Document Type
Class Paper
Publication Date
12-3-2015
Abstract
Nathaniel Hawthorne uses liminality, a state of between-ness often used to express a transition in someone’s life, in his short stories to emphasize the magnitude of a transition in a characters life. Abigail Crain posits that the liminal states of Robin in “My Kinsman Major Molineux” and Brown in “Young Goodman Brown” occur at the end of their tales, meaning that everything that happened to them throughout their respective stories has led them to this end state of being between something. I disagree. Hawthorne creates certain spaces within the story to be seen as grounds for transitions in the character’s lives. Hawthorne creates his characters to be broken, leaving room for a sizable transition to a better life, which a reader can see upon comparison of the two works.
Recommended Citation
Earnest, Kacy, "Nathaniel Hawthorne- Liminality as Enlightenment: “Am I Here, or There?”" (2015). English Class Publications. 9.
https://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/english_class_publications/9