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Hawthorne's radiologist-universalist-miner
personality is discussed in
Therivel's GAM/DP Theory of Personality and Creativity.
Nathaniel Hawthorne:
GAM Radiologist-Universalist-Miner
The above is the title of chapter 2 of volume 4 of
volume 4 of William A. Therivel's The GAM/DP Theory
of Personality and Creativity (G stands
for genetic endowment, A for assistances of youth,
M for misfortunes of youth, DP for division
of power, UP for unity of power). For an introduction
to the GAM part of the theory click "Introduction
to GAM"; for an introduction to the DP
part click on "Introduction
to DP".
In this website, the reader is also offered a shortcut:
The GAM/DP Synopsis
and an expanded version, The GAM/DP
Summary of volumes 1 through 4.
Hereafter, I report a few pages from this chapter.
Introduction
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's
story "The Minister's Black Veil", a New England
clergyman emerges one day with his face swathed in black
crepe. Ignoring the disquiet of his parishioners, the
unrelenting reverend wears the ghastly cloth to his
final hour--at which point he cries out: "Lo! on
every visage a black veil!" The mask has served
not as a concealment but as a mirror. Through a lifetime's
correspondence, Hawthorne unveiled no dark, private
wellspring for his sombre, soul-probing writings. As
he wrote to his soon-to-be wife, Sophia Peabody, in
1842, "When people think that I am pouring myself
out in a tale or essay, I am merely telling what is
common to human nature, not what is peculiar to myself.
I sympathize with them--not they with me." (Tursi,
2002, p. 8)
Hawthorne wrote of what
he thought was common to human nature; but he did it
as a somber, soul-probing radiologist-universalist-miner,
with the richness and complexity which derives from
his belonging to no less than three GAM personality
families (for causes and results): radiologists,
universalists, and miners1, in
something like a Venn's diagram in which three
circles (one for each of these personality families)
partially overlap, thus dividing the personality
plane in eight regions. Thus, some of Hawthorne's
works are dedicated (the region outside of the
three circles), some are predominantly radiological
(inside only that circle, but at various radiological
intensities), some are radiological-universalist
(where the radiologist and universalist
circles overlap), and some works are radiological-universalist-miner
(the area in which the three circles overlap).
This description may seem
unnecessarily complicated, but it can provide a new
understanding of Hawthorne's works, and relate his personality
to that of others whose youth, personality and works,
were similarly affected. By focusing, for instance,
on that part of the Venn diagram in which the ring of
the radiologists overlaps that of the universalists
we can compare (for causes and results) Hawthorne to
Nietzsche. Both suffered of early paternal death Category
A: at age 5 for Nietzsche, and age 4 for Hawthorne;
and of physical infirmity which began at the age of
9 for both. Similarly, by focusing on the miner ring,
we can compare some of Hawthorne's works to those by
the miners Baudelaire and Rimbaud.
Moving to that important
M of his GxAxM, Hawthorne suffered in his youth of three
major misfortunes: death of father Categories A and
B2 when he was four, then severe/insulting
physical infirmity, from about age 9 to 10 (or 9 to
12, depending on the sources and their recollections
many years after the facts). Accordingly, I will start
with Hawthorne's radiological circle, move to
his universalist circle, and then to their overlap.
I take this approach because, of all his personality/creativity
circles, the radiologist has been the least studied,
and yet it is capable of providing important additional
understanding on both the creator and his acts of creation.
Also, what I report hereafter
on Hawthorne the radiologist provides evidence
for the validity of the GAM theory of personality and
creativity. As in the case of Nietzsche (see volume
2), when I read of Hawthorne's radiological misfortune
of youth (discussed in the next section), I expected
to find numerous and important radiological texts
in his works, and I found them, especially in his master
work, The Scarlet Letter.
Like Nietzsche (whose
eye problems grew slowly, but never stopped), Hawthorne
became fascinated (even obsessed) with diseases and
cures, with patients and doctors. Then, both Nietzsche
and Hawthorne (as radiologist-universalist because
of the two major misfortunes of youth: physical infirmity
and early death of the father), felt they had discovered
a cure to what they saw as the fundamental psychological-physical
disease afflicting humanity.
In chapter 9 of volume
2, I spoke of Doctor Nietzsche and his cure, in this
chapter I will also refer to Doctor Hawthorne and his
cure. On the other hand, the Nietzsche-Hawthorne comparison
should not be pushed too far, because in Hawthorne there
was also a major miner component (from paternal
death category B) which is not present in Nietzsche,
while the radiologist in Hawthorne is not as
powerful as in Nietzsche.
