"The Gray Champion" is a short story published in 1835 by the American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The action takes place in Boston in 1689: As the hated royal governor Edmund Andros parades through the city to intimidate the people, a mysterious old man in old Puritan garb suddenly stands in his way and prophesies the end of his rule. Unsettled, Andros orders his soldiers to retreat, and the next day he is indeed overthrown by a popular uprising. The "gray champion" disappears as abruptly as he came, but it is said that he reappeared during the American Revolution and always returns when danger threatens New England. Hawthorne combined various historical events in "The Gray Champion", on the one hand the Boston Uprising of 1689, and on the other the legend of the "Angel of Hadley", according to which the regicide William Goffe is said to have saved the settlers of the town of Hadley from extreme distress during an Indian attack in 1675.
In literary studies, two opposing interpretations of the story compete. According to the conventional interpretation, the story, told with much patriotic pathos, is entirely in the service of a nationalist interpretation of American history, which portrays the Puritans of the 17th century and the revolutionaries of the 18th century equally as heroic freedom fighters. In contrast, since the 1960s, a growing number of critics have claimed that Hawthorne's intention was ironic; "The Gray Champion" is therefore more a critique of Puritanism and the uncritical ancestor devotion of American historiography.
Content
A brief introduction explains the historical context of the story: it takes place in April 1689, at the time when King James II had suspended the old rights of the New England Colonies and appointed the "rough, unscrupulous soldier" Edmund Andros as their governor. Now rumors spread that an attempted Coup d'état led by the Prince of Orange was underway in England. The prospect that James would be overthrown and Andros' tyrannical rule would soon end caused a "subdued and silent agitation," and people "smiled mysteriously in the streets, and threw bold glances at their oppressors."
The action begins in this tense situation. To show off his power, Andros rides through Boston one evening with his entourage. Like a "machine that relentlessly crushes everything in its path", his soldiers march up King Street, followed by the governor's entourage with his drunken advisors such as Benjamin Bullivant and the "blasted wretch" Edward Randolph. From their steeds they mock the intimidated people, fear and anger spread. The old governor Simon Bradstreet tries in vain to calm the crowd. One desperate voice warns that soon "Satan will strike his master-stroke presently", another that there will be a new St. Bartholomew's night and men and children will be slaughtered, a third sends a prayer to heaven: "O Lord of Hosts! provide a Champion for thy people!" Suddenly, an old man appears on the deserted street, armed with a stick and sword. He is wearing a pointed hat and a dark cloak, the "clothing of the old Puritans" of past decades. Although he is obviously a person of great authority, no one can say who this "gray patriarch" is. To the astonishment of the crowd, the old man strides resolutely towards the ranks of soldiers, stretches out his staff in front of them "like a leader's truncheon" and commands them to stand. When Andros rails at him about how dare he stand in the way of King Jacob's governor, he replies in "stern composure" and in seemingly ancient English:
These words stir up the crowd even more, violence is in the air, and as the old man firmly blocks the way, the unsettled Andros orders his soldiers to retreat. The next day, the prophecy is fulfilled: William of Orange is proclaimed king in New England, Andros is overthrown and imprisoned. However, the "gray champion" disappears just as suddenly as he had arrived. However, the narrator has heard it said that "whenever the descendants of the Puritans are to show the spirit of their sires, the old man appears again." Thus he was seen eighty years later on King Street (i.e. at the time of the "Boston Massacre"), most recently at the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill (which began the American War of Independence in 1775).
Context of the story
Origin, history of the edition "The Gray Champion" first appeared in 1835 in the January issue of The New-England Magazine and, like all Hawthorne's works before 1837, initially anonymously, but here with the note that the story was by the same author as "The Gentle Boy" (published in The Token in 1831). In 1837, Hawthorne then published it in the first volume of his collection Twice-Told Tales, which was also his first publication to be signed by name. "The Gray Champion" opens this volume, which has led many critics to assume that Hawthorne attached particular importance to the tale and possibly wanted it to be understood as programmatic for his literary work.G. R. Thompson: The Art of Authorial Presence, p. 85. In the meantime, the publishing house even envisioned the title The Gray Champion and Other Tales for the collection, although it is unclear whether this title was Hawthorne's idea or that of his publisher.J. Donald Crowley: Edition Notes to Twice-Told Tales (Centenary Edition), Volume IX, pp. 500-502.
