19B. "Feathertop" (1852) by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Ideology: The Pain of Self-Awarness
The short story of a come-to-life scarecrow named, “Feathertop” . . . acts as a commentary on human nature, and perhaps on the suffering that occurs subsequent to palpable self-awareness. In this story told, Feathertop’s self-awareness comes at the expense of his own existence, as in essence, he extinguishes his own existence just as he extinguishes the ashes of his tobacco pipe.

Feathertop’s vulnerability represents man’s own nakedness, the essentiality he offers when he is thread-bare and exposed as he is—this mimics the sort of veil-pull we experience while in the throes of limerence, when we find that our object of affection is remarkably human, flawed, complex and mutable. We experience this with lovers, with idols, with any expectation we might have, when we find that all that glittered is not gold. And Feathertop, in his response to being seen, being judged and unwanted, having been objectified to the fullest extent imaginable, internalizes this rejection as information that he is deeply flawed and indelibly undesirable. Hawthorne writes Feathertop’s dialogue and subsequent actions as follows: “I’ve seen myself, mother! I’ve seen myself for the wretched, ragged, empty thing I am! I’ll exist no longer!” Snatching the pipe from his mouth, he flung it with all his might against the chimney, and at the same instant sank upon the floor, a medley of straw and tattered garments, with some sticks protruding from the heap, and a shriveled pumpkin in the midst.” Feathertop is an infant flung into the world with no fault of his own, and when the world rejects him for his unnatural qualities, he finds that it would be his honorable duty to remove himself from the land of the living—his rejection is so familiar to the human condition, and Hawthorne creates a perfect, emotional display of longing for normality, of otherness, of unquantifiable loneliness, and depicts a narrative that reflects these emotions and what a human might think to do with them.

Ideology: The Blindness of Love
The way the creature comes to life is unbelievable, but what is utterly fascinating is how Polly Gookin, or young townswoman falls in love with the scarecrow. When the two are together, love is abundant, and Polly doesn’t see a sack of a man she sees a true man. Hawthorne displays how when someone is in love with another, as Polly is for the scarecrow, they can overlook the most important things. In this case, the reality of Feathertop.

Ideology: The Shallowness of Society

During Feathertop’s time with Polly, Hawthorne notes that how quickly Polly seems to be falling for the phantom of a man, saying ["]…the person impresses is as an unreality and as having hardly pith enough to cast a shadow upon the floor[" . . . .] Mother Rigby also says that there are several people in the world who are “…made up of just such a jumble of wornout, forgotten, and good-for-nothing trash as he [Feathertop] was[.]”  [With these comments,]Hawthorne exposes the idealistic ways in which we perceive people based on what we want to see ....

Ideology: America and Europe

". . . the clothes, in this case, were to be the making of the man. So the good old woman took down from a peg an ancient plum-colored coat of London make, and with relics of embroidery on its seams, cuffs, pocket-flaps, and button-holes, but lamentably worn and faded, patched at the elbows, tattered at the skirts, and threadbare all over. On the left breast was a round hole, whence either a star of nobility had been rent away, or else the hot heart of some former wearer had scorched it through and through. The neighbors said that this rich garment belonged to the Black Man’s wardrobe, and that he kept it at Mother Rigby’s cottage for the convenience of slipping it on whenever he wished to make a grand appearance at the governor’s table. To match the coat there was a velvet waistcoat of very ample size, and formerly embroidered with foliage that had been as brightly golden as the maple leaves in October, but which had now quite vanished out of the substance of the velvet. Next came a pair of scarlet breeches, once worn by the French governor of Louisbourg, and the knees of which had touched the lower step of the throne of Louis le Grand. The Frenchman had given these small-clothes to an Indian powwow, who parted with them to the old witch for a gill of strong waters, at one of their dances in the forest."

being revealed to us.