The Blithedale Romance

“Whatever else I may repent of, therefore, let it be reckoned neither among my sins nor follies, that I once had faith and force enough to form generous hopes of the world’s destiny—yes!—and to do what in me lay for their accomplishment; even to the extent of quitting a warm fireside, flinging away a freshly lighted cigar, and travelling far beyond the strike of city-clocks, through a drifting snow-storm.”

Miles Coverdale, the narrator, references one of the novel’s central themes: the search for Utopia. At this point in the narrative, he expresses himself ready to lay aside his urban life and set out for Blithedale with faith in the socialist experiment upon which he’s ready to embark.

“We mean to lessen the laboring man’s great burthen of toil, by performing our due share of it at the cost of our own thews and sinews.”

This passage, narrated by Coverdale, encapsulates the community member’s goals in establishing and working at Blithedale. Ironically, while Coverdale here celebrates the manual labor he’ll perform, he later comes to regret his choice and finds that he’s unable to pursue a life of the mind while working the land.

“She stood near the door, fixing a pair of large, brown, melancholy eyes upon Zenobia—only upon Zenobia!—she evidently saw nothing else in the room, save that bright, fair, rosy, beautiful woman. It was the strangest look I ever witnessed; long a mystery to me, and forever a memory. Once, she seemed about to move forward and greet her—I know not with what warmth, or with what words;—but, finally, instead of doing so, she drooped down upon her knees, clasped her hands, and gazed piteously into Zenobia’s face.”

Priscilla’s initial reaction to Zenobia is crucial to understanding the sisters’ relationship. Raised by Moodie to idolize her older and beautiful sister, Priscilla hopes to find friendship with (and care from) Zenobia. However, because Zenobia is unaware that Priscilla is her sister, the younger woman’s hopeful look fails to move her. In the end, Zenobia fails to care for Priscilla, allowing her fall back into the hands of the evil magician, Westervelt.

“Pertinaciously the thought—‘Zenobia is a wife! Zenobia has lived, and loved! There is no folded petal, no latent dew-drop, in this perfectly developed rose!’—irresistibly that thought drove out all other conclusions, as often as my mind reverted to the subject.”

This passage reveals Coverdale’s character by highlighting his obsession with the motives of other characters. In particular, he expresses interest in Zenobia and Priscilla’s pasts, possibly even imagining their sexual relationships. These obsessive thoughts point to Coverdale’s own sexual repression and inability to form intimate relationships with others.

“My hope was, that, between theory and practice, a true and available mode of life might be struck out, and that, even should we ultimately fail, the months or years spent in the trial would not have been wasted, either as regarded passing enjoyment, or the experience which makes men wise.”

Coverdale here references his diminished hopes in the Blithedale community’s ability to live up to its ideals. At this point in the narrative, his search for a type of Utopia—a prevalent theme of the novel—has faded, but he still maintains hope that the search will bring either wisdom or enjoyment to the members of the commune.

“Unless renewed by a yet farther withdrawal towards the inner circle of self-communion, I lost the better part of my individuality.”

Coverdale expresses his frustration with the communal aspects of Blithedale, a criticism that Hawthorne similarity articulated about his experiences at Brook Farm. The loss of individuality, an important aspect of the artistry for both Hawthorne and his character, is frequently mentioned as a drawback to forming socialist societies, while the conflict between self-interest and communal ideals is an important theme in the novel.

“‘Why not fling the girl off,’ said Westervelt, ‘and let her go?’

‘She clung to me from the first,’ replied Zenobia. ‘I neither know nor care what it is in me that so attaches her. But she loves me, and I will not fail her.’”

When Westervelt questions Zenobia about Priscilla’s place in her life, her answer foreshadows the revelation of the two women’s sisterhood. Zenobia, unaware of their blood relationship, finds Priscilla’s idolization mysterious, but at this point expresses her desire to help the girl. Eventually, however, Zenobia chooses to listen to Westervelt and return Priscilla to his control.

