Cecilia
August 30, 2012
The novel, The Blithdale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne reveals the outlook of
a woman’s role in American Society during the 1800s. One aspect that caught my attention, in
particular, is the lack of individualism that a woman had. In the novel we are introduced to a woman whose
name is Zenobia. According to the
narrator, Zenobia is different from other woman in the sense that she is not a
submissive woman, speaks her mind, exercises and has no maternal instincts.
To explain my earlier statement about
lack of individualism, a character named Hollingsworth tells Zenobia, “All the separate
action of woman is, and ever has been, and always shall be, false, foolish,
vain, destructive of her own best and holiest qualities void of every good effect,
and productive of intolerable mischief” (Hawthorne
122). Men thought that the perfect woman
should rely on them and that being weak was better. They wanted women to have these qualities so
that they could have better control of them and to feel powerful. Zenobia is deeply affected by Hollingsworth’s
statement that the character she portrays became weaker. Where before she would have spoken her mind
and defended her sex, now as Coverdale (narrator of the novel) has noted became
compliant at hearing this statement.
As a reader we do not know who
Zenobia is as a person we only see through the eyes of our narrator, Coverdale,
and it is a very limited sight of Zenobia.
She is described as a woman of beauty but we do not learn what she likes
to do or what she thinks. Coverdale
becomes her painter and only allows his audience to see his way and not how she
is seen by others. In this society that
Coverdale paints it, makes the reader think that a woman had no rights and
should only expect the man to lead and do all the thinking for her. With the name given to her she is only an
instrument and that is also another thing that is telling of 1800s society view
of women. She had no entity in society
or government or scholarly areas they were not meant to be. Coverdale our narrator keeps expressing this
throughout the story by instead focusing on the outer surface and talking about
Zenobia as something he admires rather than a human.
Through this novel we see how a
women only becomes the shadow of a man and that they lose their identity when
they stop following. Zenobia could not
live as the shadow of a man she wanted a corporal body and decided to leave the
scene in a drastic way rather than being ignored.
The reoccurring theme of light and shadow may tie into the idea that Zenobia became a shadow of a man later in the novel. From the static perspective of Coverdale we could only see Zenobia’s physical characteristics which dehumanized her. The reader could only make assumptions about her strength of character early on in the novel. Also, as the book proceeds it’s easy to see that Zenobia lost her individuality, as Cecilia points out. She instead adopted the characteristics of Hollingsworth’s shadow. She follows him around, allowing him to take the lead just like a shadow does as a person walks under the sun. However, when the sun falls beyond the horizon, the shadow disappears unless maintained through another artificial source. Like a shadow, Zenobia also seemed to disappear when she abruptly killed herself. This metaphor is a decent representation of the view of women during the 1800s. Women follow men like a shadow and act as a supporting role, but without men to cast the shadow, women could not conceivably exist.
ReplyDeleteYour ideas and Wesley's about Zenobia's descent into being a shadow are interesting, Cecelia.
ReplyDelete