The Blithedale Romance

In his Preface, Hawthorne distinguishes between his real-life experiences at the Brook Farm community and the fictional world that he created in the novel. Hawthorne, perhaps fearing that individuals intimately involved with Brook Farm would recognize themselves in his characters, attempts to distance his novel from actual history. The author even states that his “present concern with the Socialist Community is merely to establish a theatre” and that readers shouldn’t compare the novel to actual events (1). However, even though Hawthorne explains that the novel is fictious and none of the major characters resemble those who lived at Brook Farm, he freely admits the romanticism of his time there and its influence on his composition.

The novel’s first five chapters set up both the ideal of a utopian society and the probability of its failure, introducing the theme of The Search for Utopia. In his book California’s Utopian Colonies (Yale University Press, 1966), Robert V. Hine defined the utopian society:

[It is] a group of people who are attempting to establish a new social pattern based upon a vision of the ideal society and who have withdrawn themselves from the community at large to embody that vision in experimental form (5).

Utopian societies were particularly popular in the US during the 19th century. Although the earliest versions of these experimental societies found their basis in religious ideology, by the 1820s most were founded on a belief in socialism, as was Brook Farm. As a founding member of Brook Farm, Hawthorne lived on the West Roxbury, Massachusetts property during the summer of 1841 but left because of his inability to write after a full day of farming. Many critics view Coverdale’s skepticism about the experiment as mirroring Hawthorne’s own feelings.

Coverdale expresses both his belief in the socialist experiment and his doubt in its longevity in the opening chapters. The opening paragraph of the second chapter compares the commune to a wood fire that the narrator experienced on his first day at Blithedale. The “cheery […] blaze,” while memorable, burned brightly for a moment, but Coverdale, looking back on his experience, notes that he now sees a “chill mockery of a fire” (9). On his journey to Blithedale, Coverdale likewise provides conflicting views of the experiment. He thinks the countryside offers “better air to breathe” (12) but also fears that his snowy journey has made him ill.

Throughout these opening chapters, Hawthorne sets up the beauty of the natural world, juxtaposing the dirty and dingy city with the fresh and healthy atmosphere of the country. The world Coverdale leaves behind is bleak and filled with city smoke, while his companions note that the “nitrous atmosphere” of the farm “is really exhilarating” (12). Similarly, Zenobia imagines Priscilla’s life in the city as stifling, causing “her paleness, her nervousness, and her wretched fragility” (34). Furthermore, the terms that Coverdale uses to describe his new home allude to well-known mythical or biblical places known for their freedom and quasi-divine attributes—Paradise, Arcadia, and Eden.

While Coverdale’s skepticism and loss of belief in the Blithedale experiment are evident in these chapters, Hawthorne also uses foreshadowing to reveal problems at the commune. The night before his departure, Coverdale notes that he’s “not so very confident as at some former periods, that this final step […] was the wisest that could possibly be taken” (8). In addition, he notes that while his group offers friendly greetings to the farm’s neighbors, they ignore such salutations. Furthermore, from the outset, Zenobia expresses doubt—which Coverdale expresses in his musings—about Hollingsworth’s character and motives.

Another important aspect of this opening section is the characterization of Coverdale. As the narrator, Coverdale’s viewpoint colors the work. He continually observes other characters, assessing their looks, their actions, and their speech. Often, though, Coverdale’s observations tell us more about him than other characters. His fascination with Zenobia, for instance, verges on the erotic. After Zenobia playfully notes that she will don “the garb of Eden” (17) after May Day, Coverdale imagines her nude. Likewise, he focuses on Hollingsworth’s looks, noting both his masculine features and “tenderness in his voice, eyes, mouth, in his gesture […] which few men could resist, and no woman” (28). Thus, Coverdale cares about the exterior; for him, the interior man or woman is expressed through the physical body and its actions. His attraction to other characters is based on appearance as much as personality, which contributes to his impression of being an unreliable narrator.