This tale is from the collection Twice Told tales and was first published in The Token, 1832 .It is set in 1656, during the Puritan persecution of the Quakers.
The story deals with the tragic and inhuman prejudice of the sect toward the Quaker sect.
The protagonist of the title is a young boy "Ibrahim". He is informally adopted by a simple, impoverished Puritan couple - Tobias and Dorothy - who are themselves childless. Ibrahim has lost his father, who was considered a criminal on charges of heresy of Quakerism, and whose mother was exiled to the other villages and outskirts of the community.
As the story progresses, the kindly couple nurture and take care of the child. But unfortunately, they do not get recognised for their compassion but face increasing ostracism.
Tobias and Dorothy take in the boy, a “sweet infant of the skies,” “a domesticated sunbeam” and a “victim of his own heavenly nature,” who tells tales--romances in fact. Ilbrahim was born in “pagan” Turkey and “his oriental name was a mark of gratitude for the good deeds of an unbeliever.” Hawthorne transcends his Christianity with the ironic contrast between the kindness of some Muslims and the cruelty of these Puritans, who persecute the boy. Puritan children even pelt him with stones. “The heathen savage would have given him to eat of his scanty morsel, and to drink of his birchen cup; but Christian men, alas! had cast him out to die.” The Puritans have iron hearts and turn their children into “baby-fiends” who almost beat the Christ-evoking child to death. - Adapted from AmerLit
Ibrahim too suffers bullying and on one occasion, beating from the fellow children of the community, who have been brainwashed by their parents to consider Ibrahim as not one of their own. With time, both the spirit of the child and of his enduring adoptive parents begin to break down; to their credit, they never blame the child for their misfortunes, but continue to nourish, care and adhere to their religious faith.
Tobias, however, so alienated by his fellow Puritans, decides to befriend Quakers entering the community and suffers many fines for it when he is caught sheltering them or in their company. He even covertly converts, but it is not because he believes in their tenets but because he believes there is something more deeply flawed in his own sect. The end brings a surprise that results in a profound psychological healing for the child Ibrahim, and a credible and progressive reversal (though costly in human terms) of the Puritan community's attitude toward people of the Quaker sect.
Adapted partly from - goodandshortfictiontoread blog
According to AmerLit - “The Gentle Boy” dramatizes the historical persecution of the early Quakers, who began to appear in New England in 1656. It displays most clearly two of Hawthorne’s main themes: (1) the need to balance the head and the heart; and (2) the evil of “pernicious principles” in ideologies such as Calvinism and early Quakerism that imbalance and divide the soul, leading to inhumanity and perhaps to damnation, which is “eternal alienation from the good and the true,” as exemplified by the Calvinists Young Goodman Brown, Parson Hooper and “The Man of Adamant.”
Themes
Moral sensibility
The story is a dissection of the true beliefs of the people. Whether a Puritan, Christian or a non Christian, one’s morals should always align with the spiritual teachings and not one apart from the other. Here in the story, the Puritans though professing a hardline faith, were never really practicing it.
Religious severity
There is a marked criticism of the severity and rules which one religion brings which jades its view to the world out there.
Crowd vs individual sentiment
The story shows bullying, stereotyping and pelting of stones on the innocent Ibrahim showcasing the narrow-minded and closed box concept of the community. Which is prevalent today with race, color, other religions, communities, nationalities and even new family members.
Empathy and kindness
The gentle boy deeply teaches us about the need for empathy and kindness in a world which is harsh and uncompromising.
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