Doing a quick wikipedia search on The Blithedale Romance, I found that the circumstances of Zenobia's death was based on the actual drowning-suicide of Miss Hunt. Apparently, Hawthorne wrote extensively about this in his journal. However, I don't have his journal on hands nor do I know which part of his journal contain this Miss Hunt. I guess that could be a research material that I will be needing.
I was flipping through Horatio Bridge's Personal Recollections of Nathaniel Hawthorne today when I found this passage
I remember also his glee in telling of his strictly enforcing the rules for early rising by blowing the horn - long and loud - at five o'clock in the morning, much to the discomfort of the drowsy members of the family.As we might remember in The Blithedale Romance, Coverdale described how Silas Foster had the habit of sounding the horn at day-break. On page 39, Coverdale described it as "harsh, uproarious, inexorably drawn out, and as sleep-dispelling as if this hard-hearted old yeoman had got hold of the trump of doom." This is pretty far from the "glee" that Hawthorne had for sounding the horn as was described by Bridge.
From Hawthorne's letter to Sophia Peabody dated April 13, 1841, he wrote
Here is thy poor husband in a polar Paradise! I know not how to interpret this aspect of Nature - whether it be of good or evil omen to our enterprise. But I reflect that the Plymouth pilgrims arrived in the midst of storm and stept ashore upon mountain snow-dritss; and nevertheless they prospered, and became a great people - and doubtless it will be the same with us. I laud my stars, however, that thou wilt not have thy first impressions of our future home from such a day as this.Hawthorne is basically telling Sophia to not be so depressed by having to go through a snow storm on their trek to Brook Farm. Coincidently, Coverdale described the very same snow storm in his trek to Blithedale. I just don't think that it's a very good idea to believe Hawthorne when he said that the book is separate from the actual Brook Farm.
3 comments:
That's some intersting information you found out. I'm betting there are a lot more coincidences to be found between the book and Brook Farm. Hawthorne can claim that the book wasn't based on Brook Farm, but it's impossible for those experiences that he had there to not creep in to the story in some form.
Nice research. I too was also a bit confused of Hawthorne stating that the novel was not based off of Brook Farm. I think he was trying to comment on the ideas behind Brook Farm, even though he said he wasn't. Why else would he base his ideas and most of the novel off of it? He must have had a purpose - and I guess that's what you have to find out =).
Okay, let's be careful here. Obviously the correlations between the novel and Brook Farm aren't coincidences; after all, Hawthorne was there. On the other hand, in some very obvious ways, the novel isn't a historical account of Brook Farm. We can't just go, "Ding! Blithedale is Brook Farm!"
Can we come up with a more nuanced account of the relationship between Blithedale and Brook Farm -- one that's neither total identity nor total non-relation?
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