“Just at the moment, so far as can be ascertained, when the Veiled Lady vanished, a maiden, pale and shadowy, rose up amid a knot of visionary people, who were seeking for the better life. She was so gentle and so sad—a nameless melancholy gave her such hold upon their sympathies—that they never thought of questioning whence she came. She might have heretofore existed; or her thin substance might have been moulded out of air, at the very instant when they first beheld her. It was all one to them; they took her to their hearts. Among them was a lady, to whom, more than to all the rest, this pale, mysterious girl attached herself.”

Zenobia’s story of the Veiled Lady points to the truth of Priscilla’s career as the famous clairvoyant and her escape from the magician’s power, while also highlighting the ways that others impose identities on Priscilla. Zenobia’s description of Priscilla as a mysterious and solemn figure beloved by the community not only details her understanding of Priscilla but also positions her as an unknown entity who scares Zenobia.

“Altogether, by projecting our minds outward, we had imparted a show of novelty to existence, and contemplated it as hopefully as if the soil, beneath our feet, had not been fathom-deep with the dust of deluded generations, on every one of which, as on ourselves, the world had imposed itself as a hitherto unwedded bride.”

Coverdale, still searching for Utopia despite his frequent criticisms of the project, tries to conjure up an image of Blithedale as a new world. In his explanation of these hopes, Coverdale personifies the world as a bride patiently awaiting marriage to an entity that understood the natural world.

“As I look back upon this scene, through the coldness and dimness of so many years, there is still a sensation as if Hollingsworth had caught hold of my heart, and were pulling it towards him with an almost irresistible force.”

Coverdale explains his attraction to Hollingsworth, despite his opposition to Hollingsworth’s scheme. His decision to reject Hollingsworth’s offer to join him in his place to construct a rehabilitation center for criminals, however, is more than just Coverdale’s denunciation of that plan. Instead, Coverdale explains his choice as a rejection of Hollingsworth’s love through the image of Hollingsworth pulling his heart from his chest.

“There was nothing else worth noticing about the house; unless it be, that, on the peak of one of the dormer-windows, which opened out of the roof, sat a dove, looking very dreary and forlorn; insomuch that I wondered why she chose to sit there, in the chilly rain, while her kindred were doubtless nestling in a warm and comfortable dove-cote.”

In this passage, Coverdale inadvertently compares himself to a lonely dove. The dove, which symbolizes Coverdale by highlighting his separation from his companions, sits alone by a window, just as Coverdale sits by himself gazing out at the world. Both Coverdale and the dove are sad figures, but Coverdale lacks the insight in this moment to connect himself to the dove, while still feeling a fellow tinge of sorrow.

“It fell like the drop-curtain of a theatre, in the interval between the acts.”

This simile describes Zenobia’s closing her curtain after she observes Coverdale spying on her apartment from across the way. The comparison of the curtain’s closure to a theatrical interval highlights Coverdale’s approach to the world. Like a spectator of a play, Coverdale is content to passively watch his friends and rarely acts unless driven by outside forces.

“Zenobia had turned aside. But I caught the reflection of her face in the mirror, and saw that it was very pale,—as pale, in her rich attire, as if a shroud were round her.”

This passage foreshadows both Zenobia’s mental imprisonment and her eventual death. The description of a shroud surrounding Zenobia echoes the veil Priscilla is forced to wear as the Veiled Lady, showing that like her sister, Zenobia is under Westervelt’s control. The shroud imagery also points to Zenobia’s death, which is hinted at throughout the narrative.

“I am blown about like a leaf […] I never have any free-will.”

The above sentence captures the broken spirit of Priscilla, who is once again under the control of Westervelt. Her statement also reflects Victorian approaches to spiritualism and mesmerism. Because women were viewed as more spiritual and passive than men, they were thought to make better mediums. Hawthorne was famously critical of spiritualism and especially its treatment of women as passive conduits for controlling men.

“Although, in writing it out, my pen has perhaps allowed itself a trifle of romantic and legendary license, worthier of a small poet than of a grave biographer.”

Coverdale admits to fabricating at least a portion of Moodie’s life history. This passage, in particular, draws attention to Coverdale’s unreliability as a narrator and makes the entire novel’s story a mix of fact and fiction. Additionally, by owning that he gave himself “romantic and legendary license,” Coverdale reiterates his position as an artist and points toward Hawthorne’s understanding of the “romance” genre as telling truths about human nature while not necessarily depicting probable events.

