A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys as a Gothic Rewriting of Classical Myths

Abstract

This dissertation explores how Nathaniel Hawthorne rewrote Greek myths as Gothic romance fantasy. I have chosen A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys (1851) written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The main purpose is to research what Nathaniel Hawthorne intended in rewriting Greek myths, why Hawthorne used the Gothic mode to rewrite these stories for children, and in what ways they had changed. For that purpose, I will examine the structure of stories in A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys by following Vladimir Propp's method to explore the structure functions of story. It will be seen that the structure of this book is very simple. Also, I will examine Hawthorne's Gothic to discuss elements of Gothic in A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys. As a conclusion, this dissertation will show that A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys is Gothic literature, although this book was written for children.