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This study is to trace Nathaniel Hawthorne’s development as an author in order to make clear his influence on contemporaries and later writers. His contributions to the exploration of deeper psychology and the creation of the American romance are surely among the chief matters of my concern. Hawthorne aims to portray and reveal the truth of the human heart. He strongly believes that there is a fund of evil in every human heart. The vision of that heart of darkness which lies at the base of all his speculations never changes in all of his fiction. As he wishes to claim a certain latitude for his work in terms of its material and style of presentation, Hawthorne attempts to distinguish between novel and romance. He states that the novel must be minutely faithful to the daily realities, whereas the romance does not strive toward verisimilitude. The writer of romance incorporates elements of the supernatural or mysterious within the narrative to expand the possibilities of fiction. In other words, the romance allows a writer to enter into what Hawthorne calls in The Scarlet Letter a “neutral territory.” In that realm, the writer can mingle or merge the actual and the ideal.
Both many contemporaries and later writers acknowledge Hawthorne’s significance as a voice in the tradition of American romance. Hawthorne as our first great American romancer continues to provide inspiration and challenges to new generations. Hawthorne’s novel is alive and relevant to us today. Owing to his faculty which iscalled now-a-days the historic consciousness, Hawthorne is easily defined as a peculiarly modern and, indirectly, as our contemporary.