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Timmerman, John H. Nathaniel Hawthornes Preoccupation with Unpardonable Sin: The Dramatization of Ethical Action in His Short Stories. Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 2013. 288 pp. $139.95.
In his book Nathaniel Hawthorne's Preoccupation with Unpardonable Sin: The Dramatization of Ethical Action in His Short Stories (Mellen 2013), John H. Timmerman undertakes an ambitious and expansive task of explaining the origin and application of an ethical theory developed by Hawthorne early in his literary career and sustained throughout the course of his life. This ethical system, according to Timmerman, was influenced by several philosophical traditions, from those of Plato and Augustine to those of John Calvin, but the most important was the empirical humanism of David Hume.
In nine chapters, Timmerman first provides readers with a broad overview of theories of ethics, particularly as they are to be understood in the Christian theological tradition, follows with an explanation of Hawthornes theory of ethics, and then offers a series of analyses of those ethics as they are dramatized in different collections of stories. One of the most valuable aspects of Timmermans project is the sheer number of stories he includes in his analysis. In all, Timmerman discusses thirtyfour stories, including canonical tales such as "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Ministers Black Veil" and less well known (and less read and less studied) tales such as "Fancys Show-Box," "The Haunted Quack," and "The Village Uncle." These stories are grouped according to four broad categories: histories, stories that deal with "ethical concerns," "stories about art and artists," and "narrative entertainment" ( 196). Then they are further subdivided into chapter-specific categories of IDEA and art, naïf and devil, science and scientism, dark encounters, the disappearing man, ethics and art, and sin, guilt, and forgiveness.
The story most central to Timmermans analysis is "Ethan Brand," from which Timmerman draws the operative definition of "unpardonable sin": "the sin of an intellect that triumphed over the sense of brotherhood with man and reverence to God," which Timmerman translates into the simpler notion of pride. Timmerman writes that "Hawthornes . . . artistic career was shaped by that IDEA-exploring the perplexing destructiveness of pride, the assuagement of guilt, and the means of redemptive deliverance" (1). Timmerman further explains that those characters who fail to overcome their...