HAWTHORNE’S WAKEFIELD.

HAWTHORNE’S WAKEFIELD. Hawthorne does something extraordinary with the character of Wakefield. He makes his main character hypothetical. I can’t think of another story which has this master stroke. The narrator briefly describes Wakefield’s life choices and adds two facts that make his Wakefield more puzzling than Doctorow’s: the man stayed away from his wife for a full twenty years and, after he returned, “became a loving spouse till death.” The narrator then says, “What sort of a man was Wakefield? We are free to shape out our own idea, and call it by his name.” He gives his own suppositions to account for these singular events, but the reader is invited to make his own suppositions, and that is what Doctorow has done.