Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of America's most influential writers and also one of the most complex. He was the essential New Englander, a believer in hard work and simple living, and his personality and writing were tremendously influenced by his Puritan ancestry and the Salem Witch Trials. He obsessed over sin and redemption his entire life. Hawthorne's unequivocal belief in the dark side of humanity proved to be one of the greatest asset of his writing. His obsession with mankind's downfall and its basic imperfections flows throughout every page of his novels. Evil fascinated him, and he spent his life pondering how to overcome what he considered man's essential sinful nature. This produced some of the most dramatic literature by any American writer.