Conference Paper

On community in the Blithedale Romance

"The best unit for social development, he (Fourier) argued, was the self- sufficient `phalanx.' It would number about 1600 persons, who would live in a main building, the phalanstery. (Old Dorm Block)"

In the cultural and historical background to the Blithedale Romance, a myriad of social ills are described and explained. Slavery, religious turmoil, an economy in ruins, child labor exploitation, and women's oppression are just a few examples of the key issues of Hawthorne's day. While I do not suspect that this time period was substantially worse in terms of social ills than countless other time periods, I do feel that it is peculiar in the large degree to which society's ills were addressed in public. Often, part of forming an utopian community is to escape from society's ills in the large scale and correct them on the small scale: within your community.

I found the discussion of feminism particularly interesting both within Hawthorne's text itself and within the supplemental materials. The most startling image in the text was the drawing on page 249. In this drawing we see (clockwise) young men being introduced as suitors to old women (think Oedipus), a coed schoolhouse teaching what sexuality in the curriculum, women being flogged, and a man mopping the floor as his (butch) wife watches approvingly. In the center of the drawing, we see a man cavorting nakedly with eight young females. As history demonstrates, male concern for the "natural" licentiousness of females is a cross- cultural commonality as is male concern with effeminacy and belief in the corruptive influences of older women.

By comparison, at the very least, it would appear that many of these Utopian communities, including Brook Farm, improved the conditions of women significantly. At Brook Farm, women had the right to vote and could perform a wide variety of duties. They experienced greater freedom inside the community than they could find in the outside society.

In the Blithedale Romance, Coverdale's stance on feminism is quite observable. The narrative begins with the description of the Veiled Lady. Although she was cloaked in a mist which held her separate from the outside world (p. 40-41), she was endowed with "many of the privileges of a disembodied spirit." (p. 41)

Another key element to the discussion of women's role within the text is the role of Zenobia. The history of her name reveals that Zenobia was a 3rd century princess and queen who heroically resisted Roman forces. (p. 42) While it is still mysterious as to why Mr. Moodie questions Coverdale about Zenobia in chapter one, we as readers have already formulated certain expectations about her. We expect romance. Although our expectations receive their formal temptations with Zenobia's entrance and subsequent introduction to Coverdale, we really began to anticipate this romance as soon as Mr. Moodie mentioned her. While I suppose this expectation could be construed as being a result of our knowing the title of the book, I feel that there exists a natural response to define the female characters in these books in terms of their male relations. In such a novel as Hawthorne's, the female characters are dependent on the male characters for development. Margaret Fuller's text is an exception to this rule as her first person narrative does not entice us to expect significant character development. In Hawthorne's novel, however, the fact that Zenobia is introduced in the non- present third person leads to her eventual role as the subject, defined by her male relations, and lacking a certain agency. Is this "literary disempowerment" of women a trope in narrative fiction?