Home > Media > Books > Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rosalie Murphy, Seymour Lee Gross, Gretchen Kay Short - Blithedale Romance: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rosalie Murphy, Seymour Lee Gross, Gretchen Kay Short - Blithedale Romance: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism
murasaki's Full Review: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rosalie Murphy, Seymour Lee G...
Nathaniel Hawthorne loosely framed his novel, The Blithedale Romance, on his experiences at the transcendental commune, Brook Farm. First, let me warm all readers away from reading the introduction to this novel. The introduction in the particular edition I read spoils the entire story, right down to the last line. I think I would have enjoyed this novel more if I had not known the ultimate outcome.
The Plot
The plot revolves around four main characters who take up life at Blithedale, a communal effort. Outside of these four characters, the only character identified by name at the commune is the farmer hired by the participants to teach them proper husbandry and farming techniques.
Miles Coverdale is a poet of independent means who goes to Blithedale to impartially observe, or so he claims. He befriends Hollingsworth, a gentleman obsessed with the idea of founding a home for the rehabilitation of prisoners. Of course, Hollingsworth does not have money of his own to finance this scheme. Zenobia is another writer, of some renown, at least in transcendental circles, and wealthy in her own right. Priscilla is a timid, fragile woman, a lower-class seamstress she claims, who physically thrives in the outdoor environment of the commune, however she’s running from her recent past.
Coverdale, with his own bias, relates how the four of them interact and also seems to be the nexus toward which all visitors appear at Blithedale, seeking information about Zenobia or Priscilla or Hollingsworth. Both women seem to fall in love with Hollingsworth and his grand obsession which tinges Coverdale’s observations with jealousy. Both women seem linked somehow to an impoverished gentleman named Moodie. Both women seem linked somehow to a well-to-do gentlemen with gold teeth that Coverdale doesn’t trust much. The plot also dips a toe into the mesmerism craze in 19th century America.
This description of the plot might seem rather thin, and it is, but I fear that revealing more would spoil some of Hawthorne’s twists.
Social Message
In The Blithedale Romance, Hawthorne demonstrates how a supposedly “free” community with no class or sex distinctions, still has the women doing the housework and cooking, the men working in the fields and barn, the people from the higher social circles looking with disdain upon those from the lower classes. The characters pay lip service to high ideals, but much like Hawthorne’s own experience at Brook Farm, the reality of their beliefs is another matter altogether. An undercurrent of sexual tensions and possibilities also runs through the book, much of which Hawthorne edited out due to the refined sensibilities of his fiancée at the time he wrote The Blithedale Romance, and restored by later editors. Even with the original lines restored, Hawthorne does not stray too far from the Victorian standard of what is acceptable to mention in a novel and what is not, hardly titillating to the modern reader and in many cases, downright obtuse.
My Thoughts
Much like writing this review, I don’t find myself terribly excited over this novel. I understand what Hawthorne was attempting to do in many respects with the social aspect of the book, however, even the lip service the characters paid to equality of sex and social class seems rather unenlightened for the 19th century, and excrutiatingly outdated for the 21st. The contrasts between what the characters said they believed in and what was belied by their actions are not as apparent to the modern reader as they seem to have been for the readers of the first edition in 1852. I am particularly attracted to literature that stands the test of time and proves apropos to contemporary life choices. Unfortunately, The Blithedale Romace offered this jaded reader no new insights, and seemed extremely past its time.
The textbook, Blithedale Romance, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, available in Paperback. Published by: MPS. Edition: . ISBN10: 0312118031. ISBN13: 97803...More at Textbooks.com
A group of Utopians, unhappy with dissolute, mid-19th-century America, takes to the pastoral life; but the members find little satisfaction in the com...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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