Originally, however, "The Gray Champion" was almost certainly part of at least one of the other story cycles that Hawthorne had produced in the preceding years, but which never appeared together and are now lost. The majority of scholars who have addressed this bibliographical question assume that The Gray Champion was part of the Provincial Tales collection that Hawthorne compiled around 1828 to 1830.Elizabeth Lathrop Chandler: A Study of the Sources of the Tales and Romances Written by Nathaniel Hawthorne before 1853. In: Smith College Studies in Modern Languages 7:4, 1926; Nelson F. Adkins: The Early Projected Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne. In: Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 39, 1945. p. 119–155; Richard P. Adams: Hawthorne's Provincial Tales. In: The New England Quarterly 30:1, 1957. p. 39–57; Alfred Weber: Die Entwicklung der Rahmenerzählungen Nathaniel Hawthornes: „The Story Teller“ und andere frühe Werke. Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1973; G. R. Thompson: The Art of Authorial Presence, p. 23–26. The exceptions include Nina Baym and J. Donald Crowley, one of the editors of the now authoritative Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne; both attribute it to Hawthorne's next project, the framed story cycle The Story-Teller (c. 1832-1834),Nina Baym: The Shape of Hawthorne’s Career. Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY 1976. p. 30; J. Donald Crowley: Edition notes to Twice-Told Tales, p. 491 sowie p. 495. which has also not survived in its entirety, citing the date of publication. Although the New-England Magazine began serializing the work in 1834, it discontinued it after two issues and from 1835 only published a few individual stories and other fragments without regard to the original context. As "The Gray Champion" also appeared in this publication, it stands to reason that this story was also removed from the story plate. Alfred Weber, who in 1973 presented the most detailed reconstruction attempt of the early story cycles to date, considers this to be probable, but not conclusive; Hawthorne could also have submitted the story additionally. In contrast to other stories, Weber cannot identify any references to the surviving parts of the frame narrative of The Story-Teller, which for him is explained by the fact that it was initially written for the Provincial Tales.Alfred Weber: Die Entwicklung der Rahmenerzählungen Nathaniel Hawthornes, p. 153. Alison Easton also assumes that Hawthorne adopted the story for The Story-Teller after the failure of the Provincial Tales.Alison Easton: The Making of the Hawthorne Subject. University of Missouri Press, Columbia MO 1996. p. 260. The story was written for the Provincial Tales.
The findings of source research suggest that it was written before 1830 and therefore belongs to the Provincial Tales: between 1826 and 1830, Hawthorne read a number of historiographical works, as can be seen from the surviving loan registers of the Salem Athenæum,Marion L. Kesselring: Hawthorne's Reading, 1828-1850. in: Bulletin of the New York Public Library 53, 1949. pp. 55-71, pp. 121-138 and pp. 173-194 (esp. pp. 121 ff.). which researchers have identified as the main sources for The Gray Champion. Thematically, "The Gray Champion" corresponds to the basic idea of the Provincial Tales, on which the various attempts at reconstruction can agree. As the title makes clear, its stories were "provincial", i.e. concerned with Hawthorne's native New England, in particular the colonial period (until independence, the colony of Massachusetts was officially called the Province of Massachusetts Bay). Weber works with the hypothesis that, in addition to "The Gray Champion", the collection included six other stories, namely "Alice Doane", "The Gentle Boy", "My Kinsman, Major Molineux", "Roger Malvin's Burial", "The Wives of the Dead" and "The May-Pole of Merry Mount". They all begin with a historical introduction preceding the actual plot, which Weber thus identifies as a characteristic and programmatic feature of the collection.Alfred Weber: Die Entwicklung der Rahmenerzählungen Nathaniel Hawthornes, pp. 81–83.
References to other works by Hawthorne The four historical-biographical sketches about famous figures in colonial history that Hawthorne published between 1830 and 1833 are closely related to the Provincial Tales. One of these, "Dr. Bullivant", published in the Salem Gazette on January 11, 1831, is a portrait of Edmund Andros's advisor Benjamin Bullivant, who is also named in "The Gray Champion". The sketches are of particular interest, however, because of their comments on the relationship of literature to historiography, which can be regarded as the poetological foundation of the Provincial Tales.Alfred Weber: Die Entwicklung der Rahmenerzählungen Nathaniel Hawthornes, pp. 100–106. In the sketch "Sir William Phips", Hawthorne argues that scientific historiography may come close to historical truth, but because of its duty to objectivity it can neither make it vivid nor emotionally tangible. This task falls to literature, which, however, must be granted artistic freedom in dealing with historical facts. History and literature (history and romance) are therefore not opposites, but complementary approaches to the past. Hawthorne thus justifies the fact that, as a writer, he poaches on historians' territory and uses their methods and insights, but nevertheless does not feel bound by their constraints.On Sir William Phips, see in particular Michael J. Colacurcio: The Province of Piety, pp. 12-17. Alison Easton believes that, of all the Provincial Tales, "The Gray Champion" is most clearly written according to this programmatic requirement, but the result does not seem very successful to her: The "invented" parts seemed grafted onto the well-known historical incidents; the narrator failed to develop real characters with a subjective perspective, instead relying too much on political lectures and ultimately always remaining attached to the conventions of contemporary prose.Alison Easton: The Making of the Hawthorne Subject, pp. 34–37.