Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Nathaniel Hawthorne

  • Art, anhedonia, and family psychodynamics in the creativity of Nathaniel Hawthorne

    Stephen Martin Thailand   Fig 1. Sophia Amelia Peabody. Villa Menaggio, Lago di Como, 1839–40. © 2007 Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA. Photography by Dennis Helmar.  There are interesting questions about how the mental phenomenology of the great writer Nathaniel Hawthorne1 drove his work. His supreme narrative gift and engaging observation were shadowed by anhedonia,…

  • The derailment of Franklin Pierce

    Jacob Appel  New York, New York, United States   Pres. Franklin Pierce. neg. from original ink by Brady. [between 1855 and 1865]. Part of Brady-Handy photograph collection. Library of Congress Online Catalog. Few subjects have attracted as much attention from medical historians, both well-founded and speculative, as the health of United States presidents. Considerable debate…

  • Hawthorne’s The Birthmark: a failure to find a perfect future in an imperfect present

    Sylvia Karasu New York City, New York, United States   In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Birthmark, 1 Aylmer, “a man of science” leaves the somber, factory-like atmosphere of his laboratory to marry the beautiful Georgiana.  Aylmer “had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weaned from them by any secondary passion,” and…