SOURCE: "Madness in Hawthorne's Fiction," in The Cast of Consciousness: Concepts of the Mind in British and American Romanticism, edited by Beverly Taylor and Robert Bain, Greenwood Press, 1987, pp. 125-40.

In the following essay, Ringe reviews Nathaniel Hawthorne's treatment of insanity throughout his short stories and novels. Ringe argues that Hawthorne attempted to accurately portray the mental disorders of his characters, and demonstrates how Hawthorne's understanding of such disorders concurred with documentation by contemporary medical authorities. Additionally, Ringe studies the function of insanity in Hawthorne's characters, noting that madness is not always a negative trait, as mad characters may serve as "agents of truth."

Although much has been written about the psychology of Hawthorne's fiction, little attention has been paid to the pervasive theme of madness in his tales and romances.¹ From the early "Hollow of the Three Hills" (1830), where, through auditory images, he describes the horrors of...