The Blithedale Romance

In this final segment of the novel, the theme of Secrecy and Deceit is central, particularly in the exposure of Hollingsworth’s deception in his romantic life and its effect on Zenobia. Because of this—and what the previous section revealed about Zenobia and Priscilla’s relationship—Coverdale finally emerges as an actor rather than a spectator. Although he initially attempts to leave Eliot’s Pulpit after encountering a passionate outburst from Zenobia, Coverdale remains behind after Hollingsworth and Priscilla exit, reflecting on Zenobia’s final words and, realizing the depth of her despair, initiating a search for her. Her words later provide him with a purpose: to remember her and pass on her essence to those she leaves behind.

Zenobia’s death by suicide is framed as a theatrical event, botched in its delivery and foreshadowed through her words and actions. Her statements to Coverdale as well as her physical descriptions hint at her upcoming death. Zenobia speaks of leaving without seeing Hollingsworth and pointedly instructs Coverdale: “Tell [Hollingsworth] he murdered me! Tell him that I’ll haunt him!” (226). When she gives Coverdale her hand to kiss, Coverdale perceives it as “now cold as a veritable piece of snow” (226) and comments on its deathlike feel. Zenobia, in a parody of deathbed scenes common in 19th-century literature—in which the dying speaking consoling words to friends and family and give away their most treasured possessions—remembers Hollingsworth and Priscilla and passes on her jeweled flower for Pricilla’s use.

The discovery of her corpse is primarily undertaken by Coverdale, who steers the small boat to her body, finds her handkerchief, and directs the group to the water. In this way, Coverdale moving from passive spectator to involved participant. Nevertheless, the final wounds against Zenobia aren’t his alone. Hollingsworth’s attempt to feel for her body under the water cause him to smite her in the breast with his pole, which Foster notes is “close to her heart” (235). Coverdale interprets Hollingsworth’s unintended action here as an echo of his earlier rejection of Zenobia’s love. Thus, Hollingsworth’s postmortem wounding of Zenobia’s breast symbolizes his damaging her heart when she was alive.

Coverdale’s attempts to find meaning in Zenobia’s death cause him to imagine her deliberately and meaningfully staging her death. Disturbed by the position of her corpse in its rigidity and horror, Coverdale romanticizes the suicide, supposing that Zenobia had “seen pictures […] of drowned persons in lithe and graceful attitudes. And she deemed it well and decorous to die as so many village maidens have, wronged in their first love” (241). Coverdale’s suppositions point to his longing to create meaning from his experiences and those of his friends. By imagining Zenobia’s suicidal thoughts, Coverdale silences her and interposes his own conclusions on her death.

Hollingsworth’s true motivations are revealed in the end. His rejection of Zenobia and choice of Priscilla confirm Coverdale’s suspicions that Hollingsworth only wanted money to build his rehabilitation center and never cared deeply for either woman. Zenobia’s death, however, kills Hollingsworth’s dream. Consumed by guilt over Zenobia’s suicide, Hollingsworth never completes the building of a “grand edifice for the reformation of criminals” (242). Instead, he reverts to a childlike and haunted state, which Coverdale interprets as a just punishment for his offenses.

Likewise, Hawthorne continues his critique of the Brook Farm experiment. Coverdale notes that, like its real-life counterpart, Blithedale “proved long ago a failure, first lapsing into Fourierism, and dying, as it well deserved, for this infidelity to its own higher spirit” (246). The novel’s construction of Hollingsworth further investigates the progressive spirit alive during Hawthorne’s time. Hollingsworth’s desire to help anonymous individuals at the expense of people he knows shows the danger of an obsession with the aims of many 19th-century Transcendentalists, who placed overarching plans above their families and friends.

The narrative ends with Coverdale’s confession of love for Priscilla, which reveals even more fully Coverdale’s deliberate construction of the narrative. As many scholars have noted, Coverdale mentions Zenobia more often than Priscilla throughout the story, which points to his obvious obsession with the elder sister. Coverdale’s confession, therefore, shows that either throughout the story he has hidden his true self by focusing solely on the actions of others or that he’s telling a deliberate lie to further obfuscate the novel’s meaning. This ending, however, is in keeping with the narrative’s focus on the liminal spaces between truth and dream.