Nathaniel Hawthrone
Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne’s works consistently focus on the darkness of man’s nature using symbolism and allegories based on his Puritan heritage. In a large number of his short stories Hawthorne focuses on hidden secrets and religious aspects concerning the characters and their choices in life. His use of simile and metaphors are generally concentrated on religious doctrines and judgmental attitudes. Using comparisons and contrasts between darkness versus light and good versus evil he uses religion and the evil battles fought within man’s heart as parallels within his stories. According to Samuel Chase Coale, “The battle between mind and matter, moral imagination and dark, void spirit and substance provides the basic pattern of Hawthorne’s fiction (Coale 3).