The Blithedale Romance

While one of the aims of the Blithedale experiment was to create a community that prized truthful human relationships and sought to unify its members through mutual love and trust, the novel presents instead a world of secrecy and deceit. At the very start, the narrative introduces the Veiled Lady, whose identity is a mystery and whose work as a clairvoyant is most likely fraudulent. Zenobia, one of the commune’s founders, also hides her identity behind an assumed name, which Coverdale remarks is “a sort of mask” (8), veiling her past and allowing her to maintain privacy. The secrets of these two sisters and their subsequent relationships to each other, Hollingsworth, Moodie, and Westervelt drive the story’s action and instill in Coverdale himself a desire for concealment in order to ferret out the mysteries of their lives.

Although Zenobia advises the community not to “pry into [Priscilla’s] secrets” (30) when the younger woman arrives at Blithedale, Coverdale spends much of his time thinking about and investigating the possible pasts of not only Priscilla, but also Zenobia. As a spectator, hidden in his “hermitage” or gazing at events from his hotel window, Coverdale listens to conversations, observes the actions of others, and later even bribes Moodie with food and wine in order to learn the secrets of these women, believing that he can successfully figure out the hidden parts of others and presumably assist them. Indeed, Coverdale justifies his voyeurism by telling Zenobia that “it is really impossible to hide anything, in this world” and that he “would be most happy in feeling [himself] followed, everywhere,” provided that the observers were sympathetic (163).

As Coverdale discovers, though, nearly everyone in the novel has something to hide or behaves in a deceitful manner and most of the characters keep him purposefully in the dark. Moodie reveals not only his role as father to Zenobia and Priscilla but also his past as “a man of wealth, and magnificent tastes, and prodigal expenditure” (182), though only after Coverdale furnishes him with alcohol. Likewise, Coverdale only pieces together Westervelt’s past through indirect conversations with others. Westervelt is shown to be a manipulative and cunning man, who most likely was romantically involved with Zenobia in the past and used Priscilla in his mesmeric act. For Coverdale, Westervelt’s smile and the “secret of his gold-bordered teeth” (158) signify his evil wizardry and highlight his deceitful nature. Even Hollingsworth, whose openness about his single-minded plan to construct a rehabilitation center for criminals, employs deceitful means to gain entry to Blithedale by pretending to believe in the community’s aims. Furthermore, Hollingsworth dishonestly presents himself as a lover to Zenobia in order to secure funding for his scheme. For Zenobia, his actions became a mask, and his “disguise […] a self-deception” (218).

Coverdale’s final chapter, which functions as his attempt to explain his own absence from the narrative, offers a further secret in his confession of love for Priscilla. By providing this secret, Coverdale positions himself as a mysterious character like everyone else in the novel. Beyond his spying and attempts to discover the secrets of others, then, Coverdale reveals his own “foolish little secret,” which he believes “may have had something to do with these inactive years of meridian manhood, with [his] bachelorship, and with the unsatisfying retrospect that [he] fling[s] back on life, and [his] listless glance towards the future” (247). Thus, the novel explores how secrets and lies impact relationships and lives, revealing that both keeping and discovering the mysteries of the human heart can have dire consequences.