Literature: Essay
Blithedale Romance written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1852 is called one of his un-humorous fictions. The Novel covers the age of mid 1800s in the community of Blithedale. There are few characters projecting a mix of feelings about their viewpoint of the world. The hero of the novel is Miles Coverdale, who is desirous of improving the life standards of the community through agrarian lifestyle. The fictional story is somewhat confusing as it projects the darker side of the individuals and the reader feels like going into a depression due to the strange twist of events and sudden appearances and re-appearances of the characters. The Blithedale Romance is a fiction work based on Hawthorne's recollections of his stay at a farmhouse. Hawthorne describes in the preface of the novel about his memories of the farmhouse and works as "an available foothold between fiction and reality." The novel replicates his approaches of demonstrative skepticism toward the community. Critics’ doubt the Hawthorne's claim about the characters of the novel being fictitious as some characters resemble the people in his real life. There exists a strong co-relation between the fiction and non-fiction in his novel. His portrayal of the dark side of the men is closely related to the characters in his life, and incidents that occurred in and around his community. The novel appears to be an image of a religious conflict Hawthorne confronted during his entire life.
Comparing the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne with Leslie Marmon Silko and Luci Tapahonso is a rather complicated issue. Leslie Marmon Silko has been known for her interest in the impact of past on the present-day life, which has kept a link between her work and the belief of her culture. Silko has shown opposition to the racism and concerns with the women issues throughout her career as a writer. Her literary work depicts so many characters who survive the violence of modern America. She constantly reminds of the clash of civilizations through her writings. Luci Tapahonso is a poet whose work emphasizes the feminine idea as a basis of power and equilibrium in the world. Her family and childhood friends form part of her poetry very often. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s work features moral metaphors and is considered to be the dark romanticism that is part of the Romantic Movement. His character often possessed the intrinsic evil and sin of mortality coupled with psychological complication and moral messages. His work, thus, well differentiates him from the other two writer on account of negativity that he projects and the psychological complexity in his literary works.
Richard Ruland and Malcolm Bradbury suggest that self-doubting aspect of Hawthorne in his novel appears so mystifying to many of his contemporaries. In “From Puritanism to Postmodernism,” Richard Ruland and Malcolm Bradbury criticize the Hawthorne for representing self-doubt in the insecurity and cynicism of the narrator, Miles Coverdale. The attitude and behavior of Miles Coverdale contrast evidently with the transcendental idealism of the experiment. The fiction of Hawthorne appears to be closely associated to the reality, and it appears to be a mix of fiction and reality. His novel represents a sardonic conflict between his perception of morality and actual morality. In fact, Hawthorne has tried to present the morality in isolation and independent from the religion and faith.
I tend to agree with Richard Ruland and Malcolm Bradbury that Hawthorne was an unusual writer of his time as he projected the darker side to American individuality. There exists no linkage between the Hawthorne viewpoint in this novel and the other two writers discussed above. There is no similarity between the Hawthorne and Leslie Marmon Silko and Luci Tapahonso.
Work Cited
Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Blithedale Romance, Bedford Cultural Edition, 1996. Web. 28 June. 2014.
Nina Baym, et.al. The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Shorter Sixth Edition, 2003. Web. 28 June. 2014.
American Passages: Literary Survey (Norton), 2003. Web. 28 June. 2014.
