow of the Three Hills," also. In this

story Hawthorne does not use the full paraphernalia of the

Witches' Sabbath--the Devil does not personally attend the

"^Robbins, p. 415. ]_QZ+,

33

rites, and no community of sinners observes the ceremony.

In the story a young woman seeks supernatural aid from a

witch who conducts her craft in a hollow basin formed at the

foot of three hills. A pool of water stands in the middle of

the hollow creating a scenic backdrop similar to that used by

"the Power of Evil and his plighted subjects" where, "at mid-

night, . . . they were said to stand round the mantling pool,

disturbing its putrid waters in the preformance of an impious

baptismal rite."27

The young woman desires knowledge of her parents, her

husband, and her child, all of whom she sinned against by

neglecting her natural duties in a pursuit of unnatural and

selfish desires. She has violated the roles of child, wife,

and parent by having "defiled a holy love with a profane

Love,"28 according to William Stein. Her visit to the old

hag in the hollow is symbolic of a final surrender to evil.

She desperately wishes to know what has happened to those

whom she deserted. The young woman is willing to bargain with

her soul for a vision which will ease her remorse and guilt.

Told to kneel at the old woman's feet, and to place her

head on the witch's knees, the young woman allows her cloak

to dip into the pool. The wetting of her garment is a

27Ibid., I, 228-229.

28wiLliacn Bysshe Stein, Hawthorne's Faust, A Study of the Devil Archetype (Gainesville, Florida, 19^3), P« 6.

34

symbolic b a p t i s m . j n the act of seeking out the witch

for forbidden knowledge, she is giving her soul to the

Devil's representative. The young woman is rewarded with

three visions through the witch's spells. Each vision re-

veals a distinct result of sin~-grief (for her parents),

madness (for her deserted husband), and death (for the

abandoned child as well as herself.) The three hills, the

three irreparable wrongs committed by the young sinner, and

the three visions are all counter symbols of the Trinity

which is renounced by those making a pact with evil. Death

(and presumably damnation) are the results of this unholy

baptism, for with the last vision the Devil claims his due

and the witch, having accomplished her part in the ceremony,

remarks with pleasure, "Here has been a sweet hour's sport!"

The Witches' Sabbath was believed to be the Devil's

unholy version of Christian communion,3-*- One minister of

early New England described the Sabbath as an occasion when

witches were known "to hold and administer diabolical sacra-

ments; viz., a mock-baptism and a Devil supper, at which

cursed imitations of the sacred institutions of our blessed

Lord they used forms of words to be trembled at in the very

rehearsing . . , ."32 Hawthorne follows the traditional

29Ibid., p. 56.

^Clinton S. Burhams, Jr., "Hawthorne's Mind and Art in 'The Hollow of the Three Hills,'" Journal of English and German Philology, LX (April, 1961)7^51". '

S^Kittredge, p. 243. 3 2 Upham, p. 533.

35

description of the Black Sabbath in "Young Goodman Brown."

All the elements of a church service are imitated by the

participants of the DevilTs worship service, including music,

attendance by believers, and an address by a "minister" (who

is the Devil). At the commencement of the service a hymn is

sung to a familiar tune, but as Brown listens the verse is

"lengthened by a chorus, not of human voices, but of all the

sounds of the benighted wilderness pealing in awful harmony

together." The words of the hymn are "those to be trembled

at in the very rehearsing" for the melody is "joined to words

which expressed all that our nature can conceive of sin, and

darkly hinted at far more." The congregation is composed

not only of "grave, reputable, and pious people" of New

England, but also of "men of dissolute lives and woman of

spotted fame . . . „«33 The community of Fiend-worshippers,

in dark imitation of the righteous, take part in the Sabbath

activities with decorum and enthusiasm, responding appropri-

ately to the Minister-DevilT s address with a united "cry of

despair and triumph.

Converts were traditionally inducted by the Devil and

his society of evil at Witches' Sabbaths.In "Young

Goodman Brown," Brown and his wife, Faith, are the "proselytes

beneath the canopy of fire" who are to be received into an

unholy fellowship with the Devil and his congregation. Satan

33Works, II, 101-102 34Ibid., p, 101.

3~*Kittredge, p. 243.

36

traditionally makes his followers "fair (though false)"3^

promises of "riches arid pleasures as long as they live and

happiness in the world to come."37 Hawthorne's Devil makes

less prosaic bribes. He promises the proselytes another re-

ward for their transfer of allegiance from God. He guarantees

them supernatural gifts--the ability to know one's fellow

sinners, to recognize the guilt which all share, and to under-

stand the ability of the human soul to supply "more evil

impulses than human power—than Q:he Devil's powerj at its

upmost—can make manifest in deeds."3® Although Brown does

not finish the ceremony, the. Devil's promise is fulfilled.

After his Black Sabbath experience, Brown believes he can

"penetrate, in every bosom, the mystery of s i n . " 3 9

Jt was believed that witches used broomsticks to trans-

port themselves to and from Witches' Sabbaths J*® The flight

of witches on broomsticks was a traditional belief which

Hawthorne introduces in witch tales and historical sketches.

In "Main Street," for example, Hawthorne suggests that John

and Elizabeth Proctor must have shared a broomstick when

attending "a witch communion, far into the depths of the

chill, dark forest , , . . Away they went; and the laughter

of their decayed, cackling voices has been heard at midnight,

aloft in the a i r . M i s t r e s s Hibbins, the witch of The

36Ibid. 37Upham, p. 535.

38Works, II, 10**. 39Ibid.

^°Kittredge, p. 243. ^Works, III, 468.

37

Scarlet Letter, is also an attendant of Black Sabbaths.

Hawthorne describes her as she appears after a late-night

escapade, "with some twigs of the forest clinging to her

skirts, and looking sourer than ever, as having hardly got

• } f- o a wink of sleep after her night ride."

*Phe traditional broomstick element of witchcraft (and

the traditional theory of the practice of infanticide by

those dealing in witchcraft) is a part of "Young Goodman

Brown." Goody Gloyse complains to the Devil that her broom-

stick has been stolen, making it necessary for her to walk

to the Sabbath site. As she confides in her master, she

tells him of her preparations for the Sabbath by listing

her recipe for a magic ointment composed of herbs and "the

fat of the new-born babe."^3 Hawthorne sets the scene of

Brown's later disillusioning experiences quite effectively

with this combination of the ludicrous (the stolen broom-

stick) and the grotesque (the dead baby).

Broomsticks, magic ointments or preparations, and

cackling old hags are ancient aspects of witch tradition.^

Witch beliefs in the New World deviated from Old World

beliefs by adding original elements to the old paraphernalia

of witchcraft. Indians as Devil-worshippers and the folk-

tale of the Black Man in the forest are two such original

Zf2Works, V, 18k. k3lb±d., II, 94.

^Kittredge, p. 2k3.

38

elements. New Englanders as well as other seventeenth

century Christians considered pagans to be followers of the

Fiend, and the Indian population was believed to be the core

of Satanism in the New World.^ Cotton Mather wrote in his

introduction to Memorable Providences about the "Wigwams of

the. Indians . . . j wherej the pagan Powaws J sicTj often raise

their masters |~the devilsjl in the shapes of Bears and Snakes

and Fires . . . Hawthorne often introduces the Indian

element into his witch tales and novels for atmospheric

qualities and to add historical authenticity. In "Young

Goodman Brown," Brown thinks that he has overheard a conver-

sation between his minister and Deacon Gookin. The Deacon

comments that not only Puritans are joining the Devil's

forces, but also "several of the Indian powwows, who, after

their fashion, know as much deviltry as the best of us.

Among the congregation at the Witches' Sabbath, Brown ob-

serves "scattered also among their palefaced enemies . . .

the Indian priests, or powwows, who had often scared their

native forest with more hideous incantations than any known

to English witchcraft."^® In the demonic procession scene

of "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," Hawthorne mentions "wild

figures in the Indian dress" who follow the devilish figure

^Kittredge, p. 363. ^Burr, p. 99.

47Works, II, 97. 48Ibid., p. 101.

39

on horseback leading the march.^ In The Scarlet Letter,

Hawthorne suggests that Roger Chillingworth, "Satan's

emissary," had learned new medical skills from the Indians

and had joined, "in the incantations of the savage priests,

who were universally acknowledged to be powerful enchanters,

often performing seemingly miraculous cures by their skill

in the black art."5®

Along with the Indians, seventeenth century New England

folklore contributed the Black Man in the forest with his

pen, ink, and book to witchcraft tradition. The Black Man

became the Devil-type in American witchcraft doctrine. The

pen, ink, and book were all necessary items for signing a

compact with the Devil--an idea which was quite ancient.

The description of the Devil as the Black Mans however, was

a New World invention, created during the Salem witch exami-

nations by an accused witch. The "afflicted children"

adopted the fiction of the Black Man, describing him as a

gentleman from Boston, dressed all in black, who offered

luxuries and pleasure to all who would write their names

in his book.52 He customarily carried with him an iron pen

and an inkstand of blood along with his massive book in the

hopes that someone would be persuaded to give up his soul in

exchange for worldly pleasure. The Black Man (or the Devil)

49Ibid., ill, 468. 50Ibid., V, 156.

^Robbins, pp. 370-373. 52Hansen, p. 63.

i+o

made frequent appearances to the "afflicted children" of

Salem Village. Hawthorne refers to this crude concept of

the Devil in The Scarlet Letter, and then he identifies it

as a "common superstition of the period."^3

Pearl renders Hawthorne's version of the Puritan folk

tale.as she tells her mother of the evil figure who "haunts

this forest and carries a book with him—-a big, heavy book,

with iron clasps; and . . . this ugly Black Man offers his

book and an iron pen to everybody that meets him here among

the trees, and they are to write their names with their own

blood." Furthermore the Black Man "sets his mark on their Ch

bosoms" to seal the bargain. Hawthorne added the idea of

writing with one's own blood when contracting with the Devil

quite independently of the New England witch-tradition. The

traditional Black Man was never niggardly with his inkwell

of blood--he was too anxious to get signatures, ikawthorne's

version emphasizes the commitment one makes in contracting

with the Devil. To seal a bargain with one's, own blood is

to seal it eternally and unalterably^

Hawthorne modifies a traditional witch belief when ha

introduces the idea of an artificial mark (like the scarlet

letter) as a sign of a sealed bargain with Satan. Tra-

ditionally, the Devil marked his followers with a natural

mark Qa. blemish somewhere on the body) known as a "witch's

53Works, V, 222. 54Ibid.

41

55 mark" or "Devil's teat." In The Scarlet Letter, the

Devil's mark is an artificial rather than natural symbol of

sin which (according to the rumors of Hester's neighbors)

marks those who have sold themselves to the Devil. Dimmesdale

conceals his "Devil's mark" while Hester's is quite conspicuous.

In both cases, however, the mark is on the bosom so that the

painful emblem of sin continually sears the heart and reminds

the sinners of what they have lost by making an alliance with

evil.

Hester wears a flaming mark on her bosom in the form of

the scarlet letter. When Pearl insistently questions her

mother about the Black Man in the forest Hester admits that,

"Once in my life I met the Black Man! . . . This scarlet

56

letter is his mark." Although speaking in terms of witch-

craft doctrine, Hester recognizes the Black Man folklore as

"superstition" which appeals to chiluren and deranged old

women like Mistress Hibbins. A more subtle temptation than

those offered by the Black Man has resulted in Hester's

scarlet letter. Perhaps when she refers to her one encounter

with the Devil, the tempter, she is thinking of Arthur

Dimmesdale in the black garb of the minister with whom she

formed an emotional, physical, and immoral compact resulting

in the mark of sin--the scarlet letter.

^Hansen, pp. 77, 85. 56Works, V, 222.

42

Arthur Dimmesdale, too, acknowledges that he has been

tempted and is tempted again to yield to evil. He wonders

whether, perhaps unconsciously, he has transferred his alle-

giance from God to the Devil. When tempted to run away with

Hester, he finds himself beset with wicked impulses which he

resists only with difficulty. Horrified at his impious and

improper thoughts, Dimmesdale asks himself, "Am I mad, or

am I given over utterly to the fiend? Did I make a contract

with him in the forest, and sign it with my blood? And does

he now summon me to its fulfillment, by suggesting the per-

formance of every wickedness which his most foul imagination

can conceive?""^ Mistress Hibbins interprets the minister's

perplexity and. torment in witch tradition. She assures him

that he has, indeed, worshipped a "potentate," not during the

58

daylight hours, but "at midnight, in the forest." Hawthorne

rejects for the reader the contract-with-the-Devil theory

which Dimmesdale ponders. Dimmesdale has not participated in

a Witches1 Sabbath, or Devil compact. Rather, he has "yielded

with deliberate choice, as he had never done before, to what

he knew was deadly sin."^^

Yielding tfo a sinful impulse, even for a moment, is a

kind of instantaneous compact with the Eower of Evil. Robin

in ""My Kinsman, Major Molineux" yields for a moment and

unites in spirit with a demonic community. Young Goodman

o7Ibid., p. 222. 58Xbid., p p. 263-264.

59Ibid., pp. 264-265.

43

Brown, in promising to meet the Devil in the forest, has

entered a type of pact with the Fiend (he says himself that

he has "kept covenant" by showing up.)60 Furthermore, he

voluntarily joins che witch congregation"in the forest. In

making an inforaial corapact with evil and in joining (however

briefly) a community of willing sinners, Robin, Young Goodman

Brown, and Dimmesdale each undergo a feeling of brotherhood.

