"Hawthorne's
interest in history is only a special case of his interest in fathers
and sons, guilt and retribution, instinct and inhibition...only by
immersing himself in Puritan history could Hawthorne satisfy his
interest in buried impulses" (29-30).
H's life: his father's death at
an early age, his lameness, his delicate health, his marriage at 38 to
a semi-invalid, his dislike of a maternal uncle, on whom he depended
financially.
H's
characters: they are escapists, unwilling to pass from childhood to
maturity. Their sexual obsessions are the driving force of
the stories. The plots themselves enact the return of the
repressed, in that they 'allow perverse and partial expression of those
wishes'. The heroes of the stories take refuge in various
pursuits, some patently obvious, some not so obvious: strange
forest meetings ('Young Goodman Brown'), medical science ('The
Birthmark'), botany (Rappaccini's daughter'). Crews shows
persuasively how images and symbols are condensations and displacements
of the original libidinous impulse: activities guilty or
innocent, observing witches' sabbaths or tending flowers, become the
occasion for the return of the repressed in the form of a neurotic
compromise.
Main Idea: Hawthorne
looked at Puritan history because he was obsessed with oedipal
tensions. 
