著者

市川 嘉章

出版者

信州大学教養部

雑誌

信州大学教養部紀要 第1部 人文科学 (ISSN:05830605)

巻号頁・発行日

no.11, pp.p115-130, 1977-03

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The Scarlet Letter, which is unanimously recognized as the greatest masterpiece by Nathaniel Hawthorne, can be characterized by a perfect combination of historical romance in the seventeenth-century New England and allegory derived from the Puritan view of life. Many critics say, on the other hand, that The Blithedale Romance is a failure, because it is disintegrated into two separate parts of Gothic romance and the narrator's realistic viewpoint. Contrary to this conventional interpretation, it is insisted and proved in this essay that these two characteristics,through Hawthorne's originality, make this work a piece of successful amalgamation of romance and realism. It is Coverdale, narrator of the story who stands at the crucial position that makes this difficult integration. In this sense, Hawthorne created quite an original type of narrator. We can say The Blithedale Romance is an example of this sort of hybrid containing the two heterogeneous elements, which can often be found in the history of the American novels. Miles Coverdale joins in the construction of "the Modern Arcadia" based on Fourierism, an experiment in communal living. In the group of its participants, he is not so much an active reformer as a cynic observer of the movement. The observer's focus is on the triangular situation between the egotistical, unconsciously hypocritical Hollingsworth and his two girl friends, the passionate, sensuous Zenobia and the sibylline, ambiguous Priscilla. As the story goes on, Hollingsworth tries to use Zenobia's funds for the reformation of criminals. He relentlessly forsakes Zenobia, accusing her for the conspiracy of getting rid of her rival. Her pride is badly hurt, and she finally commits suicide. As the catastrophe of the drama approaches, the narrator finds himself involved in the intrigue and suffers from moral pain. This is because he is essentially a man of morality inherited from Hawthorne, though the narrator's view is quite realistic. We can say his morality is not incompatible with his realistic observation. His morality, however, prevents him from the rescue of Zenobia and from confessing his heart to Priscilla whom he secretly loves. His self-restraint from "the forbidden fruit" is caused in consequence of the effect of his morality. We also find his scope of view rather limited, because the narrator always tries to keep himself a little aloof from his friends. In addition, he comes too late on the spot at the critical moment, and consequently he cannot be in contact with possible important information which he would like to know. Though his discrimi- nation is piercing and probes into the true natures of his friends, because of the limitation of Coverdale's observation, we cannot but feel some ambiguity beyond his lucid scope of view. The delicate contrast between sharp discrimination within his observation and ambiguity or obscurity beyond gives birth to an aesthetic equilibrium of light and dark which is characteristic of Hawthorne. The effect of romance in the story is caused by the mysterious ambiguity which Hawthorne consciously or unconsciously tries to give in the limited scope of the narrator. Of all the elements of Gothic romance in the story, Westervelt, evil mesmerist, appeals to us as appalling, and Coverdale feels irreconcilable hatred towards this person because of his inhuman idiosyncrasy. He is described, in consequence, as a symbol of devilish falseness. "The Modern Arcadia" turns out to furnish a mere background of the tragical drama. Therefore, the social movement and the feminist movement are no more than subordinate themes in contrast with the leitmotif of the human tragedy. We cannot deny, moreover, that the poetic beauty of the story is created by Hawthorne's symbolic device of texture, that is imagery. The relation between each piece of imagery and the organic whole can be traced reciprocally, and the artistic value of the work will be made out appropriately.