Hawthorne

Hawthone's story lady eleanore's mantle is another one of his stories that touches on the weird and the macabre and also on instances of moral and social injustice but unfortunately is also too melodramatic and schematic to be a great story. In brief story involves a haughty and beautiful young English woman who come to Massachusetts in colonial times and is scornful of the colonists. She also brings w her the contagion of smallpox that devastated the colony esp the upper classes and makes her into a legendary object of contempt. H 's politics here are admirable if simplistic. Could have been a stronger story had he made lady e's affliction w her own disease more of a surprise but we can c it coming for a mile. Still for those ready to write off Hawthorne this is another example of his furious commitment to freedom equality and American values - unlike so many writers of his day and ours who worship all things aristocratic and British.

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