Short essays on Hawthorne, Dickinson, Gothic Literature, and Ahab.

By Lee A. Zito
1.Puritan heritage influenced Hawthorne greatly. It was so much apart of his upbringing and family life that there was no way he could escape it. Interestingly enough, his father was a judge who proceeded over the Salem Witch Trials. The ideas of Puritanism were forced on to Hawthorne. He felt suffocated and imprisoned by the strict religious life. His writing is an outlet for his feelings and emotions of the Puritan ideas presented to him throughout his life.
Rappaccini's experiment consisted of poisonous plants to which his daughter became infected by making her breath po…