Radiological Causes
| On
November 10, 1813, Nathaniel was hit on the leg
while playing "bat and ball." According
to [his sister] Elizabeth, writing decades later,
"no injury was discernible," yet he was
incapacitated for two or three years. Apparently
he refused to walk and favored the injured leg for
months following the accident. Elizabeth, not the
mother, wrote urgently to Uncle Robert: "I
don't know Nathaniel's foot will ever get well if
you don't come home. He wont walk on it & the
Doctor says he must; so do come soon." Perhaps
after direct orders from Uncle Robert, who apparently
was the only one who could manage the youth, Nathaniel
began to walk with the aid of crutches... The patient
remained stubborn and uncooperative, and recovery
was slow. Many doctors from Salem and elsewhere,
including his future father-in-law, Dr. Nathaniel
Peabody, examined and prescribed but produced neither
cure nor diagnosis of the injury. Soon one leg was
growing more slowly than the other. Only by January
20, 1815, was his mother finally confident. "Nathaniel
has," she wrote, "entirely recovered the
use of his foot, and walks as well as he did before
he was lame, his joy was great, when he found he
could walk without his crutches." She attributed
the cure to a Dr. Smith of Hanover, who advised
pouring cold water on his foot every morning.3
The disability appears to have had psychological
as well as physical origins. It occurred within
a year of two traumatic deaths, which reactivated
Nathaniel's memory of the death of his father four
years earlier. Nathaniel was moved by the almost
uncontrollable grief of his Grandmother Manning,
who had lost a husband and son in the same year.
(Miller, 1991, pp. 47-48, my italics) |
Worth mentioning is also the following from a letter
that Hawthorne's sister Elizabeth wrote to her niece
Una :
| Your
father was lame a long time from an injury received
while playing bat-and-ball. His foot pined away,
and was considerably smaller than the other. He
had every doctor that could be heard of; among the
rest, your grandfather Peabody. But it was 'Dr.
Time' who at last cured him. I remember he used
to lie upon the floor and read, and that he went
upon two crutches. Everybody thought that, if he
lived, he would be always lame. (Hawthorne, Julian,
1884/1968, p. 100) |
Clearly, the first of
those who "thought that, if he lived, he would
be always lame" was Nathaniel Hawthorne himself.4
This thought, coupled with those on the death of his
father and other relatives--and with the many failed
attempts for a cure which showed how little the doctors
knew--led him to have strong radiological leanings.
Burning questions on the meaning of life--stimulated
by the early death of his father--were asked together
with question on the meaning of health and sickness.
These questions raised by the young universalist
became, at the same time, also radiological questions.
While universalists
can, on an intellectual basis, forget the body as unimportant,
and concentrate their thoughts on the mind and its involvement
with truth, justice, happiness and love, universalist-radiologists
cannot: they cannot forget their sick body, the sick
body of others, the physicians who were unable to help
them. Then, when the two misfortunes (early parental
death, and humiliating physical infirmity) act in parallel,
the infirmities of the body will be linked to the infirmities
of the mind.
Hawthorne, the universalist,
discovered what other great minds of the past had found--that
pride is the gravest of all sins. Then, radiologist
as he was, Hawthorne linked pride to bodily sickness.
1The three GAM personality families to
which Hawthorne belongs in part are described in chapter
3 of volume 1 as:
- Radiologists. Cause: Painful or humiliating
physical infirmities. Result: Keen eye for anything
that is sick in people and society; may have some
religious or mystical interests, but permeated with
pessimism.
- Universalists. Cause: Early parental death
or much parental absence, coupled with love and good
assistance from the remaining parent or relatives;
good assistance from school and stable socio-economic
status. Result: Fond of moral concepts that are logical
and prescriptive; have penchant for vast, non relativistic,
theoretical thinking; fond of higher/intellectual
pursuits such as religion, philosophy, mathematics,
science and law.
- Miners. Cause: Lack of love (e.g., lack of
love from remaining parent after one died, divorced
or was pushed aside). Result: Skeptics with a tendency
to pessimism and satire; sharp eye for hypocrisy.
(Many great poets are miners).
2Parental death category A is the one which
causes a parental vacuum, but with no additional misfortunes.
Parental death category B is the one followed by problems
(mainly lack of love for the children) when, for instance
the remaining parent soon remarries (not to provide
a substitute father or mother for the children) or has
an affair; or is overwhelmed by his/her difficulties
and unable to give love and attention to the children.
Parental death category C is the one which starts a
painful socioeconomic downfall of the family. Parental
death category A is the origin of the universalists,
category B the origin of many miners, while parental
death category C is a the source of many critical
jesters.
3Specifically, "The prescribed consisted
of pouring showers of cold water from a window in the
second story upon the lame foot, extended below....
Later he was able to walk with the aid of crutches.
Not until after some three years, when he was twelve,
was the lameness completely overcome" (Stewart,
1948, p. 4). If so, the cure may have seemed--especially
to the patient--more quackery than science, and the
infirmity may have lasted longer than mentioned by others:
three years instead of a little more than one year.
4It is true that the problem with his foot
lasted only little more than one year (or up to three
years), but Nathaniel did not known if and when he would
be healed. The reader will remember the strong impact
on Charles Dickens of those five months in the blacking
warehouse, discussed in chapter 1 of volume 3. Dickens
at that time was 12, close in age to Hawthorne who became
infirm at the age of 9. In both cases, the terrible
fear was that it would last forever. Dickens never forgot,
and certainly neither did Hawthorne. It shaped their
personality and creativity.
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