Robin sees his disgraced kinsman and is tortured by the sight,

yet he feels the "contagion" of the crowd and joins in its

laughter.^ Young Goodman Brown stands before the Devil-

worshippers and experiences "a loathful brotherhood by the

sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart.Dimmesdale,

after yielding to the temptation to run away from his guilt,

is beset by "scorn, bitterness, unprovoked malignity, and

gratuitous desire of ill," Sin educates him. to his "fellow-

ship with wicked mortals and the world of perverted spirits."^3

Hester, too, because of her sin feels a kinship with evil in.

others. "Sometimes the red infamy upon her breast would give

a sympathetic throb, as she passed near a venerable minister

or magistrate, the model of piety and justice . . . ."64

The Devil not only had great powers of temptation which

he employed in compacts to gain men's souls, but he also was

accredited with the ability to make miraculous transformations.

60Ibid., p. 265. 6lIbid., II, 91. 62Ibid., p. 102.

63Ibid., V, 265. 6**Ibid.

kk

The Devil could, for example, give animals supernatural

abilities.^ in "The May-Pole of Merry Mount" Endicott

orders the destruction of a dancing because its un- m

natural behavior is probably an indication of witchcraft.^

With the power to change the shapes of things the Devil could

create "familiar spirits" (or simply "familiars"). "Familiars"

were evil spirits in the forms of animals who served their

masters, witches or wizards, in the Devil's interests.^ The

snake-like walking stick of Young Goodman. Brown's Devil might

be considered a familiar spirit. The Devil's, staff "bore the

likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought that it

might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living

serpent."^® The serpentine stick appears to share the emotions

of its owner; when the Devil laughs with "a fit of irrepress-

ible mirth" the walking stick "actually seemed to wriggle in

s y m p a t h y . i t serves the Devil well, aiding him in making

a remarkably short trip fr-om Boston to the forest near Salem

Village (at a rate of at least fifteen or twenty miles in,

as the Devil tells Brown, fifteen minutes.)'7® When given to

Goody Cloyse to speed her journey to the Witches' Sabbath,

^Kittredge, p. 174. ^^Works, I, 81.

^Robbins, pp„ 190-191. ^%7orks, II, 91.

69ibid., p. 231»

^David Levin, "Shadows of Doubt: Specter Evidence in Hawthorne's 'Young Goodman Brown,'" American Literature, XXXIV (November, 1962), 347, . " !

45

the stick "perhaps . , - assumed life, being one of the rods

which its owner had formerly lent to the Egyptian magi." At

any rate it disappears to do the Devil's bidding and Goody

Cloyse disappears with it.^1

Nore significant than the Devil's ability to transform

animals by endowing them with supernatural spiritual life

was the Devil's ability (firmly believed in the seventeenth

century) to release the souls of his followers from their

bodies to afflict pious people.72 The disembodied souls or

spirits were known as "specters" or "shapes." During the

Salem witchcraft trials, testimony about specters and their

diabolic activities composed a great deal of evidence against

accused witches. Specters often appeared to invisibly torment

the "afflicted children."7^ Some seventeenth century New

England theologians maintained (as did Increase and Cotton

Mather) that the Devil could impersonate innocent people

against their will and without their knowledgeOthers,

like Deodat Lawson, maintained that it was the Devil's habit

with his witches to use "their bodies and minds, shapes and

representations, to affright and afflict others" with the

witches' full consent and cooperation.75 The problem was

whether specters and spectral evidence were merely the

Devil's tools for- incriminating the innocent, or whether (if

71Works, II, 95. 72Robbins, p. 190.

7^Hansen, pp. 140-144. k 74Levin, p. 364

75Upham, p. 79.

46

only the guilty could become specters) spectral evidence was *7 c

true proof of the practice of witchcraft by individuals.

Spectral evidence and shapes are elements of the witch-

craft tradition which Hawthorne uses. He was aware of the

importance of spectral evidence in the Salem witch trials

from his reading of New England histories, and he incorpo-

rates specters into his writings about the witchcraft period.

-n 'Jhe Scarlet Letter, for example, Dimmesdale is troubled

by a kind of spectral evidence; in this case evidence given

by shapes against the impurity of his own soul. Unlike the

traditional spectral appearances, created at the Devil's

instigation, Dimmesdale himself creates the shapes which

haunt him. Through self-torture, fasting, denial of sleep,

and relentless introspection he attempts to do penance for

his guilt and sin. Visions appear to him in his weakened

state, and the shapes he sees condemn him relentlessly. He

sees "a herd of diabolic shapes, that grinned and mocked;"

then "a group of shining angels;" a group of deceased friends;

his father "with a saint-like frown;" his mother, "turning

her face away;" and, finally, Hester Pyrnne and Pearl who

also reproach him as they appear. All of these "spectral

thoughts" haunt the minister, but he never accepts them as

realities; "none of these visions ever quite deluded h i m . " ^ 7

76Levin, p. 346. 77Works, V, 147.

47

The spectral appearances which molest Dimmesdale are

presented by Hawthorne as evidence of the minister's unhappy

mental state. In "Alice Doane's Appeal" spectx al evidence

is not a psychological manifestation of guilt, but rather

physical evidence of sin and its power to transform. Alice

is accused of committing a sin of which she is innocent. She

and her brother, Leonard, enlist the services of a wizard in

order to prove her innocence. In the Salem cemetery the

wizard raises the spirits of the damned (and the DevilTs

fiends) to act as witnesses and jurists during Alice's

"trial." A multitude of specters arise, both young and

old, humble and great. While some are "souls accursed,"

others are evil spirits "counterfeiting the likeness of'

departed saints."'7® The specters who have temporarily

inhabited the bodies of "departed saints" transform the

physical appearances of those whose aspects they employ.

The imposters give the countenances of pious men contorted

aspects of "intolerable pain or hellish passion, and now

jand thenj. . . an unearthly and derisive merriment."79

Hoping to swell the Devil's ranks with another victim, the

spectral multitude of "sinful souls and false specters of

good men" listens to Alice's appeal for vindication. The

specter of Alice's reputed partner in sin, Walter Brome,

78Ibid., XII, 290. 79Ibid.

48

testifies to her innocence and she triumphs over the Devil

and his confederates..

Spectral evidence is a matter of plot and theme in

another of Hawthorne's stories, "Young Goodman Brown."

Brown finds himself inundated with evidence (mostly of a

spectral nature) that evil is universal. Like inhabitants

of Salem in 1692, Brown finds his faith in his fellow man

severely shaken by the implications of spectral evidence.

He judges mankind on the basis of a strange, dream-like

forest experience. In the story Brown leaves Salem Village

early one evening on a journey into the forest. Soon he is

joined by a gentleman who, as the story progresses, turns

out to be the Devil himself. The Devil's purpose in meeting

Brown and conducting him through the forest is to persuade

Brown to become a witch--a feat which requires diplomacy,

verbal skill, and shock tactics,®*- The Devil's verbal

facility lures Brown into the depths of the forest, and the

Fiend has some success in "reasoning as we go" in order to

convince Brown not to turn back. When, however, Brown calls

upon his reserve strength against the power of temptation

(his trust in his wife, Faith), the Devil uses the shock of

spectral evidence to accomplish his purpose.

The first "shape" or "specter" to appear is Goody Cloyse,

She greets the Devil with appellations of "old friend" and

^Ibid., p. 292. ^Levin, p. 348,

49

"your worship" while Brown listens to their conversation.

Goody Cloyse (or her spectral shape) comments on the Devil's

successful physical imitation of "Goodman Brown, the grand-

father of the silly fellow that now is."8^ The Devil has,

in fact, become the "very- image" of Brown1 s ancestor. If

the Devil can impersonate the dead, he can just as easily

allow the living to be impersonated, but Brown does not

reason that the old woman who looks like Goody Cloyse may

be as false a specter as the Devil is in looking like the

former Goodman Brown.83 Although he had previously acknow-

ledged her a "very pious and exemplary dame," Brown rejects

a lifetime evaluation of Goody Cloyse1s character and judges

her to be a witch. To the Devil he remarks that she is a

"wretched old woman" who has chosen "to go to the devil when

I thought she was going to heaven . . . wn84

Although his faith in Cloyse is gone, Brown refuses to

accompany the Devil any longer and the Devil departs. Brown,

resolves to go no further, lest he do something which ha

would be ashamed to admit before those two keepers of his

faith and conscience, his minister and Deacon Gookin. Immedi

ately after he thinks of those two gentlemen, Brown hears

their spectral voices-as they ride by him, hidden from view.

Despite the fact that they pass within a few feet, "neither

the travelers nor their steeds are visible." And although

82Works, XI, 94. "Levin, d. 3kS.

50

"their figures brushed the small boughs by the wayside,rv

Brown cannot discern "so much as a shadow" where the

85

travelers are passing. Even though the riders are in-

visible, Brown is convinced that the voices he hears dis-

cussing the night1s Witches' Sabbath belong to the Salem

minister and Deacon Gookin. Once again spectral evidence

shakes his faith in his fellow men and cr-eates such a deep

doubt that Brown, "overburdened with the heavy sickness of

his heart," is quite ready to doubt "whether there was a

heaven above him."8**

Brown recovers himself sufficiently to declare, "With

heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against

87

the devil." No sooner does he mention Faith's name than

he receives another shock. A "black mass of cloud" passes

overhead from which spectral voices seem to emanate. As

Brown listens he fancies that he can recognize not only the

voices of the townspeople, both "pious and ungodly," but

also the voice of Faith. "There was one voice, of a young

woman, uttering lamentations, yet with an uncertain sorrow,

and entreating for some favor . . . and all the unseen multi-

tude, both saints and sinners, seemed to encourage her on-

ward."®^ With this last spectral manifestation of unfaithful-

ness and hypocrisy from the ones he trusted and deemed holy 85Ibid., pp. 96-97. 86Ibid., p. 97.

87Ibid., p. 98. 88Ibid.

51

(and the appearance of a pink ribbon like Faith's), Brown

rushes off to the Black Sabbath in despair, ,

At the Sabbath, Brown's conception of universal evil—

"There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name"—is further

strengthened by the observation of an impressive congregation

89

of Devil-worshippers. Brown sees many familiar faces and

shapes as he waits for the baptismal ceremony to begin, He

thinks that he can recognise fellow Salem Church members,

and he fancies that he can make out the shapes of the dead

as well. "He could have well-nigh sworn that the shape of

his own dead father beaconed him to advance, looking downward

from a smoke wreath, while a woman, with dim features of

despair, threw out her hand to warn him back. Was it his

mother?"9® His last hope is that his wife, Faith, has re-

sisted what apparently no one else had the strength to resist.

The last hope is shattered when Faith appears as his fellow

convert to the worship of Satan.

Whether or not Faith and the others really are Devil-

worshippers, or whether or not their shapes or specters are

taken over by impersonating fiends, Brown believes that his

forest experience means that his fellow "Christians" are

merely Devil-worshippers in disguise. The Devil contends

that all those whom Brown and Faith have "deemed . . ,

holier than yourselves" are. "all in my worshipping

89Ibid., p. 99. 90Ibid., p. 102.

52

assembly.Whether they are real or not, Brown accepts

the shadows, shapes, and indistinct voices of his experience ,

as almost conclusive proof that "Evil is the nature of man-

kind. He comes to fear that there is no good in mankind

and gives way to sternness, sadness, and dark distrust. His

loss of faith which begins with the forest experience and

spectral evidence continues until his gloomy, despairing death.

Other elements of witch tradition such as image-magic

can be found in Hawthorne's writings. Image-magic concerns

the ancient belief that a doll or* figure made by a witch to

represent an enemy could be mistreated in order to induce

sympathetic torments in the person which the figure repre-

s e n t s . ^ Hawthorne refers to harmless image-magic when he

introduces it as a witchcraft element in his works. In

"Faathertop: A Moralized Legend" image-magic is practiced

by Mother Rigby, a witch. She creates a figure from a scare-

crow, old rags, and a magic pipe* The figure becomes life-

like as she plies her magic art and praises her own creation,

"Thou art so beautiful, that, by my troth, I love thee better

than any witch's puppet in the world; and I've made them of

all sorts—clay, wax, straw, sticks, night fog, morning mist,

sea foam, and chimney smoke."9^ Pearl in The Scarlet Letter

practices another sort of image-magic. Like Mother Rigby,

9IIbid., p. 103. 92Ibid.t p. 10k.

93Kittredge, p. 73. 9\rorlcs, II, 263.

53

she can alter and influence her environment in supernatural

ways. Hawthorne alludes to the image-magic tradition in

describing Pearl's strange personality:

The spell of life went forth from her ever-creative spirit, and communicated itself to a thousand objects, as a torch kindles a flame wherever it may be applied. The unlikeliest materials--a stick, a bunch of rags, a flower--were the puppets of Pearl's witchcraft, and., without undergoing any outward change, became spirit-ually adapted to whatever drama occupied the stage of her inner worid.95

Both Mother Rigby and Pearl are creative in their use of

image-magic. Mother Rigby creates a fantastic "gentleman"

whose reality is really a figment of the imagination.

Pearl's "witchcraft" is also imaginative. Hawthorne alters

tradition by allowing image-magic to be concerned with the

magic of mental creativity and imagination rather than the

physical destruction of the seventeenth century witch doctrine.

Pearl is described by Hawthorne (through his characters)

in the traditional terms of the witch-devil doctrine. Mr.

Wilson wonders if the little girl is "one of those naughty

elfs or fairies" of old English tales, and he roundly de-

clares that "the little baggage hath witchcraft in her . . .

she needs no old woman's broomstick to fly withall"^ SJsing

the witch tradition Hawthorne introduces the old theory that

the Devil could father half-human, half-demonic children to

add a chilling note to his portrayal of Pearl, the unnaturaL

95I.bid., V, 120. 96Ibid., p. 136.

