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The Unpardonable Reader, Ariel Berry

The Hilltop Review

Hawthorne’s prefaces to his romances, though largely ignored as a composite body of work, contain key insights into reading his fiction. Each preface is a sort of instruction manual directed toward the reader. He expects empathy from his readers and openness to his version of magical realism. A study of Hawthorne’s concept of the “Unpardonable Sin” as presented in “Ethan Brand” reveals that these reading instructions warn against a similar crime, that of a cold lack of empathy and tendency toward disbelief. On a much smaller scale, then, it becomes clear that a reader who does not follow Hawthorne’s instructions …