Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Wakefield": An Analysis

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Most people believe that what is customary pertains to what the public does. Everyone else who deviates from this belief is regarded as an outcast in society, which is meant to close his doors to all the possibilities. However, what people do not understand is that complexity is an innate gift of every person. Life is a matter of choices. Closing one’s doors might be typical to one but not the other. It is just a matter of perspective. This concept is well illustrated in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Wakefield,” which tells a story about a man who is peculiarly non-peculiar.
Initially, Mr. Wakefield can be thought of as a thoughtless and peculiar man who wanted to leave everything he loved for a long time. Thus, leaving his wife for an unknown duration until the wife grieves and forgets about her loving husband. Of course, Mr. Wakefield has peculiar behaviors. However, in the end, he showed what everybody else does—going back to the person who remembers him, even when only from memory due to the fear of oblivion.
The best description of Mr. Wakefield is that he is an intelligent person, known to his wife and friends. He is too bright and cunning that no one could have predicted in his actions. This is evident when Hawthorne described him:
“He was intellectual, but not actively so; his mind occupied itself in long and lazy musings, that ended to no purpose, or had not vigor to attain it; his thoughts were seldom so energetic as to seize hold of words…With a cold but not depraved nor wandering heart, and a mind never feverish with riotous thoughts, nor perplexed with originality, who could have anticipated that our friend would entitle himself to a foremost place among the doers of eccentric deeds? (Hawthorne)”
At first, Mr. Wakefield is an eccentric man who seems to have a feeling of grandiosity where he thinks that he is a big personality and that the world revolves around him. Little did he know that he only has a little significance for the people around hi...