Hawthorne and HRC - June 22 and 23

As I mentioned in my last post, I picked up a book of Hawthorne's short stories recently and, surprisingly, I'm enjoying them. Hawthorne's style can be obnoxious, he uses large words and synonyms as if he is overly self-conscious of his own vocabulary and insists on latinate sentence constructions (i.e. periodic sentences: lots of commas and semi-colons). At the same time, I find the larger themes of his work fascinating and attractive. For one thing, the short stories attempt to portray New England when it was still the frontier. For this reason (like much literature about the wilderness) there is a strong sense of the supernatural, and defamiliarization is prevalent. This strong sense of superstition is intertwined with puritan values and ideals (held, as far as I can tell, by Hawthorne's characters rather than Hawthorne himself). The stories themselves appear to be (and sometimes are, much to my annoyance) simple allegories, but there is usually some sort of logical gap in what the obvious message seems to be, a flaw or ambiguity.

The two stories that have popped out at me the most so far are 'Young Goodman Brown' and 'The Burial of Roger Malvin.' 'Young Goodman Brown' is a relatively famous story, and is famous for the moral ambiguity that I mention above. To recap, the story begins as what seems to be a straightforward allegory: Goodman (get it?) must leave his wife, Faith (get it?), to do battle with the demonic forces of temptation in the wilderness. This is where things get a little convoluted. For one thing, all of the upstanding citizens of Goodman's town appear to be in league with the devil, including his own wife. He manages to resist temptation, but at the end of the night it is unclear whether the visions he has had are real, or exist only within his own mind. Goodman returns to the town and can never see his neighbors or wife in the same way again. He dies a bitter and gloomy man. There are certainly multiple interpretations of this story, but the ones that I favor center on questions of subjective perception and ethical relativism. For one thing, Goodman never witnesses any of the townspeople performing evil deeds outside of the satanic ritual that he thinks he saw. He judges them despite the fact that this is a phenomenon that has appeared only to him. What is most haunting perhaps, is the plausibility of the interpretation that all of the townspeople ARE evil. Certainly, from our modern standpoint, we can see how America's early settlers could be condemned for their genocide of the Native Americans, as well as the repressive and unenlightened ways in which they governed (e.g. witch trials?!). Perhaps Hawthorne had his own reasons for associating puritans with satan. In this sense, Goodman may in fact be an upstanding, moral man passing correct judgment. This does not change the fact that he lives a truly unhappy life. Does the ultimate moral value of our deeds matter less in the final calculus of our lives than whether or not we conformed with society or fit in? Anyway, I could ramble on about this story interminably. I haven't even touched on the notion that Goodman's wife could be understood as Faith personified.

'Roger Malvin's Burial' brings up similar questions. The story is about two men, a father and his son-in-law to be, who have survived a battle with Native Americans. Both are wounded, but the father (Roger) is on death's door. He convinces Reuben to abandon him to die under a rock, and before he leaves Reuben vows to return and bury Roger (a matter of weighty importance to America's frontiersmen according to Hawthorne). Reuben manages to find his way back home and marries Roger's daughter. The rub is that he tells everyone that Roger actually died with Reuben by his side, and that Reuben dutifully buried him where he expired. Of course, the guilt eats him up from the inside, leaving him an angry man whose only true source of joy is his son Cyrus. Reuben's fortune dwindles away over the years, so he must strike out into the wilderness with his wife and son in order to forge a new destiny for himself. One evening, hunting for game, Reuben mistakenly shoots his own son, and realizes that Cyrus has expired on the exact same spot where he left Roger so many years ago. Clearly this story appeals to me because it deals with graves, memorials, memory and the cyclical nature of history. Embedded in the plot is the idea that without carrying the past with us, we sacrifice our future. Additionally, Hawthorne describes what has hung over Reuben as a curse, which is fascinating. It is worth noting that Reuben has every reason to leave Roger behind. Roger even urges him to do so, and prays for the safety and well-being of Reuben and his daughter. There doesn't seem to be a clear moral imperative here. What curses Reuben is his own vow. He has created his own destiny by violating his own moral code. At any rate, I'll shut up about literature now.

Lastly, today was cool because I got to do some substantial work for HRC. For one thing, the wife of a man to whom I had mailed out the notice about our investigation of SCI-Dallas called me and I was able to give her cogent and accurate advice over what she ought to send me. On top of that, I've gotten myself involved in an investigation into certain abuses of a prisoner who has an ongoing lawsuit against the DOC (Department of Corrections). I called both SCI-Fayette, where he's currently incarcerated, as well as the DOC's central office, and it seems like they're actually putting an investigator from OPR (Office of Professional Responsibility) on the case. So something happened! I'm going to try to write out letters to the Supt. of Fayette and the DOC secretary tomorrow, putting them 'on notice.' I may even get to try to file criminal charges against them! Exciting stuff.