5k

product and emblem of sin.^ Hester observes her daughter's

peculiarities and remembers with "a smile and a shudder" the

gossip of her neighbors over the possibility that Pearl "was

a demon offspring."^ Mistress Hibbins assures the child

that she is of the "lineage of the Prince of the Air" and

Pearl revels in the idea.99 Pearl is a firm believer in the

witch tradition; she is interested in the Black Man in the

forest, Witches* Sabbaths, Devil's compacts and, like Cotton

Mather, she believes that the Devil can raise storms to

afflict his enemies.*-®®

Hawthorne uses the traditional aspects of black witch-

craft for a variety of purposes. »Historical authenticity,

for example, is added to his works which have their settings

in the Puritan era by the inclusion of common Puritan witch

and Devil superstitions regarding specters, broomsticks, the

Black Man in the forest, and so forth. Such superstition and

folk myth also provide the atmosphere of horror and suspense

which Hawthorne tries to achieve in witch tales like "Alice

Doane's Appeal," and "The Hollow of the Three Hills." While

he uses the witchcraft-devil doctrine of the seventeenth

century for literary effects and for plot elements, Hawthorne

always develops deeper concepts in his writings than are con-

tained in crude witch tradition. Thus from the elements of

9^Ibid., p. 118. ^^Ibid., p. 124.

"ibid., p. 288. I00Ibid. , p. 291.

55

witchcraft--BLack Sabbaths, Devil's compacts, demonic dances,

and unholy baptisms--Hawthorne derives material which deals

with the nature of temptation, the consequences of sin, the

community of evil, and the result of doubt or lack of faith

in others.

CHAPTER III

HAWTHORNE'S CHARACTERIZATION OF THE

DEVIL AND DEMONICS

The Devil (or a figure representing the Devil) is a

character in a number of Hawthorne's stories. Hawthorne's

interest in early New England history and folklore influenced

his use of the Puritan conception of the Devil. In developing

the Puritan Devil in his witch tales and The Scarlet Letter,

Hawthorne was attempting to present accurately his ancestors'

intense belief in the reality of Satan, thereby clarifying

the character and beliefs of the early New Englanders. In

all of his works which mention the Archfiend, even those

which do not deal primarily with the Puritan era, Hawthorne k>

uses the character of Satan to represent evil, sin, and

temptation.1 Many of his characters, while not really devils,

possess demonic qualities, thus revealing the partially Sa-

tanic nature of all mankind.

Hawthorne's familiarity with tne Puritan mind allowed him

to combine three conceptions of the Devil--the Miltonic concept

of Satan as a magnificent fallen angel, the Calvinistic concept

of the Devil as a "depraved, vicious, malignant, and mis-

chievous" enemy of God and man,1 and the New England folklore

^John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans-lated by John Allen, I (Philadelphia, 1936), 192.

56

57

concept of the Black Man. As Marion Starkey says, the Black

Man was commonly regarded as a sort of "poltergeist . . . or ^

comic devil of the early miracle plays . . . ubiquitious,

and as such damnably dangerous and eternally a nuisance, but

as little dignified as the worm that eats the g a r d e n . A l l

three Puritan conceptions of the Devil are interrelated and

interdependent. Hawthorne accepted or rejected elements of

the three on the basis of whether or not they were suitable

for the development of the psychological and moral signifi-

cance of the satanic figure in each work.

Both the Miltonic and Galvinistic treatments of Satan

describe him as a fallen angel. In !!Young Goodman Brown,"

Hawthorne follows Puritan tradition as he mentions the "once

angelic nature" of Brown's Devil.^ Milton wrote about Satan

more sympathetically than Calvin, and Hawthorne's treatment

of the Devil in "Young Goodman Brown" bears some similarity

to Milton's concept of Satan in Paradise Lost. In Milton's

epic poem, Satan observes the activities of Adam and Eve in

the Garden of Eden and pities the pair as he thinks of the

unhappiness in store for mankind.^ The Devil in "Young

Goodman Brown," appearing with the dark majesty and dignity

of Milton's Satan, addresses his human followers "in a deep

^Starkey, pp. 241-242. ^Works, III, 104.

^John Milton, The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton, edited by George Bush (Boston, 1965), pp. 283-284. ~

58

and solemn tone, almost sad with its despairing awfulness,

as if he . . . could yet mourn for our miserable race."^

Another similarity between Milton's Paradise Lost and

Hawthorne's treatment of the satanic can be found in the

graveyard scene of "Alice Doane's Appeal." Like the fallen

angels of Paradise Lost, the "sinful souls and false spectres

of good men" called to witness Alice's "trial," mourn the

loss of Heaven. Hawthorne's damned spirits "groaned horribly

and gnashed their teeth, as they looked upward to the calm

loveliness of the midnight sky, and beheld those homes of

bliss where they might never dwell."0

The Devil in "Young Goodman Brown" possesses character-

istics of both the Miltonic and Calvinistic Devil. The. power-

ful persuasiveness of his personality, his strength of will,

and his leadership of a hellish group of followers are Miltonic.

But like Calvin's Satan, Brown's Devil "opposes Divine truth

with lies; obscures the light with shades of darkness; and

involves the minds of men in errors," all for the purpose of

"plunging mankind with himself into eternal destruction."7

In Hawthorne's story, Young Goodman Brown seems to have a pre-

disposition to sin and doubt which paves the way for the Devil's

endeavors to achieve Brown's spiritual corruption. Brown is

5Works, II, 10k. 6Ibid., XII, 291.

^Calvin, p. 192.

59

already disposed to believe that the nature of mankind is

evil, for he accepts unsupported statements as fact, half-

truths .in the place of the complete truth, and spectral

evidence for substantial proof.

Brown's Devil, in the best Puritan tradition, has a

powerful gift for distorting truth. "When Brown begins his

journey into the forest near Salem, he feels some trepi-

dation about the perils of his undertaking. The Devil

appears, and Brown tries to revoke his promise to accompany

his companion by protesting that his ancestors never made

such a journey. The Devil's smooth rejoinder that both

Brown's father and grandfather were "my good friends" is

accepted by the young man with hardly a murmur of dissent.

The Devil suggests that the persecution of the Quakers and

Indians by earlier Browns is evidence of their total cor-

ruption, and Brown acquiesces to such partial and unproven

"fact" with surprising ease, saying mildly, "If it be as thou

sayest . . . I marvel they never spoke of these matters . , .

When Brown contends that "we are a people of prayer, and good

works to boot, and abide no such wickedness," the Devil intro-

duces another amazing bit of "evidence" to prove that, in David

Levin's words, even "the best men are wholly evil."-1-0 Brown is

8Works, II, 92. 9Ibid.

"'"• Levin, p. 3*4-8.

60

informed that the most prominent citizens of New England—

deacons, selectmen, jurists, the governor and even (by

inference) Brown's own minister—are the Devil's followers.

This statement amazes Brown somewhat, bat he recovers quickly

with the rationalization that he is too simple to comprehend

the complex activities of governors, councils, and so forth.

The young man is stunned by the Devil's implication of Devil

worsh5.p on the part of the minister. The hint that the village

minister is totally evil also "nettles" Brown, bat mostly be-

cause the devil laughs at his naivete rather than because Brown

resents an insult to his spiritual leader.

Deceit is one of the Devil's tools' in "Young Goodman

Brown" as he provides Brown with spectral voices,thalf-truths,

and rhetoric which Brown accepts. After calling the members

of the human race his "children," the Devil claims that the

nature of man is totally and irredeemably evil. Speaking

mournfully, the Devil urges his followers to accept the sad

"truth" of human existence—happiness is found in sinning, the

human heart supplies more evil impulses than the Devil can

effect, and mankind reaches its only true communion in the

brotherhood of evil.^ Brown's Devil, however, is speaking

as the Father of Lies. In saying that evil is the nature,

destiny, and happiness of mankind, he lies while speaking a

partial, truth. "For virtue is not, to Hawthorne," as Curtis

11-Works, IX, 92. 12Ibid., p. 10*+.

61

Dah.1 says, "merely a dream, and happiness is not (as 'The

Maypole of Merry Mount' explicitly urges) to be found only

in evil. Yet, though we are not wholly the children of Satan,

it is the destiny of mankind to sin, and that which distin-

guishes man from the angels and makes him. what he is, is the

admixture of evil in his n a t u r e . S i n c e the Devil in

"Young Goodman Brown" is a corrupted spirit, he cannot voice

any doctrine but one of doubt, sin, and lack of faith. The

Devil declares that he has "undeceived" the human race, but

in truth he has only led his followers (as he has Brown) into

negation of the good in man by total acceptance and appro-

bation of the evil.

In "Earth's Holocaust" another type of Devil makes an

appearance and philosophizes on the nature of man.. This

Devil, darkly conspicuous among a group of human sinners, acts

as an unsavory oracle of truth instead of a perpetrator of lies.

In the story, the citizens of the world attempt to destroy all

objects of vice, temptation, and human error in a gigantic

bonfire. While watching the blaze, a few grieving sinners are

joined by a malicious and mischievous Devil with fiery eyes

and a dark complexion. Rather than being saddened by man's

imperfect nature like Brown's Devil, this Fiend regards the

foolish attempt to create a world without evil as quite enter-

taining. He remarks that the whole concept of destroying evil

• ^ C u r t i s Dahl, "The Devil Is A Wise One," Ci.th.ara, VI (1967), 52,

62

is a joke, for he has "stood by this livelong night and

laughed in my sleeve at the whole business." Joyously he

proclaims that after the holocaust, "it will be the old world

yet."^ Voicing Hawthorne's attitude toward attempts to re-

form human nature, the Devil declares,

There's one thing that these wiseacres have forgotten to throw into the fire, and without which all the rest of the conflagration is just nothing at all; . . . . What but the human heart itself? . . . and, unless they hit upon some method of purifying that foul cavern, forth from it will reissue all the shapes of wrong and misery--which they have taken such a vast deal of trouble to consume to a s h e s 11-5

This Devil's common sense approach to evil, his undignified

and colloquial language, his rough humor and fierce appearance

are all elements of the New England folklore tradition of

Satan. His conception of sin and human nature (while trans-

muted and redeveloped by Hawthorne) is quite Calvinistic.

The Devil tradition in the form of the Puritan Black Man

also has its place in Hawthorne's fiction. The Black Man is

mentioned by Hawthorne in The Scarlet Letter as a sort of

regional myth which frightened or entertained children like

Pearl and fascinated slightly demented old ladies like Mistress

Hibbins. Since the Puritans of the seventeenth century New

England commonly referred to Satan as "the Black Man," Hester

and Dimmesdale often employ the term, too, but in a much more

serious context than the folk tradition which Pearl and Mistress

l4Works, II, 455. 1 5 Ibid.

63

Hibbins enjoy. For example, after meeting Hester in the

forest and planning to leave New England, Dimmesdale goes

through a series of moral crises. He considers natural and

supernatural explanations fox- the sudden desire to behave

wickedly. He first considers a natural reason for his ir-

rational impulses and asks himself, "Am I mad?" Then he

considers the supernatural, "Am I given over utterly to the

fiend? Did I make a contract with him in the forest?

- - . ,"16 Of course he did not, but the myth of the Black

Man provides the terminology of sin and temptation for

Dimmesdale in his perplexity. Similarly, Hester speaks to

Chillingworth in prison shortly before she is released. His

sinister language and behavior disturbs her, and she asks him,

"Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round

about us?" Her conception of evil is also expressed in terms

of Puritan folk tradition.*-7

Another Devil in the folklore tradition is the German

Jew in "Ethan Brand." From the Middle Ages the figure of the

demonic, dark Jew who is portrayed as being less than human or

anti-human has dominated folklore.1 The Jew has long been

identified with the Devil.Although Hawthorne does not refer

I6Ibid., V, 263. I7Ibid., p. 100.

l®James J. Lynch, "The Devil in the Writings of Irving, Hawthorne, and Poe," New York Folklore Quarterly, VIII (Summer, 1952), 120. .

64

to the German in his story as the Devil, there are several

clues to his identity. The Jew, like the Wandering Jew who

denied Christ and was doomed to roam the earth eternally, is

a continual traveler. He displays a diorama containing scenes

of Napoleon's battles and Nelson's sea fights to village people

in order to make, a living. The Jew invites Brand to look in

the diorama. Brand takes one startled look and mutters, "I

remember you now . . . JJ- 3*s x>evil whora he finally

recognizes in the assumed form of an itinerant showman. Brand

thought that he had left the Devil behind him in his quest for

the Unpardonable Sin, but he is confronted again by the Evil

One. The Jew tells Brand, with a dark smile, "I find it to

be a heavy matter in my showbox,--this Unpardonable Sin! By

my faith, Captain, it has wearied my shoulders, this long day,

to carry it over the mountain."2® The Devil's claim that he,

too, finds the Unpardonable Sin a heavy burden meets a scornful

x-eply from Brandy who considers himself the most extraordinary

sinner of all. He threatens the Jew, saying "Peace . . . or

get thee into the furnace y o n d e r I T h e furnace is the place

where Brand originally evoked the Devil and it is also the

most comfortable habitat for the Fiend. Brand treats the folk

Devil with appropriate contempt and lack of respect.

Hawthorne uses some elements of conventional Christian

doctrine in works in which the Devil or characters who resemble

L9Works, III, 491. 20Ibid. 21Ibid.

65

the Devil appear. The serpent, for example, is traditionally

associated with evil in general and with Satan in particular,,

In some of Hawthorne's fiction the serpent motif merely identi-

fies the Devil or a devilish character whom Hawthorne wants

the reader to associate with the Arch-fiend. In "Young Goodman

Brown," the grave gentleman whom Brown meets and accompanies

through the forest has a remarkable walking stick which is

carved like a snake and wriggles like a living creature.

