A rhetorical search for the implied author and his created reader in the novels of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Abstract

Nathaniel Hawthorne clearly states in his prefaces that he is writing his four novels for a genial, understanding friend. In the "Custom-House" sketch preceding his first novel, Hawthorne admits that he writes with "the inmost Me behind its veil." One task confronting the student of Hawthorne is to discern the consistent views of the figure called the "implied author" by Wayne C. Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction. In the sketch Hawthorne also admits that he hopes to reach an understanding and sympathetic reader who will share his views, Booth's "created reader." In order to develop a well-defined impression of Hawthorne's created reader and to detect the beliefs of the implied author, one must examine closely the complex rhetoric and themes contained in The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun. Since the created reader is expected to assume the beliefs of the implied author, they come to agree on the role of women in society, the value of the past, the necessity for authority, and the conflict between the individual and society. However, by constructing this mythical created reader who is "sympathetic" and "understanding," Hawthorne also raises a barrier for some readers, particularly twentieth-century women. Hawthorne's created reader is a middle-class, middle-aged man with traditional masculine beliefs on the position of women in society. If the twentieth-century woman is to read his novels with enjoyment and appreciation, she must be prepared to set aside her own contemporary, perhaps totally divergent, views and assume those shared by these two nineteenth-century men. In spite of this difficulty, however, the search for the created reader has a value for both men and women of the twentieth century. The real reader can more easily experience an age and culture not his own, can sustain a deeper insight into the author's intentions, and can intensify his appreciation for the writer's art.