Coverdale & Pierre: Arguing Across Texts

I think one of things that jumped out at me most from the most recent reading is the relationship of Pierre and his cousin Glen which is, to say the least, weird. Melville describes their relationship as spicy, jealous, passionate “boy-love” (216). It immediately reminded me both of Coverdale and Hollingsworth’s homosocial connection, as well as the connection between Melville and Hawthorne.

I was also reminded of the letters between Melville and Hawthorne and Temple’s “Ineffable Socialities” in which she argues that “Pierre’s attraction for Isabel mirrors Melville’s attraction for Hawthorne” (127). I’d have to say that much more about their relationship can be gleaned from looking at Hawthorne’s perspective as mirroring Coverdale’s relationship with Hollingsworth, and reading Melville as conflated with Pierre in his discussion of Glen (I am starting to find it interesting how Melville’s conscious seems to drift between Pierre and the narrator).

From the letters and from Temple’s analysis we know that the relationship between Hawthorne and Melville started to drift apart after a while, largely due to Hawthorne distancing himself. This is directly mirrored in what I would argue is Hawthorne’s perspective of a homosocial bond: Coverdale retreating from Hollingsworth into his hermitage in the woods to hide away, to pull at the bond, to push against its tensile strength until it snaps suddenly (110-111). Temple argues that Hawthorne/Coverdale is ultimately unable to overcome social institutions, and thus has his characters capitulate some part of themselves in favor of maintaining the status quo.

In thinking of Melville as Pierre, we gain the opposite side of the argument. We are privileged to observe from the other half of the homosocial bond. Pierre is the half that seeks to continue the bond, despite the fact that Glen has obviously moved on and no longer feels any sort of devotion or love for Pierre. There is a lot of interesting commentary in this passage on writing, especially in greetings – and Pierre judges his relationship with Glen based on the gratuitous introductory “Dear….’s” that he uses (219).

The narrator notes how “the eventual love for the other sex forever dismiss[es] the preliminary love-friendship of boys” (217). What I find interesting is how despite Pierre “getting over” Glen, the “love for the other sex” that he replaces it with is for his own sister Isabel – and in this way, Melville/Pierre refuse to succumb to rules/institution like Hawthorne does , Melville’s characters actively rebel against the normative even while seemingly following a “typical” pattern in love.

Technology, Community, and Early America

I wanted to add some thoughts to those of you who are wondering, “Great, but how does all of this relate to sex and sin?” I hope that in part what is unfolding over the semester is a sense that the early national through antebellum periods were concerned about the bonds of citizenship: were men supposed to be in a kind of brotherhood of the nation? Is that what a democracy or a republic requires?

If so, then what happens as the country becomes more alienated, even as it grows closer in physical proximity? Do we become a nation of Coverdales–people longing for connection but unable to consummate human relationships for fear of physical and emotional intimacy? And if we are a nation of Coverdales, then how will our democracy survive?

The texts we have read (and will read) investigate these questions by looking at the bonds that connect us—bonds of kinship, bonds of sexual desire, bonds of same-sex affiliation. Many posit that there is something unhealthy or damaging about the heterosexual coupling (or the nuclear family more broadly) because coupling further isolates people and because it thwarts a larger sense of community (and often is devoid of physicality, sensuality, and intimacy, which are arguably also essential to a democracy). I think where these texts differ is on their views about what are the possible alternatives to the traditional heterosexual coupling.

So, the reason I have brought up all of these questions in relation to technology is because I want us to consider what we as twenty-first century Americans think of these issues and whether we believe that technology further alienates us and further thwarts the practice of good citizenship. In other words, does technology turn us even further into suggestible crackpots like in Wieland or further into ogling voyeurs like in The Blithedale? Or does technology, despite (or maybe because of) its non-physicality, bring us somehow closer together? In other words, can technology “queer” citizenship?

Andrew brings up some really interesting and thought-provoking models to consider in his post below this one. I hope you will read it and comment on it, as well as post your own thoughts.

Correspondence

Did anyone else find Melville and Hawthorne’s relationship a little strange? Temple presents it in her essays that Melville as this really optimistic guy who thinks that we can overcome societal structures to come together as fellow (hu)man. His letters to Hawthorne show him trying to convince him that this sort of intimate bond is possible, despite what society tells them about relations between religion and sex and class. Temple points out that Moby-Dick’s Ishmael exemplifies that. Ish leaves society, develops close relationships with the men around him, and manages to live his life the way that he feels he should – in spite of how the society of the time would have viewed it. What an idealist.

And Nathaniel?

Well, his letters were destroyed, but Temple makes a good case for projecting Hawthrone on Coverdale. This makes Hawthorne out to be a the cynical opposite of his friend. While Melville sees the possibility for new sorts of relationships and overcoming contemporary society, Hawthorne feels like there is no escaping these ties. Coverdale and Hollingsworth clearly have chemistry, Coverdale (Hawthorne?) does not have it in him to transcend the boundaries that say that he should not act on his feelings (the same can be said for his relationships with the women in the commune).

whether or not it is wholly accurate, Temple paints a picture of Melville just laying himself out emotionally to Hawthorne, and Hawthorne, with what we can assume is a horrified look on his face, telling Melville that he is sick in the head and has no idea how reality functions. This really makes me curious to see if Pierre (which is chronologically after Moby and Blithedale) answers back to Hawthorne. While I’m sure thinking of the pair’s literary works as a conversation is overstating the case, it would seem that there is an element of this present.