Hawthorne refers to the stranger as "he of the serpent " thus

suggesting Satan in Eden and identifying the personage as the

Devil. In The Blithedale Romance, "Westervelt, the novel's

mesmerist-villain, is associated with the Devil by his darkly

sinister appearance and his use of a "stick with a wooden

head, carved in vivid imitation of that of a serpent."22

Westervelt is not the Puritan Devil, but he has traits which

reveal a devilish personality.

CPhe serpent is often associated with temptation, for

Biblical tradition recounts the temptation of Eve by Satan in

the form of a serpent in the Garden of Eden* Hawthorne, too,

equates the serpent with the Tempter. In The Scarlet Letter,

it is the "tempter of souls" who tantalizes Hester Prynne with

the thought that she might someday be united with Dimmesdale.

The very thought of her past relationship with Dimmesdale

struggles "from her heart, like a serpent from its hole" to

22Ibid., V, 424.

66

tempt her anew as she strives to renounce her s i n s . 2 3 Roger

ChilLingworth adopts Satan's old role as tempter by laboring

to lure Arthur Dimmesdale into damnation. Even before he

takes up his diabolic scheme against the minister's soul,

Chillingworth' s satanic natux*e is revealed by the use of snake

imagery. When the physician sees his wife, Hester, after a

long separation, she is wearing a scarlet letter—the stigma

of adultery. His shock and fury are mirrored on his face by

"a writhing horror which twisted itself across his features,

like a snake gliding swiftly over them, and making one little

24

pause, with all its wreathed involutions in open sight."

In another novel, The Marble Faun, Miriam's model is a Devil-

figure who endeavors to tempt his victims into mortal sin.

Haunting Miriam and Donatello, who hate hint with equal amotion,

the model finally succeeds in accomplishing his own death and

their downfall. The sin they share in murdering the model binds

them together "for time and eternity, like the coil of a ser-

pent."25

-temptation results in sin according to Christian tradition,

and original sin was committed at the Devil's instigation while

he lurked in the Garden in serpentine disguise* Sin and satanism

are associated with snake imagery in "Egotism; or the Bosom

Serpent." In the story, Roderick Elliston, like the puritan

Devil, transforms himself into a serpent* Elliston has indulged

23Ibid., p. 103. 2IfIbid., p. 82. 25Ibid., VI, 205.

67

in unlicensed self-love or egotism. The sin of this mis-

placed pride and self-devotion is embodied in a diabolic

snalce which grows inside Ell is ton's body. Unable to forget

himself for a moment, Elliston nurtures the growth of his

inner fiend- Soon the snalce in his bosom usurps Elliston1 s

human properties until he walks with the undulating motion of

a snake, his eyes glitter, and he speaks with a hiss in his

v o i c e . I n another story, "Feathertop; a Moralized Legend,"

Mother Rigby appears to be a harmless old crone. Anger, how-

ever, arouses her diabolic nature which is displayed "like a

snake's head, peeping with a hiss out of her bosom . . . ."27

Elliston and Rigby are both devoted Devil-worshippers, as their

reptilian characteristics suggest.

fhe serpent in the Garden of Eden is credited with having

used guile, subtlety, and falsity to fascinate Eve ana tempt

her4 The satanic-types in Hawthorne's fiction often exercise

a strong serpentine fascination over their intended victims.

In The House of the Seven Gables, the villainous and diabolic

Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon creates a deceptive and overpowering

atmosphere of benevolence "very much like a serpent, which,

as a preliminary to fascination, is said to fill the air with

his peculiar odor" in order to victimize the weak or innocent.

Similarly, in The Marble Faun, Miriam is entranced by the model,

26Ibid., II, 30k. 27Ibid., p. 260.

28Ibid., III, 103.

68

a demonic individual who exerts a "sadly mysterious fasci-

nation" much like that which "beasts and evil natures some-

times exercise on their victims."^9

Taking his analogy of sin, the serpent, and the Devil

to further lengths, Hawthorne draws a comparison between the

"sting" or bite of a snake, and the infusion of sin into man's

soul. Thus when Roger Chillingworth, "Satan's emissary,"

offers to ease the pain which Dimmesdale suffers, Dimmesdale's

agony is described as the "secret sting of remorse" which has

a kind of "painful efficacy" in it. Chillingworth's role as

fiend and physician allows him to infuse a "deadlier venom"

as he attempts to snare Dimmesdale into dying with his sins

unforgiven and unatoned.^® Roderick Elliston's bosom serpent

(which is egotism metamorphosed into a living creature) stings

him relentlessly. Nor does Elliston suffer the pangs of un-

repentant sin alone. His serpent has an affinity for all the

other bosom serpents in fellow sinners. Elliston greets the

brotherhood of evil in his community by recognizing and making

public the inner demons of others, "thus making his own actual

serpent--if serpent there actually was in his bosom—the type

of each man's fatal error, or hoarded sin, or unquiet con-

science, and striking his sting so unremorsefully into the

29Ibid., VI, 115. 30lbid.t V, 201.

69

sorest spot, we may well imagine that Roderick became the

pest of the city."^

Ihe Devil in Puritan tradition and folklore is character-

istically described as a dark and fearsome figure. The Puritan • I"

Satan is dark because he has lost the celestial radiance of

Heaven1s angels. The blackness or darkness of the traditional

Devil also suggests hidden danger, gloom, and mystery. In the

Black Man folk myth of Puritan New England, superstitious

citizens assumed that the dark forest was the appropriate haunt

of the sinister black Tempter* Hawthorne uses color symbolism

when charactei-izing the Devil and those demonic characters who

are imitative of the Prince of Darkness. The Devils in "Young

Goodman Brown" and "Earth's Holocaust" are both dark in com-

plexion as well as in thought, ^he darkness of the spirit

inhabiting the physical shell of the body pervades not only

the Devils themselves, but also the thoughts and actions of

those humans they encounteri Thus, in The Blithedale Romance,

Professor Westervelt looks like the prototype of Satan with

black hair, eyes, clothes, serpentine staff, and a glimmering

gem, a "living tip of fire" set in'a stick pin and suggestive

of the flames of Hell.32 Westervelt has the dark personality

of Satan, too, which pervades men's thoughts with gloom, des-

pair, and cynicism. Coverdale finds that a brief discussion

3LIbid., II, 314. 32Ibid., V, k2k.

70

with the Professor creates "the skeptical and sneering view

which, just now had filled my vision, in regard to all life's

better purposes," for Westervelt's speech and attitude

"smothers what it can of our spiritual aspirations, and makes

the rest ridiculous." Westervelt, as a kind of modern Lucifer,

squelches faith in mankind and hope for the improvement of

man's nature through his "cold skepticism" and his ability to o o

make evil attractive. J

Westervelt1s dusky splendor resembles that of Milton's

Satan, but Roger Ghillingworth is presented by Hawthorne as

the counterpart of the Puritan Black Man. Pearl continually

calls Ghillingworth "the old Black Man," referring not only

to his somber dress but also to his dark and evil countenance Oh

which corresponds to the familiar devil legend. Hester

Prynne makes an analogy between Ghillingworth and the Devil

when she asks him whether the promise he has extorted from

her not to reveal his identity is a Devil^s pact, a "bond that

will prove the ruin of my soul."3~* As his countenance and

expression become murkier, Ghillingworth's superstitious ac-

quaintances suspect that the "fire in his laboratory had been

brought from the lower regions, and was fed with infernal fuel;

and so, as might be expected, his visage was getting sooty from

the s m o k e . F o r Ghillingworth, like the traditional Satan,

33Ibid., p. *+35. 34lbid., p- 164.

3^Ibid., p. 100. 3^Ibid., pp. 155-156.

71

sin effects a discoloration of both the physical appearance

and the spirit.

In much of Hawthorne's writing, the Devil and sin are

almost synonymous concepts., and black is the hue which Hawthorne

uses to suggest deviltry, evil, and sin.- Another color which

represents satanism or demonism in Hawthorne's fiction is red,

the traditional color of passion. The product of HesterTs

passionate and unsanctified love affair is a demonic little

creature named Pearl, who is the physical counterpart of the

scarlet letter. Hawthorne characterizes her as "an imp of

evil, emblem and product of sin."^ She has an unearthly way

of running so that her toes scarcely touch the ground, giving

an illusion of flight. Even as an infant her eyes seem to

hold an expression of evil, mirth, and mischief befitting a

small fiend rather than a normal child. Pearl often mumbles

strange words or makes "shrill, incoherent exclamations" which

sound like "a witch's anathema in some unknown tongue."38 .11

of these peculiar characteristics of the child are the result

of vivid passion and somber sin: "The mother's impassioned

state had been the medium through which were transmitted to

the unborn infant the rays of its moral life; and, however

white and clear originally, they had taken the deep stains of

crimson and gold, the fiery lustre; the black shadow."39

37Ibid. , p.. 118. 38Ibid., p. 119.

39Ibid.

72

Pearl's pure nature has been corrupted because her parents

succumbed to the Tempter in the form of illicit love.

Another demon in Hawthorne's writing is a composite

fiend of scarlet passion and dark sin. The Devil-figure in

"My Kinsman, Major Molineux" displays a "fierce and varie-

gated countenance," for "one side of the face blazed an in-

tense red, while the other was black as midnight, the di-

vision line being in the broad bridge of the nose; and a

mouth which seemed to extend from ear to ear was black or

red, in contrast to the color of the cheek." The monstrous

creature seems to be composed of "two individual devils, a

fiend of fire and a fiend of darkness . . . . According

to Calvin, Satan continually "stirs up animosities, and

kindles contentions and wars . . . . Appropriately, the

demonic figure in this story appears "like war personified;

the red of one cheek was an emblem of fire and sword; the

blackness of the other betokened the mourning that attend

them.'*2 Passion thus results in destruction and death,

while indulgence in black sin ends with pain and grief.

Fiery passion is, according to Puritan tradition, pun-

ished by the fires of Hell. Hawthbrne often describes the

torments of the damned souls of his demonic characters by

using fire symbolism. The Devil marks his own by transforming

their features and by allowing their kinship with him to be seen

Z+0Ibid., III, 629. ^Calvin, p. 192.

42Works, III, 637.

73

or painfully felt. Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter

is a victim of passionate remorse and consuming guilt. The

pain in his heart is searing, but Chillingworth (the Devil's

counterpart) analyzes the minister's emotional and spiritual

condition and increases the torment by "adding fuel to those j | A 0 0 0

fiery tortures." The demonic nature of the physician is

revealed by "a glare of red light out of his eyes; as if the

old man's soul were on fire, and kept on smouldering duskily

within his breast, until, by some casual puff of passion, it

was blown into a momentary flame." Hester's letter, the

"red ignominyj" burns its possessor by "scorching" her brain

and "searing" her heart.*4"**

The eyes, the windows to the soul, reveal the flames of

Hell burning and blackening the spirits of a number of

Hawthorne's devilish characters. Even Judge Pyncheon of The

House of the Seven Gables, who is identified with Satan less

than most of the villains in Hawthorne's novels, exhibits "a

red fire kindled in his eyes" when thwarted from his "fiendish"

scheme of tormenting Clifford.*4^ Ethan Brand is one of the

most notable of Hawthorne's satanic types. Brand experiences

a kinship between his own passionate nature (which has de-

stroyed his soul and a young woman's), and the destructive ele-

ment of fire. It was from a blazing lime-kiln that he

43Ibid., V, 205. ^Ibid. , p p. no, 127, 205.

^5Ibid., Ill, 158.

7k

originally evoked the Devil's aid for a fiendish, quest.

Fire complements Brand's inhuman nature and its flickering

light imparts "the wild and ghastly light which alone could

have suited his expression; it was that of a fiend on the

verge of plunging into his gulf of intensest torment.

Brand has outgrown his native earth by the end of the story.

Since fire has become his true element, he finally surrenders

wholly to it and to his eternal torment by allowing his body

to be destroyed by the blaze of a lime-kiln.

The fires of satanic passion also create as well as

destroy, but what is constructed is designed for endless

torment. Hawthorne suggests that a passionate sin forms the

bond between Miriam and her model in The Marble Faun. "That

iron chain, . . . which, perhaps, bound the pair together by

a bond equally torturing to each,--must have been forged in

some such unhallowed furnace as is only kindled by evil passions

and fed by evil deeas."^ The evil committed in the past which

links them together cannot be escaped by either one, and after

the model's death Miriam is still confined by sin, although

fettered to a new partner, Donatello.

In his writings in which satanism appears in one form or

another, Hawthorne often introduces a figure who, while not

Satan, is a representative or agent of the Devil.J Witches and

wizards are the traditional agents of the Devil. Like their

46Ibid., p. 496. 47Ibid., VI, 115.

75

Master they are wholly devoted to evil pursuits* Hawthorne

suggests in the portrayal and description of Satan's servants

that the worship and creation of evil results in certain physi-

cal traits or deformities- As Ghillingworth maintains, MA

sickness . . . in the spirit, hath immediately its appropriate ll O

manifestation in the bodily frame." Demonics like Ghilling-

worth and Brand are transformed by spiritual diseases into

human replicas of Satan. Witches and wizards, too, betray

their devotion to evil through their physical appearances.

The wizard in "Alice Doane's Appeal" is a "small, gray, withered

man, with a fiendish ingenuity in devising evil, and superhuman

power to execute it, but senseless as an idiot to all better

purposes."^ The witch in "The Hollow of the Three Hills"

has a similar appearance. She is "so withered, shrunken, and

decrepit, that even the space since she began to decay ex-50

ceeded the ordinary term of human existence." Ancient and

degenerate as they are, they have extraordinary powers of

longevity and, like all of Hawthorne's fiends, grotesque notions

of humor. The hag in "The Hollow of the Three Hills" finds

"sweet sport" in a woman's death, >and the wizard of "Alice

Doane's Appeal" listens with "pleasurable interest" and

"grisly smiles" to a confession of murder. 48Ibid., V, 167. 49Ibid., XII, 28k.

