호손의 아동문학에 드러난 아동, 교육, 가정성

Children, Pedagogy and Domesticity in Hawthorne's Children's Literature

This paper aims at assessing Nathaniel Hawthorn's portrayal of the children in his three short stories considering the concept of the children, the change of pedagogical ways, domestic ideology, and nationalism in the 1820s. It is hard to define children's literature because it is not simply for the children, but reflects the complicated social layers in more subtle ways. The cultural climate which nurtured an virtuous and exemplary adult as a citizen of the incipient republic accelerates an atmosphere equally conducive to the new pedagogy for the young. The young children should be educated to grow up to be a good adult with the help of a sympathetic and compassionate mother who is responsible for children's socialization. Hawthorne presents an angelic little girl, Annie, in "Little Annie's Ramble" and a frustrated flower-like boy, Daffydowndilly in "Little Daffydowndilly." Even though the two short stories employ the same structure, in which the children that have left home come back after experiencing the world, the gap between the experience of Annie and that of Daffydowndilly is enormous. This paper explores such extremely opposite experiences based on social expectations according to gender and domesticity. The domestic ideology divides the men and women and impose different attributes to make an ideal wife and a capable husband. In a competitive capitalistic society, women are expected to create an ideal home providing comfort, rest and regeneration to the men working hard in the materialistic world. The society based on gender roles inevitably ends in different pedagogy, as shown in Annie and Daffydowndilly. Hawthorne criticizes the contemporary pedagogy leading to the creation of the bleak house composed of a domineering father and an anglic mother in "The Snow-Image." By examining the Lindsey family which is more likely to be composed of the grown-ups, Annie and Daffydowndilly, this paper shows how Hawthorne reveals the falsity of angelic motherhood and wrong-headed education.