Wakefield – Nathaniel Hawthorne (1835)

“Wakefield” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, first published in 1835, is a profound psychological tale that showcases Hawthorne’s fascination with human nature, isolation, and identity. Inspired by a brief anecdote from a periodical, the story transforms a seemingly minor and peculiar act – a man leaving his home and secretly living nearby for twenty years – into a meditation on existence, memory, and estrangement. Hawthorne, a master of allegory and moral inquiry, crafts this short story with quiet intensity, inviting readers to explore the eerie implications of stepping out of life’s expected roles.

Plot Summary

In the fog-laced streets of old London, a man named Wakefield slips quietly from the threshold of his home one dusky October evening. Clad in a drab greatcoat and oil-cloth hat, umbrella in hand, and a small portmanteau tucked beneath his arm, he murmurs a farewell to his wife, intending to vanish for a few days on what he claims is a country journey. She does not press him, accustomed to the small secrets and harmless vanities of ten years’ matrimony. He kisses her with the casual tenderness of routine, steps into the chill of the street, and – on a whim neither fully planned nor consciously understood – chooses not to return.

Instead, he takes lodgings just a street away. A deliberate, quiet retreat. From this modest vantage, he begins his self-imposed exile, watching the windows of his own house flicker with light, the silhouette of his wife passing now and again across the curtains. It is not for guilt or anger or yearning that he lingers in hiding, but from some curious blend of passive vanity and feeble wonder – a question about how his world might move without him, and how deeply his absence would echo.

The days stretch into weeks. At first, he comforts himself with vague intentions – to return soon, to reveal the ruse, to step back into his role as husband with a harmless explanation. Yet as each day passes, inertia gathers around him like cobwebs in corners long forgotten. He grows accustomed to anonymity, to his strange perch just beyond his old life. He dons a reddish wig, dresses in unfamiliar garments, and avoids his former haunts, transforming himself into a man barely resembling the one who left his home with a light heart.

His wife, pale and burdened by grief, carries on. Wakefield watches her from afar, each glance stolen through curtained glass a window into her sorrow. He sees an apothecary visit, then a physician – signs of an illness born perhaps from despair. The knocker is muffled; the street, hushed. A chill of remorse brushes against him, but it does not turn his steps homeward. Conscience raises a trembling voice, urging him to cross the short distance to her side, but he silences it with cowardly logic – she must not be disturbed, not now. And so he waits.

Weeks become months, months uncoil into years. Still he haunts the edge of his former life, a shade invisible to all but himself. The neighborhood changes, children age, and the seasons spin their cycle upon the cobblestones. Wakefield, now lean and stooped, loses the sharp sense of his own peculiarity. What once seemed like a deviation now feels like a life entire. He ceases to name a day of return. It is always soon, perhaps next week. It is always not yet.

Ten years pass, perhaps more. In the crowd of a London street, two figures brush against one another – a portly woman with prayer book in hand and a meager man with furtive eyes. They turn, and their gazes lock. Recognition surges between them, heavy as thunder. It is Mrs. Wakefield and the man who once shared her hearth. The crowd pushes on. She resumes her walk, her brow troubled. He flees, trembling, to his chamber, bolts the door, and collapses on his bed, seized by the terrible realization of what he has become. The lost years crash upon him all at once – years of invisibility, of watching life without touching it. He sees the joke he once played as cruelty, his clever disappearance as madness.

Still, time continues. His wife, long resigned to widowhood, has found a sort of peace. She is changed, her sorrow worn smooth with time, her grief transmuted into memory. Wakefield, too, is changed, though he remains unseen. He exists like a ghost beside the living – present, yet without impact, without heat, without substance. He drifts in the same city, past the same corners, beside the same home, a man without a place among the living or the dead.

One windy autumn evening, twenty years since he first stepped away, Wakefield stands before his former home. Rain patters against his shoulders and trickles down his collar. Through the glowing windows above, he sees the shadow of a woman seated by the fire, the silhouette unmistakably hers. The play of firelight makes her shape dance on the ceiling, merry and warm in contrast to the chill in his bones. His heart, dulled by years of hesitation, beats with sudden urgency.

He climbs the steps – stiff now, no longer the sprightly man who once descended with a grin – and enters. The door opens with uncanny familiarity. A moment’s glimpse shows his face, marked by age but still carrying the sly, inscrutable smile of the man who once turned absence into amusement. And with that final act, he reclaims what time has made strange – or perhaps he merely claims the only home left to him.

The light from the doorway fades, and with it, Wakefield vanishes again – this time not into hiding, but into the quiet unknown where thoughts and choices can no longer undo what time has sealed. He has offered a curious lesson to those still woven into the fabric of daily life: that by stepping aside, even for a moment, one may never find the way back. The world forgets swiftly. Places close behind us. And the self, once removed, may become a stranger to its own reflection.

Main Characters

• Wakefield – The titular character is a mild-mannered, introspective middle-aged man whose passive nature masks a deeper, more unsettling eccentricity. Although not actively cruel or malicious, his quiet vanity, indolence, and odd self-absorption compel him to commit an inexplicable act: leaving his wife under the pretense of travel, only to live anonymously in a nearby street for two decades. His psychological motivations remain elusive, yet he symbolizes the danger of disengagement and the slow erosion of identity through prolonged absence.

• Mrs. Wakefield – The loyal and unsuspecting wife represents stability, routine, and emotional endurance. Though Wakefield’s departure wounds her deeply, she adapts to her new life with quiet strength. Her gradual acceptance of widowhood reflects the human capacity for resilience and reinvention, as well as the cruel irony of Wakefield’s assumed irrelevance to her well-being.

Theme

• Alienation and Isolation – Central to the story is the exploration of self-imposed exile. Wakefield removes himself from his life not out of necessity but from a murky compulsion. His physical nearness to home underscores his psychological and emotional detachment, highlighting how proximity does not equate to connection.

• Identity and Transformation – The story meditates on the fluidity of identity. Over the years, Wakefield changes not only in appearance but in essence. What began as a whim becomes a defining rupture, making his return impossible without confronting the stranger he has become.

• The Fragility of Human Bonds – Hawthorne examines how quickly relationships, even marriage, can erode when one party absents themselves. The emotional gap left by Wakefield quickly closes, not out of disloyalty, but from the human need to survive and adapt.

• Time and Memory – Time plays a dual role as both the agent of change and the illusion of continuity. What Wakefield perceives as a temporary detour stretches into decades, and his naive expectation of resuming life “soon” becomes tragically absurd.

• Moral and Philosophical Reflection – The narrator frequently steps in to ponder the implications of Wakefield’s actions, turning the tale into a broader meditation on destiny, human interconnectedness, and the delicate balance that sustains personal and societal order.

Writing Style and Tone

Hawthorne’s style in “Wakefield” is marked by a philosophical and analytical narrative voice that merges storytelling with moral contemplation. The prose is rich with metaphor and subtle irony, allowing the story to operate on both a literal and symbolic level. Hawthorne avoids sensationalism, opting instead for a quietly haunting realism that brings weight to the absurd. His frequent digressions into moral reflection give the tale a sermonic quality, yet they are so entwined with the narrative that they deepen rather than distract from the story.

The tone is contemplative and somber, tinged with dry humor and melancholic irony. Hawthorne’s narrator seems both intrigued and appalled by Wakefield’s conduct, oscillating between empathy and critique. This tonal ambiguity mirrors the story’s thematic complexity – inviting the reader to reflect rather than judge. Even as the tale ends, there is no resolution or catharsis, only a final enigmatic image that reinforces Wakefield’s ghostly irrelevance, his chosen invisibility, and the inexorable passage of time.