5QIbid., I, 228. 5IIbid., I, 233; XII, 286.

76

Professor Westervelt in The Blithedale Romance and

Roger Chillingworth of The Scarlet Letter are purported to

be wizards by their superstitious neighbors. Although both

villains are specifically associated with the Devil, Hawthorne

emphasizes that neither one is Satan. Each is a representa-

tive of evil, acting as a fiend or" demon in pursuing devilish

schemes. By giving them roles as "wizards" Hawthorne estab-

lishes that'they are humans who reject human roles in favor of i

supernatural power and knowledge. Like the Devil's agents in

the witch tales, Westervelt and Ghillingworth physically dis-

play the characteristics of their apprenticeship to the Devili

Westervelt looks magnificent, but a gold band around his false

teeth suggests (to Coverdale) that Westervelt has sold his soul

to the Devil.Furthermore, Westervelt gives the impression

of being a "moral and physical humbug; . . . he was perhaps

but a wizened little elf, gray and decrepit . . . ."53 Roger

Chillingworth, too, is old and deformed. The diseased souls

of Satan's agents derive life-sustaining energy by preying on

victims like the remorseful young woman in "The Hollow of the

Three Hills," half-mad Leonard Doane in "Alice Doane's Appeal,"

childlike Priscilla in The Blithedale Romance, or guilt-ridden

Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter.

Ghillingworth sustains his existence completely on his

goal of obtaining revenge and torturing Dimmesdale. The

52Ibid., V, 500. 53Ibid., pp. 427-^28.

77

minister escapes, however, and the failure to damn his soul

is almost fatal to the old man. With the physician's loss

of his one demonic goal in life, "all his strength and energy-

all his vital and intellectual forces—seemed at once to desert

him; insomuch that he positively withered up, shrivelled away,

and almost vanished from mortal sight." Chillingworth cannot

exist without the evil pursuits which support his life, and

when "there was no more Devil's work on earth for him to doT

it only remained for the unhumanized mortal to betake himself

whither his Master would find him tasks enough, and pay him Sit

his wages daily."

In some of his writings Hawthorne uses a sort of Manichean

philosophy in which two contending principles of good and evil

struggle for the mastery of man's soul. Satan, when used in

such a context, is not the externalized Devil of Puritan tra-55

dition, but rather a symbol of an individual's sin. Hawthorne's

demonic characters allow the evil portion of human nature to

overwhelm the good, thus transforming themselves into fiends.

Each man has an inner devil; the weak or the wicked fail to

subdue their inner devils. In "Alice Doane's Appeal," man's

divided nature is explored through the device of the split per-

sonality. Leonard Doane and Walter Brcme are, unknown to each

other, twin brothers. Each has an unnaturally strong affection -

for his sister, Alice. Walter and Leonard not only have a ** "Ibid., p. 307. °^Lynch, p. 116.

78

physical similarity, but more, importantly "the similarity

of their dispositions made them joint possessors of an indi-

vidual nature, which could not become wholly the property of

one, unless by the extinction of the other." Walter hints

that he has seduced Alice, and the possibility drives Leonard

alraost insane with jealousy and hatred. The two men meet on

a lonely road "with the same devil in each bosom," and Leonard

succeeds in killing his brother. Leonard is now the full

possessor of "all the fierce and deep passions and of all the

many varieties of wickedness" which he had previously shared

with Walter.^

Although he refers to his slain brother as "the accursed

one," a synonym for Satan, it is his own inner devil which

has driven him to murder. The dark and evil portion of Leonard

has complete ascendency over any good in his soul. After

Brome's death Leonard is tortured by the feeling that he has

committed "some unutterable crime, perpetrated, as he imagined,

in madness or a d r e a m . H i s identification with Walter is

complete; he half-believes that he has committed incest with

his sister. The same "fiend" which urged him to kill Walter

now urges him to take Alice's life. Leonard seeks out a wizard

to find out whether he and Alice are guilty. The wizard cannot

deny Leonard such information if Leonard agrees to "certain

conditions." In terms of witch tradition the certain conditions

56Works, XII, 286. 57Ibid., p. 285. 58Ibid», p. 287. Ostein, p. 55.

79

consist of Leonard's participation in a compact with the Devil,

offering his soul in exchange for a supernatural revelation.

The making of a pact with the Devil, when interpreted psycho-

logically instead, of traditionally, means that Leonard makes

a final and fatal surrender to the evil of his own nature in

his bargain with the wizard. By seeking the truth which frees

Alice of blame, Leonard is further enlightened about his own

sinful and damned nature.

Young Goodman Brown's forest adventure may be interpreted

as Brown's encounter, not with an external Devil of the Puritan

mold, but rather with the Devil which resides inside sinful man.

At the onset of his walk through the forest, Brown alarms him-

self with the thought, "What if the Devil himself should be at

my very elbow," and suddenly a Devil does appear. Brown's

Devil may be merely a representation of the dark portion of the

young man's nature which has, until this moment, been suppressed.

In the dark and mysterious labrinth of the forest it appears

when evoked by Brown's thoughts. Significantly, Brown's Devil

does not have the glowing red eyes or horrendous laugh of Haw-

thorne's other Devils. Instead, as James Lynch explains, Brown's

satanic figure "has the appearance of a normal human being--an

indication that Hawthorne thought of the Devil as a mental phe-

nomenon symbolic of the individual's sin."^® The Devil not

only looks like an ordinary man, but he also has a strong

^Lynch, p. 60.

80

physical resemblance to Brown, being only older and behaving

with more sophistication. When the Devil tries to persuade

Brown to continue his journey, he discourses "so aptly that

his arguments seemed to spring up in the bosom of his auditor

than to be suggested by himself."^ Whether Brown meets and

converses with an external Devil or an inner psychological

Devil, he falls into the sin of doubt. By succumbing to a

lack of faith in God and man, the dark obscures the light

portion of his nature and he becomes a fiend or devil. He

rushes through the forest "with the instinct that guides

mortal man to evil." Brown becomes a more terrible figure

of evil than Satan, for "the fiend in his own shape is less

hideous than when he rages in the breast of uian."^ After

his experience Brown is unable to ever regain faith to

balance or cancel the gloom of doubt and suspicion which

pervades his nature.

When the evil in the human soul triumphs over the good,

individuals like Roger Chillingworth, Ethan Brand, and Young

Goodman Brown willingly become fiends who have lost their

humanity, at least for a while. Other characters in Hawthorne's

works struggle to suppress the inner devil. Prudence Inglefield

in "John Inglefield's Thanksgiving," for example, is the victim,

of evil passions which have degraded her mind and body. She

61Works, I, 95. 62Ibid., p. 99.

63Ibid., p. 100.

81

attempts to escape, her demon by returning to her father's

home for a holiday hoping "the guilty soul will . , , stray

back to its innocence.Unfortunately she cannot retain

mastery of her passions for long, and when she leaves her

old home "her countenance wore almost the expression as if

vshe were struggling with a fiend, who had power to seize his

victims even within the hallowed precincts of her father's

h e a r t h . S h e returns to her dissolute life when the "fiend"

prevails.

Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter also contends with an

inner demon or devil which, in moments of passion, almost

usurps his soul. When Hester confesses that she is Chilling-

worth's wife and has willfully withheld the information from

the minister, he is convulsed with wrath. "The minister

looked at her for an instant, with all that violence of

passion, which--intermixed, in more shapes than one, with

higher, purer, softer qualities--was, in fact, the portion of

him which the Devil claimed, and through which he sought the

fifi

rest." Dimmesdale manages to control his inner devil and

thwart his external one--Chillingworth.--.just before dying.

Still another character falls victim to a satanic inner

enemy. Roderick Elliston ("Egotism; or The Bosom Serpent") .

has a diabolic snake in his stomach. Elliston's egotism is

so great that it extends even to his admiration of the devilish 6^Ibid., III, 590. 65Ibid.

66Ibid., V, 232.

82

creature. He prides himself on "being marked out from the

ordinary experience of mankind by the possession of a double-

nature, and a life within a life."^7 Elliston comes to be-

lieve that "the snake was a divinity,--not celestial, it is

true, but darkly infernal,--and that hence he derived an

eminence and a sanctity, . . . -1168 Elliston consults his

inner devil in all matters, pampering it "night and day, with

69

a continual and exclusive sacrifice of Devil worship." He

is in danger of becoming completely demonic in his inability

to think of anything or anyone but himself. Elliston is saved,

however, from his "Devil" when at last he thinks of his wife.

The inner Devil in many of Hawthorne's writings is

willfully evoked by characters who are too proud. Lady

Eleanore of "Lady Eleanor's Mantle," for example, is ex-

cessively proud of her beauty and social status. The common

people claim that her pride has "evoked a fiend, and thatf smallpox epidemicj between them both this monstrous evil

had been born."7® Although Lady Eleanore inadvertently intro-

duces a deadly physical disease to a community, the real indi-

cation of her relationship with satanism is her diseased soul.

She refuses to acknowledge her kinship with the rest of the

human race until she is properly punished by "the curse of

Heaven"--smallpox*

67Ibid., II, 310. 68Ibid., p. 309.

69Ibid. 70Ibid., I, 321-322.

83

Pride motivates Roger Chillingworth in his plan to

seek revenge. Roderick Elliston and Leonard Doa.ne are both,

victims of pride in the form of jealously. Elliston nourishes

his pride and self-love by being jealous of his wife and re-

jecting all which does not reflect his own image and interests.

When his egotism is manifested in the unnatural form of a.

serpent, he spends hours with his mouth open before a mirror

waiting for it to appear (which is a grotesque way of evoking

71

the fiend.)' Leonard Doane's jealous and unnatural love for

his sister Alice calls up the demonic in himself, and it is

reflected in his double, Walter Brome. Perhaps, too, it is

pride which causes Miriam in The Marble Faun to test her

powers of attraction and call forth the model from the dark

past. When she draws him out into the modern world from the

depths of the catacombs, he warns, "Inquire not what I am,

nor wherefore I abide in darkness . . . . Henceforth, I am

nothing but a shadow behind her footsteps. She came to me

when I sought her not. She has called me forth, and must 72

abide the consequences of my reappearance in the world."

Both Miriam and Donatello suffer the consequences of Miriam* s

evocation of a Devil.

j$ot only the sin of pride, but also overdevelopment of

the intellect results in the calling forth of the Devil in

Hawthorne's fiction. Many of the author's villains have lost 7IIbid., II, 316. 72Ibid., VI, 46.

8 4-

the necessary balance between the head and heart, or the

intellect and passions. The demonic intellectual becomes

devilish as he raises the mind to an undue position of

eminence, neglects his ties with humanity, and puts all his

energy into the pursuit of one unhallowed goal. Chillingworth

-*-n The Scarlet Letter is an example of the intellectual who,

in seeking revenge and supernatural knowledge, evokes the evil

in himself. Although he plans to plumb the mysteries of

Dimmesdale's soul like an impartial, scientific investigator

who is "desirous only of truth," the nature of his undertaking

is beyond human power and human propriety. He must call forth

the most diabolic elements of his own nature and gradually

relinquish his human and natural traits. The inner demon which

is formed creates in him "a terrible fascination, a kind of

fierce, though still calm necessity which seized the old man

within its gripe, and never set him free again until he had

done its b i d d i n g . T h e one-time humanitarian and physician

has become a Devil.

Another humanitarian-intellectual transformed into a

fiend is Ethan Brand. As a demonic, Brand looks back on his

former reverence for his fellow man remembering "with what

tenderness, with what love and sympathy for mankind, and what

pity for human guilt and woe, he had first begun to contemplate

those ideas which afterward became the inspiration of his life

73Ibid*, V, 158.

85

n74

• * • The concept of an Unpardonable Sin replaces his

former humanitarian longings, disturbing the "counter-poise

between his mind and heart,"7"* As the devilish'idea grows

and flourishes, Brand becomes a fiend; "he began to be so

from the moment that his moral nature had ceased to keep the

pace of improvement with his intellect."7^ Although it is

rumored that Bx*and has evoked a fiend from a lime-kiln in

order to "frame the image of some mode of guilt which could

be neither atoned for nor forgiven," Brand cannot be bothered

with a conventional devil. Brand leaves the Devil to labor

for the souls of "halfway sinners" and creates in himself a 77 .

worse fiend. Only Brand's Titanic pride and inner devil

can forge the Unpardonable Sin. Brand finally succeeds in

creating it, and he boasts, "It is a sin which grew within

my own breast . . . . A sin that grew nowhere else! The

sin of an intellect that triumphed over the sense of brother-

hood with man and reverence for God, and sacrificed everything

to its own mighty claims."'7® After he has created the Sin,

however, Brand cannot exist on earth or in human company so

he seeks the element of fire which alone suits his demonic

nature.

Hollingsworth, the humanitarian of The Blithedale Romance,

although hardly a sinister or satanic figure, is an individual

74Ibid., III, 494. 75Ibid. 76Ibid., p. 495.

77Ibid., p.484. 78Ibid., p. 485.

