The Blithedale Romance

When Coverdale first meets Zenobia, he immediately notices that she wears a single flower in her hair. This flower, rare and exotic, has the power to trigger Coverdale’s memory years later. He interprets this blossom as representative of Zenobia’s character. Throughout the novel, Zenobia wears a new flower every day, but at the very end of the book, she dons a jeweled flower in place of the real blossoms.

While Coverdale suggests that the flower symbolizes Zenobia’s pride, other mentions of Zenobia in relation to flowers reveal not just pride but the possibilities inherent in Zenobia. Priscilla, likewise, is frequently referred to as a flower. When Coverdale first views the young girl, he compares her to “a flower-shrub that had done its best to blossom in too scanty light” (27). Nevertheless, under Zenobia’s influence, Priscilla grows “to be a very pretty girl, and still [keeps] budding and blossoming” (72). Thus, while Zenobia’s ornamental flowers become a part of her mystique, her power over the flowers in her world—both the real blossoms and those symbolized by people—become symbolic of her ability to bring ripeness and vibrancy to the world.

The flower she wears in her hair, though, also symbolizes Zenobia’s life force. Coverdale inadvertently recognizes this at the height of his illness, telling Hollingsworth that the “flower in her hair is a talisman. If you were to snatch it away, she would vanish, or be transformed into something else” (45). Coverdale’s observation proves true, when at the end of her life Zenobia removes her jeweled flower and asks Coverdale to give it to Priscilla. Thus, the flower symbolizes Zenobia’s complicated nature as one who is prideful but generous and whose life intimately connects to the symbol of the hothouse flower.