Ben Shapiro if he roasted Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne. A man who, for some inexplicable reason, is still regarded as one of the greats of 19th-century American literature. And I have to ask: why? Why do people pretend to enjoy this guy? Why do literature professors force innocent students to suffer through his tedious, overwrought, dreary nonsense? Let’s break it down. Facts don’t care about your feelings, and the fact is—Nathaniel Hawthorne is the worst 19th-century American writer. Period.

First, and most obviously—his work is boring. It is insufferable. It is the literary equivalent of watching paint dry on a wall… and then reading a 40-page monologue from a guilt-ridden Puritan about the morality of the drying process. The Scarlet Letter? Oh wow, a woman gets shamed for adultery. Riveting. But instead of making the story engaging, he bloats it with pages upon pages of moralistic drivel, deep, self-loathing introspection, and painfully slow, overindulgent prose. It’s like he wrote an entire novel just to make sure every single person reading it would feel like they were suffocating under the weight of his own guilt and self-hatred. There's his short stories. His story "Sunday At Home" is just about a man looking at people out the window on Sunday during the Sabbath and describing it in the long, dreariest tone possible.

Second—he is obsessed with joylessness. And not in an interesting way. No, Hawthorne takes a self-righteous, judgmental, joyless worldview and just marinates in it for hundreds of pages. Everything is about guilt, shame, and the crushing weight of sin. No action, no excitement, just guilt. The man could have written a book about a pirate battle, and somehow it would just turn into a 300-page slog about a pirate’s inner turmoil over whether or not he should have stolen that gold doubloon.

Third—he’s a worse Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was dark, yes. Poe was morbid, yes. But Poe had style, he had flair, he had atmosphere. When Poe wrote a gothic horror story, you felt something—dread, terror, suspense. When Hawthorne tries to do gothic horror, it just comes off as melancholic whining. The House of the Seven Gables? It’s a haunted house story that somehow makes ghosts seem boring.

Fourth—his characters are all lifeless, depressed husks. He takes one basic emotion—misery—and applies it to every single character. Hester Prynne? Miserable. Arthur Dimmesdale? Miserable. Every single character in The House of the Seven Gables? Miserable. Reading Hawthorne is like being stuck in a room with a man who sighs dramatically every five minutes just to remind you how sad he is.

Fifth—his writing is needlessly dense. Hawthorne never uses one word when he can use ten. His sentences drag on for so long they need their own intermissions. He writes like he’s being paid by the syllable. He doesn’t describe things, he over-describes them to the point where you forget what he was even talking about in the first place.

And finally—he’s self-important. This is a man who looked at the entirety of American history and thought, You know what people need? More guilt. More shame. More brooding introspection. His writing is humorless, joyless, and just an absolute chore to get through. You know what happened in the 19th century? Mark Twain happened. Walt Whitman happened. Herman Melville—okay, he could be long-winded too, but at least he was interesting. But Hawthorne? No, no, no. Hawthorne sat down and thought, Let’s make self-flagellation the dominant theme of American literature.

So, in conclusion—Nathaniel Hawthorne is objectively the worst 19th-century American writer. His books are dull, his themes are suffocating, his writing style is exhausting, and his characters have all the charisma of a damp Puritan sermon. If you want to waste weeks of your life wading through dense, dreary prose that makes you question why books were ever invented—go ahead, read Hawthorne. But if you value your time, your sanity, and your ability to enjoy literature, literally any other 19th-century American writer is a better choice.