86

whose over-developed intellect has given him some of the

characteristics of a demonic. Pride motivates Hollingsworth*s

pose as a reformer and philanthropist in the opinion of Zenobia

and Coverdale. Zenobia confronts Hollingswox-th saying, "Are

you a man? No, but a monsterl A cold, heartless, self-be-

ginning and self-ending piece of mechanismI" Hollingsworth

defends himself by challenging, "Show me one selfish end in

all I ever have aimed at „ . . ." He is answered bitterly,

"It is all self! . . . . Nothing else; nothing but self!

self! self I The fiend, I doubt not, has made his choicest

mirth of you these seven years past . . . Coverdale,

too, accuses Hollingsworth of being "that steel engine.of the

Devil's contrivance, a philantropist.In choosing to plot

and scheme for reform rather than employ human sympathy and

personal participation in the mainstream of life to help his

fellow men, Hollingsworth has envisioned himself as a kind of

divinity who can create new, reformed men and has rejected his

brotherhood with humanity. Hawthorne attacks Hollingsworth (and

all reformers) as a variety of demonic:

This is always true of those men who have sur-rendered themselves to an overriding purpose. It does not so much impel them from without, not even operate as a motive power within, but grows incor-porate with all they think and feel, and finally converts them into little else save that one principle . . . . They have no heart, no sympathy, no reason, no conscience . . . . They have an ideal to which they consecrate themselves high-priest,

79Ibid., V, 566-567. 80Ibid., p. 401.

87

and deem it holy work to offer sacrifices of what-ever is most precious; and never once seem to sus-pect—so cunning has the Devil been with them--that this false deity, in whose iron features, immitigable to all the rest of mankind, they see only benignity and love, is but a spectrum of the very priest him-self, projected upon the surrounding darkness.81

Reformers demonically worship the ideal of refornij and they

are willing to make any sacrifice to achieve it.

Dr. Rappaccini and his rival, Dr. Baglioni, are Devil-

figures in "Rappaccini1s Daughter." Neither one is explicitly

compared to or mentioned in connection with the Devil, but

each one has some diabolic characteristics. Rappaccini, for

example, has the demonic intellectual obsession of Hawthorne's

demonic characters. The doctor has invented a new Garden of

Eden which is a deadly, unn

the original Garden. It is

and a flower of death rathe

atural, and unholy imitation of

filled with poisonous vegetation

r than the traditional tree of life.

Beatrice, RappacciniTs daughter, has a role similar to that of

the serpent, although she iJs an unwilling and unknowing tempt-

ress. She has been made poisonous by continual association

with the plants in her father's garden and by her father's

scientific skill. Her beauty lures a young man, Giovanni,

into the garden where he gradually becomes poisonous, too.

Rappaccini intends to create a new species of man from the

offspring of Beatrice and Giovanni.

8IIbid., pp. 399-400.

88

Rappaccini dresses in black and like Hawthorne's other

devilish individuals, his physical appearance--"tall, emaci-

ated, sallow, and sickly looking"--denotes his relationship

with evil. Rappaccini suffers from the "inward disease" of

the corrupted soul. The scientist's pride in his intellectual

powers has induced him to attempt to become a creator of human

life as well As plant life, thus taking on a godlike role. In

his poisonous daughter, the scientist sees the result of "my

pride and triumph." His triumph is unnatural and shortlived,

for Beatrice swallows an antidote for the poison in her system

and destroys herself. The evil which Rappaccini has infused

into his daughter, however, touches only her physical portion

of being; her soul is untainted by his diabolic science.8^

Baglioni is another demonic type. Hawthorne suggests

that he is motivated to thwart Rappacini's experiment with

Beatrice because of professional jealously, hatred, and fear.

Baglioni poses, as does Judge Pyncheon, as a benevolent man

"apparently of genial nature" and possessing habits "that

might almost be called jovial." Baglioni is not genial, how-*

ever, in his relationship with Rappaccini and Beatrice. He

plays a devilish role as a "manipulator and calumniator,

destroyer of faith and implanter of doubts . . .," as Curtis

Dahl points out.83 Baglioni suggests to Giovanni that Beatrice

is evil, and the intimation shakes the young man's faith as

82 Ibid., II, 112, 147. 83Dahl, p. 57.

89

"a thousand dim suspicions" arise, grinning "at him like so

many d e m o n s . I t is Baglioni, too, who urges Giovanni to

give Beatrice the antidote which destroys her physical being.

Two other demonics misuse the powers of the intellect--

George Burroughs in "Main Street" and Professor Westervelt

in The Blithedale Romance. In Hawthorne's historical sketch,

Burroughs is rumored to have become a wizard because of his

"high and searching intellect" which is not satisfied with

prosaic learning, but desires knowledge of the supernatural.

Similarly, Westervelt is a sinister "wizard" because of his

use of the mind to gain wealth. Mesmerism allows the Pro-

fessor to rifle Priscilla's mirid and profit materially.

Hawthorne uses the figure of the Devil frequently and

in a variety of ways in his fiction. "Jn the witch tales he

attempts to present accurately the figure of the Devil with

the intense reality and significance he had for seventeenth

century Puritans* Although the Devil and his demonic counter-

parts are used most frequently to represent abstraction of

sin, evil, and temptation* Hawthorne also introduces a few

comic Devils to his fiction (see Chapter IV)i Even when the

character of the Devil is humorous, the author has a serious

purpose behind his characterization of the Archfiend. The

concept of the Devil to Hawthorne, as to the early New

Englanders, has a serious meaning (symbolically, psycho-

logically, and morally) in human life-*

8^Works, II, 137.

CHAPTER IV

HAWTHORNE'S LIGHTER USE OF THE DIABOLIC

Although Hawthorne usually treats the diabolic seriously,

irony and humor are elements which appear in his fiction eta-

ploying witchcraft and Devil lore. He Sometimes uses witch-

craft and Devil tradition to create an atmosphere of mystery,

horror, and suspense, but it also, provides the illusion,*

fantasy, whimsy, and half-seriousness which are characteristic

of Hawthorne's lighter writings.1 Irony is evident in much

of Hawthorne's fiction, and it adds a note of humor to even

his most solemn and serious work. Irony is Hawthorne's tool

when "accenting the divergence he found between the apparent

and the real," according to Arlin Turner. The superstition

and tradition of witch and Devil beliefs are used by Hawthorne

as "extended figurative language" in Turner's interpretation.^

Reality is clothed in the figurative language of witch and

Devil doctrine, arid Hawthorne uses irony and humor to reveal

the submerged truth. Often, too, Hawthorne treats the dia-

bolic humorously in order to present a moral while being

entertaining,

Hawthorne was well aware of the incongruities and ironies

of daily life* Turner claims that "his way of seeing things

"Arlin Turner, Nathaniel Hawthorne: An Introduction and Interpretation (New York, 1961), p. i09.

^Ibid.

90

91

was ironic, and irony was natural to his expression from the

earliest of his boyhood „ . . ."3 His sensitivity to the

humorous aspects of the incongruous and unexpected naturally

extended into his interpretation of all aspects of life, and

even into his reading. Through his reading of early New

England history, Hawthorne became acquainted with the Puritan,

frame of mind. TPhe Puritan habit of seizing supernatural ex-

planations for lifeTs mysteries, great and small, was connected

to the theory that the hand of God (or the Devil) is ever active

in men's affairs# Such emphasis upon the activities of the

supernatural and particularly the Devil in New England bordered

on the ludicrous, as Hawthorne suggests in a few passages of

The Scarlet Letter. rfhe. Devil was such an intense reality

to the citizens of New England that the common people attri-

buted all unpleasant occurrences to hixiu Thus, the sexton

in The Scarlet Letter who finds Dimmesdale's glove upon a

scaffold remarks to the minister with a grim smile that Satan

probably stole it to be mischievous and that "your reverence

must needs handle him without gloves, henceforward . . .

Ironically, Dimmesdale has been wrestling with a devil, but

under circumstances which the sexton could not imagine or

comprehend.

The citizens of Boston in The Scarlet Letter attribute

a variety of ridiculous cause and effect relationships to the

Devil, including Pearl's paternity. The townspeople maintain

3Ibid., p. 101. **Works, V, 192.

92

that Pearl is Satan's child, a theory which amuses Hester

with its absurdity, while at the same it makes her shudder

at its grotesque and horrible implications."* Hawthorne's

irony is once again appar-ent, for although Pearl acts like

a demon's child, she is in reality the daughter of the most

loved and respected man in Boston, a minister. While dis-

cussing Pearl's reputed parentage, Hawthorne records playfully

that other individuals in witch-times were given the dubious

distinction of being children of Satan. Even Luther, "ac-

cording to the scandal of his monkish enemies, was a brat of

that hellish breed . . „ .

The Evil One and his agents manipulated the minutiae of

life in order to discomfort or disconcert the righteous by

causing such unp 1 easaintries as nightmares.^ Hawthorne treats

the nightmare aspect of witchcraft tradition in an amusing

manner in "Feathertop; A Moralized Legend." In this story

Mother Rigby is a witch with great abilities. She creates

an image of a fine gentleman from a scarecrow and forces it

to come to life by making it inhale the smoke from a magic

pipe. While observing the efforts of the scarecrow to breathe,

she displays the bedside manner which is customary for a witch,

when giving unfortunate wretches bad dreams. "Mother Rigby

. . . with one brown arm akimbo and the other stretched toward

5Ibid., p. 124. 6Ibid.

^Kittredge, p. 218.

93

the figure, loomed grimly among the obscurity [of the smoke

from the pipe | with such port and expression as when she was

wont to heave a ponderous nightmare on her victims and stand

at the bedside to enjoy their agony."® Hawthorne sardonically

mocks the Puritan belief that nightmares are caused by witch-

craft in a historical sketch, "Main Street." John and Elizabeth

Proctor were put to death (according to Hawthorne's sketch)

because of superstitious and insubstantial charges that the

Proctors, those "hoary reprobates," spent their evenings

devilishly showing "their withered faces at children's bed-

sides, mocking, making mouths, and affrighting the poor little

innocents in the nighttime.

According to Puritan witchcraft doctrine, witches or the

Devil also stirred up storms at sea and tempests on land in

order to enrich life with a little malicious fun and to punish

their enemies#^® Thus in The Scarlet Letter, Pearl humorously

threatens to evoke a storm at sea to punish a sailor that has

called her a "witch-baby." With "a naughty smile" Pearl in-

forms the seaman that "Mistress Hibbins says my father is the

Prince of the Air . . . . If thou callest me that ill name,

I shall tell him of thee, and he will chase thy ship with a

tempest."^ Mother Rigby also has the ability to stir up

storms at sea. After creating Feathertop she whimsically

8Works, II, 261. 9Ibid., III, 468.

I0Kittredge, p. 152. I1¥orks, V, 291.

94

bequeaths him a fortune in useless items including "the cargo

of a certain ship, laden with the salts of Cadiz, which she

herself, by her necromantic arts, had caused to founder, ten

years before, in the deepest part of mid-ocean.

Other elements of the witchcraft tradition aroused

Hawthorne's strong sense of irony. As Arlin Turner says, "He

had an eye for incongruities and a relish for the unexpected."13

The tradition of old men and women enjoying wild rides on

broomsticks is an element of witch belief which Hawthorne finds

incongruous and amusing. He describes the rheumatic and dot-

tering Proctors in ,fMain Street" as they "whisked up the chim-

ney, both on one broomstick . . . . M i s t r e s s Hibbins and

Mother Rigby, too, are devotees of travel by broomstick and

enjoy "many an airy gallop at midnight.

Vhile seventeenth century Puritans found nothing humorous

in the common belief that elderly persons could fly on broom-

sticks, attend, forest dances and orgies, and spectrally assault

innocent victims, Hawthorne sometimes treats such matters

lightly. In "Young Goodman Brown," for example, he finds a

kind of grotesque humor in the theory that an ordinary old

woman would adopt the extraordinary role of a witch. When

Goody Gloyse is first introduced in the story, she is hobbling

through the dark forest at night, alone, "with singular speed

12Ibid., II, 263. I3Turner, p. 101.

I4Works, III, 468. L5Ibid., II, 254.

95

for so aged a woman, and mumbling some indistinct words--a

prayer, doubtless--as she went."^ Since few unescorted

women would be traveling in the forest near Salem at night,

the reader is prepared to find that Gloyse is something other

than the "pious and exemplary dame1' that she appears to be.

Goodman Brown fears that his presence in the forest would

shock the good old lady, so Brown's travelling companion, his

serpentine staff in hand, volunteers to approach her. Coming

from behind, "the traveller put forth his staff and touched

her withered neck with what seemed the serpent's tail."

Goody Cloyse is so startled that she screams, "the devilI"

and turning around discovers it really is her "old friend,"

the Devil.^ Although she shrieks "the devil" as if meeting

the Devil in the dark forest would be a cause for terror, her

conversation soon reveals that she has met him often and

willingly there.

There is a macabre humor in the discrepancy between Goody

Gloyse's seemingly normal personality, physical traits, and

interests on one hand, and her incongruous activities and

conversation with the Devil on the other. Like many old

women, Cloyse is garrulous. She begins a rapid and rambling

conversation with the Devil within seconds of recognizing him.

Her convei-sation reveals a tendency toward gossip and slander

I6Ibid., p. 94. L7Ibid.

96

which is not abnormal. The topics of her talk are, however,

most unusual.

It becomes apparent that Goody Cloyse is on her way to

a Black Sabbath even though she speaks of~ it as if it were

an ordinary social gathering. Gloyse accuses a neighbor of

stealing her broomstick and refers to Goodwife Cory, the sus-

pected thief, as "that unhanged witch."-L® Ironically, Gloyse

has forgotten that she herself is a witch and that using the

term "witch" derogatorily under those circumstances is quite

hypocritical. The old woman slips into a brief reverie and

reminisces about her old friendship with an ancestor of the

present Goodman Brown. She contemptuously dismisses Young

Brown (who overhears her conversation in shocked silence) as

a "silly f e l l o w . A little levity is displayed in the old

woman's querrulous and humorous complaint that she had anointed

herself with a special flying ointment for the Witches' Sabbath,

only to be delayed by the loss of her broomstick.