“Passionate, self-willed, and imperious, she had a warm and generous nature; showing the richness of the soil, however, chiefly by the weeds that flourished in it, and choked up the herbs of grace.”

This characterization of Zenobia points to her virtues as well as her flaws. While naturally gifted and possessing innate generosity and passion, Zenobia lacked the parental nurture that would have allowed the full brightness of her character to shine. Indeed, without the shaping guidance and love of her mother, Zenobia’s weeds (or the less desirable aspects of her character, including wildness and inordinate passion) grew unchecked, hampering the full development of her good qualities.

“And the true heart-throb of a woman’s affection was too powerful for the jugglery that had hitherto environed her. She uttered a shriek and fled to Hollingsworth, like one escaping from her deadliest enemy, and was safe forever!”

Priscilla’s rescue from the hands of Westervelt is here attributed to her own feelings for Hollingsworth. The wording in this passage presents Priscilla as the agent of her own destiny, juxtaposing her affection against Westervelt’s control. Rather than assigning the credit to Hollingsworth, Coverdale credits Priscilla with action and highlights her movement from passive victim to free woman.

“But in truth, as my eyes wandered from one of the group to another, I saw in Hollingsworth all that an artist could desire for the grim portrait of a Puritan magistrate, holding inquest of life and death in a case of witchcraft;—in Zenobia, the sorceress herself, not aged, wrinkled, and decrepit, but fair enough to tempt Satan with a force reciprocal to his own;—and, in Priscilla, the pale victim, whose soul and body had been wasted by her spells.”

In this passage, each of the three central characters are constructed as analogies of the Puritan past, hearkening back to Hawthorne’s earlier works and to the specter of American history. By alluding to the Puritans and their proclivities to condemn women for witchcraft, Hawthorne points to the similarities between his age and the colonial past. For Hawthorne, the misguided hope of the Puritans, just like the misguided hope of the Blithedale members, will end with judgment and sacrifice instead of a new and wonderous world.

“Presume not to estimate a man like Hollingsworth! It was my fault, all along, and none of his.”

Zenobia, in a final characteristic move, blames herself for her failed romance. Her belief in Hollingsworth’s greatness continues, despite his renunciation of their love. Hawthorne here attests to the power of Zenobia’s passion, characterizing her as a woman whose feelings override her ideology.

“Tell him he has murdered me! Tell him that I’ll haunt him!”

With these passionate words, Zenobia foreshadows her own death by suicide and Hollingsworth’s later feelings of extreme guilt. Indeed, Coverdale, after meeting with Hollingsworth years later, recalls Zenobia’s exact words after Hollingsworth explains that “ever since we parted, I have been busy with a single murderer!” (243). Thus, Zenobia’s words function also as a curse that will keep Hollingsworth from obtaining his dream.

“Setting this crazy bark afloat, I seated myself in the stern, with the paddle, while Hollingsworth sat in the bows, with the hooked pole, and Silas Foster amidships, with a hay-rake.”

Although Coverdale functioned as a passive observer throughout the story, he takes the lead in searching for Zenobia’s body. His position at the front of the boat, holding the paddle, signifies his leadership and his change from spectator to actor. Coverdale’s shift makes him a round rather than flat character and provides proof of his care for his friends.

“‘You have wounded the poor thing’s breast,’ said he to Hollingsworth. ‘Close by her heart, too!’”

In his attempts to locate Zenobia’s body, Hollingsworth accidentally hits her corpse with his pole. The physical wound later discovered on her body is “close by her heart,” symbolizing how Hollingsworth not only wounded her physical body but her feelings as well.

“But Hollingsworth […] made it his request that her grave might be dug on the gently sloping hill-side, in the wide pasture, where, as we once supposed, Zenobia and he had planned to build their cottage.”

Zenobia’s burial isn’t without conflict. While Coverdale believed she should be buried at Eliot’s Pulpit, the community acquiesced to Hollingsworth’s demands and placed her grave as he desired. This passage points to the rewriting of Zenobia’s story and highlights how the male characters speak for her once her voice is silenced. When compared with Zenobia’s earlier attempts to stage her own death, her burial reveals a return to conventional gender relations and upholding patriarchal decisions.