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."
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