The typical domestic interests of a woman of Gloyse's po-

sition and character are revealed when she lists the ingredi-

ents for an unusual recipe. Ironically, the recipe is for

a magic ointment and it includes a grisly ingredient--"the fat

of a new-born babe."20 Furthermore, she is not reviewing

favorite recipes with another housewife, but instead with

Satan. All the ironies of Gloyse's conversation make it

I8Ibid, I9Ibid. 2 0 Ibid.

97

amusing, but Hawthorne was not atterapting to lighten his

story with humor as much as he is trying to shock the reader

(as Brown is shocked) by the difference between what Gloyse

appears to be and what she really is. Brown comes to the

rapid conclusion that Cloyse is a disciple of the Devil. Her

mind and soul seem to be so totally corrupted that the un-

natural becomes natural. Evil, as her nonchalant conversation

reveals, has become the conventional, typical, and normal

pattern of thought and behavior for Goody Cloyse.

Mistress Hibbins of The Scarlet Letter is another humor-

ous type of witch. Like Gloyse she accepts the principle of

evil as the underlying concept in human relationships and

activities. Hibbins worships evil as it is personified in

the Puritan myth of the Black Man in the forest. Hawthorne

calls her weird, eccentric, mad, and mentally infirm, because

her behavior and thought are distorted and abnormal.

Basically she is a ridiculous figure, somewhat humorous and

rarely very sinister. She dresses with curious taste in her

role as a witch in a "high head-dress, a rich gown of velvet,

and ruff" and rumor says that it -is in this outfit that she

mounts a broomstick, rides with "Satan through the air," and

reappears the next morning "with twigs of the forest clinging

to her skirts, arid looking sourer than ever, as having hardly

got a wink of sleep after her night ride."22

2IIbid., V, 286, 287, 288. 22Ibid., p. 184.

98

Broomsticks, dances in the forest with the Devil playing

the fiddle, signatures in an iron-bound book are all figments

of Mistress Hibbins' unbalanced mind, but her sane neighbors,

while behaving more circumspectly, believe the same fantasies.

Mistress Hibbins spends much of her time extending invitations

to Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimraesdale to join her arid her

"potentate" in their forest revels. Hester smiles at the old

lady's caprices while Dimraesdale is shocked and horrified.

Despite her comic madness, Mistress Hibbins ironically has a

deeper insight into a secret relationship between Hester and

Dimmesdale, and their experience with sin, than most Bostonians.

With her mental condition, however, Hibbins is at about the

same intellectual level as Pearl, and the Black Man is their

unsophisticated conception of evil and temptation.

Humorous witchcx*aft and a comic devil are elements of

Hawthorne's "Feathertop: A Moralized Legend." Hawthorne

meant "Feathertop" to be a light social satire. A serious

presentation of witch lore would be unsuitable, for Hawthorne's

usual approach as a satirist, as Arlin Turner comments, "is

so mild and tolerantly genial that his satire all but obscures

itself."23 Thus Mother Rigby and the Devil, image-magic,

broomsticks, compacts with Satan, and so forth are all made

harmless and amusing. The satire is adorned with the

23Turner, p. 100,

99

paraphernalia of witchcraft merely to achieve a fanciful

effect and to make acceptable to the reader impossible ele-

ments of plot and character.

Hawthorne alters witch lore by making Mother Rigby less

sinister than the traditional witch. Image-magic, while

traditionally a dangerous activity, becomes a harmless game

for Mother Rigby, who resolves in a creative mood to make

something useful. Since she needs a scarecrow, she produces

one from a variety of materials, and after it is constructed,

Rigby cannot resist the temptation to transform the scare-

crow into a man. With the help of a little magic she creates

Feathertop, a facsimile of the contemporary man of fashion.

Feathertop is a symbol of the empty-headed fop, and as

such he is a tool for Hawthorne's satire of men and society.

The mechanism of witchcraft allows the author to comment on

illusion and deceptive appearances through the language of

witch tradition. Hawthorne proceeds to say that since "the

miracles of witchcraft seem always to have had a very shallow

subtlety," it is really rather doubtful whether "there was

any real change . . . in the sordid, wornout, worthless, and

ill-pointed substance of the scarecrow . . . ."2^ Feathertop

can best be explained as a "spectral illusion, and cunning

effect of light and shade so colored and contrived as to

2k-Works, II, 25k,

100

25

delude the eyes of most men." Furthermore, the illusion

is not actual and physical, but rather mental, It is based

on social values.

The almost comic Devil of folk tradition is one playful

element in Hawthorne's humorous treatment of witchcraft and

the Devil. Mother Rigby associates with the Evil One, but

he is not a regal fallen angel in the Miltonic tradition or

Calvin's maleficently cunning enemy of God. The Devil whom

Mother Rigby evokes is an invisible spirit, subservient to

her every whim, and acting as more a minor devil than a

Master of Hell. Mother Rigby practices her witchcraft with

his aid, calling him "Dickon" (a favorite nickname for the

Devil in folk tradition)^0 and ordering him to perform mun-

dane duties like lighting her pipe with a coal from the fires

of Hell. Dickon is assigned the task of keeping Feathertop's

pipe lighted. The smoke from the magic pipe is the breath

of life to the scarecrow.

Feathertop has all the characteristics of the man of

fashion. His brilliant exterior deceives those who cannot

perceive the truth behind the illusion. The scarecrow, like

other "gentlemen" of his ilk, cannot see himself in per-

spective. The magic distortion of clothes, manners, and

affectations of emotion deceive him as well as others. When

25Ibid., p. 259. 26Lynch, p. 120.

101

Feather-top promises to obey Mother Rigby's orders "with all

my heart," the old woman roars with laughter, for his empty

phraseology is that of the fashionable fop.27 He is oblivious

to the humor of his own nature and situation.

The scarecrow's appearance deceives everyone except a

child and a dog who, as innocent and natural beings, observe

the reality beneath the "witchcraft" of illusion and artifice.

The citizens who encounter Feathertop are willing to accept

his judgment of them as social inferiors. As a caricature of

a gentleman, the scarecrow possesses no natural traits to make

him human and individualistic; "a well-digested conventionalism

had incoi'porated itself thoroughly with his substance and trans-

formed him into a work of art."2® Yet Feathertop imparts a

kind of "ghastliness and awe" because he is so "consummately

artificial" that his human aspect only superficially masks

his inhuman nature.^9

As an image of a man, empty-headed and artificial yet

able to dupe other men, Feathertop is a comic figure. But

since Hawthorne intended "Feathertop" to be a moralized legend,

his characters and plot must also present serious matters in

their humorous framework. The scarecrow is given a sinister

errand by Mother Rigby. He is supposed to win the love of

Polly Gookin, thereby punishing her father, Justice Gookin.

27Works, II, 263. 28Ibid., p. 21h, 29Ibid.

102

The Justice "at some earlier period of life, had given some

pledge or other to the evil principle" and now has failed to

meet the terms of his compact with the Devil.Since he has

been assigned the role of an instrument of punishment, Feather-

top poses a "supernatural peril" for P o l l y # 3 1

The Justice's daughter, like her peers, is a suitable

victim for the illusive dangers of witchcraft. She finds the

dazzling appearance and affected manners of Feathertop to be

so enhancing that within a short time she has acquired some

of the artificial mannerisms of the scarecrow. Even more im-

portantly, within fifteen minutes after meeting him she begins

to fall in love with this "hollow semblance" of a m a n . 3 2 The

painted demons on the bowl of Feathertop's pipe, who symbol-

ize his relationship with evil, dance wildly as a victory for

their side seems assured. Polly saves herself from Feather-

top's "spell" by gazing toward a mirror which reflects his

image as well as her own. The mirror, "one of the truest

plates in the world and incapable of flattery" reveals the

real nature of Feathertop.33 His lack of true substance is

reflected by the mirror to the horror of Polly and the scare-

crow. Polly faints from the shock, and Feathertop, with a

depth of emotion unexpected by Mother Rigby, destroys himself.

30Ibid. -^Ibid.

32Ibid., p. 275. 33Ibid., p. 276.

103

The whole moral of the story is summed up by Mother Rigby

as she mourns:

My poor, dear, pretty FeathertopI There are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans in the world, made up of just such a jumble of wornout, forgotten, and good-for-nothing trash as he was I Yet they live in fair repute, and never see themselves for what they are. And why should my poor puppet be the only one to know himself and perish for it?34

She briefly considers recreating her artificial man, but

decides instead that he is much too tenderhearted for the

cruelties of the human world. Furthermore, as a scarecrow

he will serve a useful purpose, which is more than can be

said for many of his "human brethren."3"*

The comic-Devil makes an appearance in other stories in

which Hawthorne treats the diabolic whimsically. The folk

Devil usually is stereotyped as a dark figure with red eyes,

horns, cloven-hoofs, and a tail. He is given a variety of

familiar and semi-affectionate names, including Dickon, Old

Nick, Old Scratch, and Beelzebub.3^ As a meddlesome and mis-

chievous creator of bad luck and minor misfortunes, Hawthorne

brings him into a few stories just to add a touch of folk

humor. In "Mrs. Bullfrog," for example, the Devil is blamed

for a woman's sudden transformation from youth and beauty to

decrepit old age. Mr. Bullfrog marries a seemingly young

woman and conducts her to his home after the wedding. During

34Ibid., p. 278. 35Ibid. 36Lynch, p. 114.

10^

the journey ari accident causes the carriage to be overturned,

and the passengers are thrown out. Mrs. Bullfrog undergoes

an unexpected change in appearance as she loses her wig, teeth,

and good temper. Her husband, when confronted by this "ogre"

imagines that "the Old Nick, at the moment of our overturn,

had annihilated my wife and jumped into her petticoats."3?

Since he married her mostly for her money, however, and she

still retains that attraction, the new husband is soon pacified.

As in "Feathertop," the Devil tradition is used by Hawthorne

to emphasize the gap between the apparent and the real.

The stereotyped folk Devil is an element of "Peter

Goldthwaite's Treasure," a short story which is (in part) a

humorous treatment of the diabolic. In legendary treatments

of witchcraft and Devil lore, devils or demons were supposed

to be guardians of treasure troves, a tradition which goes

back to "the hoard-guarding dragon of Beowulf and Saxo

Grammaticus and many a local legend," according to George

Kittredge„3® jn order to find concealed riches, folk belief

demanded the use of spells and incantations which are employed

"first, to call up a spirit who shall disclose the right spot;

and, second, to control the demon who keeps the hoard."^9

Hawthorne loosely observes the traditional paraphernalia of

spells, spirits, devils, and treasure in "Peter Goldthwaitefs

^Works, II, 153. ^^Kittredge, p. 205.

39Ibid»

105

Treasure," but he modifies tradition to make the tale as

entertaining as possible.

The hero of the story, Peter Goldthwaite, is an indi-

vidual who has wasted years and squandered his resources on

foolish schemes to become a wealthy man. Peter's latest plan

to become rich is centered around discovering a hidden treasure

which an ancestor deposited somewhere in the family home several

generations ago. After deciding to tear down his ancestral

home in order to discover the hoard of wealth, he systematically

destroys the old house (his one remaining possession) by de-

molishing the interior, room by room. He leaves only the fa-

cade of the building to conceal his activities and renounces

all communication with the outside world.

Peter has no seer to envision the location of the treasure,

but a "spirit" lurks around, according to Peter. As Peter

searches for the treasure, often he has the feeling that "the

formex Peter Goldthwaite [the one who hid the moneyj had come

back, either to assist or impede his search for the hidden

wealth."40 Peter also has the companionship of an old house-

keeper, Tabitha, wno customarily sits in a chimney corner,

"like a witch in a dark cavern."41 Tabitha cannot disclose

the right spot to hunt for the lost treasure, but she is

Peter's source of information about the existence of a legend-

ary treasure. According to Tabitha and legend, Peter's

40Works, I, 437. 4:1-Ibid., p. 431.

106

ancestor got his wealth dishonestly and possibly with the

Devil's help. The ancient Peter had to hide his money be-

cause he could not spend it. He had made a bargain with the

Devil to deed his house and land to the Evil One for riches,

but either the Devil or the former Peter failed to abide by

the bargain. Every time old Peter went to unlock the treasure

chest, "the Old Scratch came behind and. caught his arm."^

It takes an amusing encounter with the Devil to give

Peter his first clue that a treasure does exist. While

laboring at his work of destruction one day, Peter discovers

a charcoal sketch on a wall of a "ragged man, partly sup-

porting himself on a spade, and bending his lean body over a

hole in the earth, with one hand extended to grasp something

he had found. But close behind him, with a fiendish laugh

on his features, appeared a figure with horns, a tufted tail,

and a cloven hoof."^ Behaving as if the picture of the Devil

were the demon controlling the hoard, Peter makes an attempt

to exorcise it symbolically. He lifts his spade and strikes

the figure of the Devil crying, "Avaunt SatanI . . . . The

man shall have his gold."1'"*4' The spade goes through the wall

and discloses a cavity where a piece of papex* (a record of

the amount of the treasure) is concealed.

^2Ibid., p. kkO. ^3Ibid., p. 442.

^Ibid.

107

At last Peter discovers the hidden hoard which, ironi-

cally, consists of nothing more than worthless, pre-Revo-

lutionary currency. Peter has destroyed his home, his only

possession of value, in the futile search, but he has a good-

hearted former business partner who buys the shell of a house.

If the story has a moral, it is merely that dreamers like

Peter Goldthwaite deny their ties with humanity and waste life

in foolish pursuits that can only end in failure.

