 Do you know the story, “Wakefield,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne? It’s one of my favorites of his – a neat little gem of a piece about a man in London, who, one October night, bids his wife of ten years goodbye, tells her he is going into the country on business and may be gone for a few days, leaves his house, goes a few blocks over, rents a room, dons a disguise, and stays away for twenty years. During the time he is “missing,” he spies on his wife and his house, and then one day returns. Crazy. One of the beauties of the story for me is the way Hawthorne compresses twenty years into just a few pages. The tale is told strangely, the narrator reporting to the reader that he came upon the story in the newspaper, and then while he’s telling what happened, he interjects his condemnations and advice for Wakefield. The narrator seems to know more than he should. Every time I read it, I find places in the story that might be clues to what it’s all about, but there is no certainty with this story – or any I could find, although, granted, that’s just me. For instance, there is one scene where he peers in the window of his house at night and sees his wife by the fire, and her shadow takes on the form of a witch. Someone else who was also into the story said to me once, “What if she really is a witch?” I entertained the thought but it never panned out for me. That’s the way it goes with this story. You have what you think is a revelation about it and you follow it for a while, but eventually it diffuses and disperses, and what you’re left with is the basic amazing plot of someone stepping out of their life. Here’s Hawthorne’s final lines of the story: "Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever. Like Wakefield, he may become, as it were, the Outcast of the Universe." Anyway, I got to thinking about this story the other day, and I realized that this idea of “stepping out” shows up in a number of other literary works from 19th century America. I’m trying to put together what this phenomenon points to – some American attitude, philosophy, warning, character trait …? I’m still pondering this, and probably will for years to come, but here are the other works in which I readily find its spirit: "Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving "Bartleby, the Scrivner" by Melville – Bartleby has stepped out, so to speak, and the lawyer is drawn out of his accepted life by Bartleby. Walden by Thoreau, which strikes me more and more as a novel rather than an essay due to its construction, its artifice, its being influenced by Defoe’s Crusoe. Whitman’s whole enterprise was a kind of stepping out, but with the benefit of being able to turn back and see the whole of America more clearly in his Leaves of Grass. Dickinson’s solitary writing life, much of it more recently revealed to be apocryphal but still much of it actual. I’m not quite sure why I see it as one of these types of stories, but also Twain’s “The Mysterious Stranger.” The ultimate stepping out. I have a feeling there has got to be a Poe story based on this idea as well. Just a hunch. I haven’t had time to look yet (obviously, no rush). When I look, I’m going to start with “A Man of the Crowd.” I don’t remember the story so well, but I have a feeling it is one of them for some reason. Perhaps there’s another. What does it all mean? I’ll let you know if I ever figure it out.
Here's the entirety of "Wakefield." http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/156/
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