In "The Celestial Railroad," a humorous adaptation of

John Bunyan's Pilgrim* s Progress, Hawthorne also presents the

Devil in a humorous manner. A narrator describes his journey

on a railway which has replaced the old way of traversing by

foot the road to the Celestial City. In the company of Mr.

Smooth-it-away the narrator is assured that progress has made

life's journey easy and pleasant. Satirizing current Uni-

tarian liberalism and Transcendentalism, Hawthorne suggests

that the trend toward "progress" has resulted in compromises

with evil. Thus the Celestial Railroad has a board of di-

rectors selected from Vanity Fair, devils are employed to

work on the railroad, and the pilgrims associate freely with

ruined souls and demons while making their journey.

One of the comic devils whom the narrator encounters is

Apollyon, the chief engineer of the train. Apollyon takes

great pleasure in diabolically teasing old-fashioned pilgrims

who still make the journey on foot. The pilgrims taking the

108

comfortable train ride mock and jibe the dusty foot travellers.

Apollyon also enters "heartily into the fun; and contrived to

flirt the smoke and flame of the engine, or of his own breath,

into their faces, and envelop them in an atmosphere of scalding

steam.Ironically, the old-fashioned pilgrims are the only

ones who arrive at the Celestial City.

Mr. Smooth-it-away conducts the trusting pilgrims by rail

over the Slough of Despond, through the Valley of Death, and

past the Hill Difficulty. Arriving in Vanity Fair they have

the pleasure of seeing Prince Beelzebub "bargaining with a

miser for his soul, which, after much ingenious skirmishing

on both sides, his highness succeeded in obtaining at about

the value of sixpence. The prince remarked with a smile that

Lift

he was a loser by the transaction." 1-0 Before leaving Vanity

Pair the pilgrims are warned that riding the Celestial Rail-

road is equivalent to selling one's soul to the Devil for the

price of a ticket.

The narrator and his companions, however, continue their

blithe journey. They board a ferry boat for the last stage

of the journey, and they discover when it is too late that

the easy route is the way to Hell. Mr. Smooth-it-away, their

guide, is a devil: And then did my excellent friend Mr. Smooth-it-away laugh outright, in the midst of which cachinnation a smoke-wreath issued from his mouth and nostrils,

45Ibid., II, 217. 46Ibid., p. 288.

109

while a twinkle of livid flame darted out of either eye, proving undubitably that his heart was all of a red blaze. The impudent fiendI^

To end the story with appropriate lightness, the narrator

awakes at the critical moment to discover that he has been

dreaming.

Hawthorne treats witch and Devil lore in some of his

fiction with a light touch. He uses humor and irony as tools

to explore the deeper meanings of plot and character, which

the fantasy and illusion of witchcraft partially obscure.

Irony is an effective device for revealing the discrepancy

between appearance and reality. Humor, when combined with

witch and Devil doctrine, emphasizes the unreality and whimsy

of superstition and folk tradition. Hawthorne combines both

humor and irony with the diabolic in order to create light

satire and to teach gentle moral lessons. Sometimes, too,

a humorous treatment of the Devil or witchcraft (as in "Mrs.

3ullfrog") is just an example of a Hawthornian fling at broad

humor.

Ibid., p 234.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

In several short stories, historical sketches, and The

Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne exploits the beliefs,

historical events, and the atmosphere of the witchcraft period

of New England. The witchcraft trials in Salem influenced

Hawthorne's choice of fictional material greatly. Even in

works which do not deal primarily with the historical period

of the witch trials, the author often uses the terminology

of witch and Devil doctrine and common witchcraft phenomena

to achieve certain literary effects. Hawthorne's pronounced

interest in witch and Devil lore grew out of his personal

family history. It was fostered by his early life in Salem

and was supplemented by his reading in works about New

England's Puritan era.

Hawthorne's ancestry greatly influenced his interest in

witches, devils, and all the accompanying paraphernalia of

supernaturalism. Two forebears in particular, Major William

Hat ho m e and Judge John Hat home impressed their descendent

with their iron characters and resolute will. Major Hathorne

Sternly persecuted those who threatened to undermine the Puri-

tan religion and rule in New England* His son John was a

zealous prosecutor of the Salem, "witches" who came before his

110

Ill

court in 1682 on charges of being in league with the Devil.

Hawthorne half-seriously conceived the idea that the guilt

of his self-righteous ancestors who over-stepped their

authoritative and judicial roles might be transmitted to

later generations. Perhaps he wrote his witch tales, sketches,

and The Scarlet Letter partly with the belief that he could

confess the wrongs of the past, and thus expiate ancient

wrongdoings.

With the knowledge of the roles his ancestors played in

the formation of the history of New England and with evidence

of the past ever present in his Salem surroundings where he

lived for several years, Hawthorne developed a fascination for

New England history. This interest manifested itself in his

reading. He read histories of New England with their accounts

of the Salem trials. He exposed himself to Puritan thought

about the presence and activities of the Devil in New England

by perusing sermons, lectures, and works by the theological

elite of seventeenth century New England. Cotton and Increase

Mather were two prominent theologians with whose works Hawthorne

became familiar, and whose theories and observances found their

way, sometimes scarcely modified, into the writer's fiction.

From histories of New England and their coverages of the

witchcraft period, Hawthorne derived events, dates, and names

about Salem trials and executions which he adapted to give his

writings historical authenticity and background. From the

112

Mathers and other theologians Hawthorne achieved valuable

insight into the fears and superstitions, myths and legends,

which even educated minds accepted as fact during the witch

pei~iod. The intense reality of the Devil- and his agents to

the early Puritans, which is accurately presented by Hawthorne

through subtle psychology and characterization, is a result

of his historical reading.

The paraphernalia of witchcraft doctrine—spectral evi-

dence, Black Sabbaths, orgies and dances, demons, witches,

wizards, the Black Man, demonic Indian sachems, image-magic,

broomsticks, child-murder, spells, compacts with Satan^ and

so forth, are all introduced into Hawthorne's work to achieve

certain effects. At the most elementary level, the parapher-

nalia of witch and Devil lore adds atmospheric qualities of

horror, suspense, and mystery. Element? of witch tradition

also help the author develop his themes arid characterization.

Young Goodman Brown, for example, loses his faith in mankind,

but he does so after a shocking and horrible experience

(either psychological or physical) with Satan, spectral evi-

dence, a Black Sabbath, and an unholy baptismal rite. Brown

thinks and reacts to his nightmare experience not only as a

seventeenth century Puritan, but as the universal man--quick

to judge, apt to doubt, inclined toward sin, and partly moti-

vated to reject good and choose evil instead.

The paraphernalia of witchcraft and Devil lore was so

attractive and adaptable for Hawthorne that he employed it in

113

fiction which is far removed from the Puritan witch period.

Thus in The Blithedale Romance, set in the 1800's, Hawthorne

alludes to a Devil compact in connection with the novel's

villain, and introduces a forest dance into the plot, linking

it and the dancers with the witch era of the seventeenth

century. Similarly, Hawthorne uses his own family history

and a historical witch's curse to add a touch of the demonic

to The House of the Seven Gables.

Hawthorne used three interrelated conceptions of the

Devil in characterizing Satan. The Miltonic, Galvinistic,

and folk-devil interpretations are developed separately ov?

in combination in individual works. Traditional Puritan

Devil-beliefs based on the Bible are adapted to enhance

fictional situations. For example, a serpent motif which

is prominent in the author's fiction is based on the tra-

dition of the serpent in the Garden of Eden# Hawthorne uses

serpentine imagery and symbolism to suggest sin and temp-

cation and to link villainous figures with Satan in the

reader's mind * Traditional color symbolism is another device

Hawthorne employs in characterizing the Devil and the demonic.

Black represents sin and evil; red denotes passion and sug-

gests eternal punishment in the fires of Hell. Hawthorne

used the Devil as his archetypal figure of evil. Often the

villainous or sinful nature of certain characters is revealed

by the author's illustrative parallels between Satan and a

Ilk

diabolic character, Roger Chillingworth, Ethan. Brand,

Professor Westervelt, the model (in The Mai'ble Faun) are

all characters whom Hawthorne describes in terms of Devil

tradition and whom he characterizes as demonics.

Hawthorne's demonic characters are often developed

ar-ound the theory that an inner battle rages in man between

good and evil. When the evil portion of his nature is in

ascendancy, man becomes a replica of Satan* Often Hawthorne's

characters evoke their inner "devil" or "demon" because they

nurture the sin of pride which calls forth the worst in human

nature* Roger Chillingworth, for example, suffers a blow to

his pride when he discovers his wife has been unfaithful. His

determination to use revenge as a balm for his wounded pride

results in his rejection of the good in his own nature.

Chillingworth becomes a "fiend." Similarly, Lady Eleanor in

"Lady Eleanor's Mantle," evokes a "fiend" through her ex-

cessive pride in her beauty and social status. Often, too,

overdevelopment of the intellect is the first step for the

characters in Hawthorne's fiction becoming sub-human indi-

viduals possessed by demons. Chillingworth, Ethan Brand,

Westervelt, Hollingsworth, and Dr. Rappaccini are all charac-

ters whose intellectual powers have betrayed them into the un-

pardonable sin of ignoring their ties with humanity and mis-'

using the powers of the mind to manipulate (and even destroy)

the souls of others.

115

Hawthorne's habit of using witch and Devil doctrine for

symbolism, figurative language, and irony is evident in all

his fiction dealing with witchcraft and the Devil. Often

irony is the author's tool for emphasizing the discrepancy

between appearance and reality. Irony occasionally intro-

duces a note of humor which is unexpected in Hawthorne's

usually serious treatment of witch and Devil lore. For ex-

ample, Mistress Hibbins and Goody Cloyse, two of Hawthorne's

most memorable witches, are ironic figures and humorous

characters as well. In other works Hawthorne uses the whimsy,

fantasy, and illusion of witchcraft and the humorous con-

ception of the folk Devil to achieve a light tone and teach

a moral. Witchcraft is used humorously in "Feathertop; A

Moralized Legend," for example, in order to satirize certain

elements of society. A comic folk devil adds humor and irony

to "The Celestial Railroad" and "Peter Goldthwaite's Treasure."

Whether used seriously or humorously, witch and Devil^

beliefs were valuable tools as literary devices and sources

for subject matter of Hawthorne's writings. The diabolic

provided an unreal and unbelievable aura to complement the

author's technique of using ambiguity as a tool. In Hawthorne's

writing ambiguity obscures events, thus allowing for a myriad

of interpretations of plot and character. The superstition

of witchcraft and Devil doctrine adds the horror (and some-

times humor) which Hawthorne wanted to achieve. Hawthorne

116

often invests his fiction with, "romantic indefiniteness,"

as Arlin Turner says, which provides a "vague, atmosphere

. . . just outside the precincts of real life."1- The

introduction of historic names} events, and scenes connected

with the witch period of Puritan New England often lends his

works solidity and concreteness to balance the fantasies,

ambiguities, and abstract concepts with which he deals.

•Turner, p. 108,

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Burr, George Lincoln, editor, Narratives of_ the Witchcraft Gases 1.684-1706, New York, Charles" Scri'bner' s Sens, 19 Ik 7 ~~~

Calvin, John, Institutes of the Ohristian Religion, 7th ed., Translated by John Allen T2 voTiuo.es)", Philadelphia, Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, 1936.

Hansen, Chadwick> Witchcraft at Salem, New York, George Braziller, Incfl,, 1*971).

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, The Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by George Parsons LatKrop ( L5" volumes") , "Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 191^.

Kesselring, Mar i o n Louise, Hawthorne ' s Reading_ 1828--1650, New York, New York Public LTorary, 1949 7 "

Kittredge, George Lyman, Witc hcrjift in Old and N w England, New Yox-k, Harvard UnivarsTty Press," 1929.

Mather, Cotton, Wonders of the Invisible World, London, J. R. Smith, 186*2.

Milton, John, The Coo^lete Poetical Works of John MiJ-ton$ edited by "George "Bush, Boston," Houghton Mifflin Co., 1965.

Robbins, Rossel Hope, The Enc^^padia witchcraft and. Demonology, New York. Grown Publishers, 1959.

Starkey, Marion Lena, The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Inquiry Into Sal era Witch Trials, New York, A. A. Knopf Co., 1 .

Stein, William Bysshe, Hawthorne' s_ Pausjfc: A Study of the. Devil Archetype, Ga.xneivfT.le., Florida, University of ' Florida Press, 1953.

Stewart, Randall, Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Biography, New Haven, Yale UnTvarsity Press7"l<J48

117

118

Turner, Arlin, Hajbhaiiiel Hawthorne: An Introduction and InterpretatToirr~New York"IfoLt, Barries and NobXe, 19517 ~

Uyham, Charles Wentworth, Salem Witchcraft (2 volumes), New York, Frederick Ungar Go",", 1959".

Articles

Eurhams, Clinton S., Jr., "Hawthorne' s Mind and Art in 'The Hollow of Three Hills, ' " Journal of_ English and German Philology, LX (April, 1961), 286*~29~5.

Dahl, Curtis, "The Devil is a Wise One,M Cithara, VI (1967), 52-58.

Levin, David, "Shadows of Doubt: Specter Evidence in Hawthorne's 'Young Goodman Brown,'" American Literature, XXXIV (November, 1962), 3^-352.

Lynch, James J., "The Devil in the Writings of Irving, Hawthorne, and Poe," New York Folklore Quarterly, VIII (Summer, 1952), 111-1317 "

McDowell, Tremaine, "Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the Witches of Colonial Salem," Notes and Queries, CIXVI (March 3, 193*0, 152. " ""