These two could have made a great sitcom pair, don’t you think?

Mistrust at its finest

As I was reading the assignment for Mon I couldn’t help but think about something that we talked about last class, namely Coverdale as a narrator and the fact that all the information we get is from his point of view. Hawthorne tells us (through Coverdale) that he ” hardly could make out an intelligible sentence” pg 114, or that the “distance was so great as to obliterate any play of feature” pg 152. Yet in both of these instances he gives the reader exactly what he has just stated that he could not know. These falsehoods and inventions of his imagination make him shockingly untrustworthy. Hawthorne must have a reason for pushing the reader to distrust of his narrator but I am not sure what that reason might be. It seems to serve only as a way to make the reader question everything in the story seeing as even what is put forward as fact is admittedly falsified. The mistrust of the narrator does make one think more about the story, sifting through elements to decide what to believe and what to discard, instead of simply taking what you are given for the honest and total truth. It also makes you think about yourself and how you put stories together on your own head and whether or not this is the way that you portray your stories to others.

To totally switch topics I was quite confused by Hollingsworth’s quick transition from love of Zenobia to love of Priscilla. Was it the realization that Priscilla was the veiled lady? Was it anger at Zenobia for making Priscilla be the veiled lady? I am not sure if it was said and I missed it or if it was one of those things that just seem to happen with no explanation because Coverdale doesn’t know why or because he doesn’t deem the reason to be important enough to share. Either way i think that it is an interesting switch and that it shows a side of Hollingsworth that is not steady and unchanging, unlike what we knew of him so far.

-updated-

Zenobia and Feminism

Zenobia has always been an intriguing character in “the Blithedale Romance” but not always for positive reasons. The thing that strikes me most about Zenobia is her ability to stay in a suspended purgatory between feminism and chauvinism. At one point she will assert that women are wiser, yet at other points she declares that the problems of the world are rooted in women. It seems that she is a confused mixture of Hollingsworth and Priscilla who are much more thoroughly divided on the subject. Hollingsworth believes that men are the driving force of existence, aside from God, and Priscill is a meek and very effeminate woman who does nothing but serve others. Zenobia seems more like the embodiment of the two personalities struggling against each other. While the rest of the characters in the story are more in tune with their own desires and habits, Zenobia usually takes on the characteristics of her peers. I don’t think we ever get a true look into who Zenobia really is outside of who she is in relation to others.

Coverdale’s view of Zenobia and women reformers

“…women, however intellectually superior, so seldom disquiet themselves about the rights or wrongs of their sex, unless their own individual affections chance to lie in idleness, or to be ill at ease. They are not natural reformers, but become such by the pressure of exceptional misfortune. I could measure Zenobia’s inward trouble, by the animosity with which she now took up the general quarrel of woman against man.”
–The Blithedale Romance (126)

Someone please slap Coverdale in the face.

Okay, first of all, kudos to Hawthorne for creating one of the most debilitatingly obnoxious narrators ever. Well, maybe not ever. But still.

In any case, I am not entirely certain what this is supposed to mean. I don’t know if Coverdale is supposed to be a reflection of those people who populated Brookfarm, the majority of those people, the minority of those people, or just one person in particular (perhaps Hawthorne himself?). Or perhaps he represents a certain kind of person, one possessing a certain philosophy/mentality and who, given statistical probability, would probably have made him/herself present in the Brookfarm community.

I’m also a little interested (if not entirely unsurprised) by the way Priscilla is regarded by her neighbors/“new family.” I can’t help but be reminded of Pleyel and the way that he regarded Clara when she attempted to reason with him over her supposedly ruined virtue. The more coherent, logical and intelligent Clara sounded, the more Pleyel resisted her and turned the cold shoulder—the more he seemed to be repulsed by her. But then, the second she would let up, or succumb to some form of “feminine weakness” (i.e. fainting), he was all about her. In that way, I understand that vulnerability is apparently a very appealing quality for women to have—at least in the eyes of these men in question. However, Zenobia offers the opposite, and is also respected and loved, but in an entirely different way. Sometimes I wonder if Zenobia is found appealing despite her strength of mind and stoutness of character, as though these traits are unfamiliar or unconventional and appealing if only for the sense that they are, in some ways, forbidden? Not forbidden forbidden, but more like…the female equivalent of the “bad boy”—the one you don’t take home to have dinner with your parents. But I want to read more before I decide. (Of course, both women, it must be noted, are equally lusted after for their beauty more than anything else. Also proximity might have something to do with that. And also lack of other options.).

I guess I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this, except to say that so far, after reading 60+ pages of “Blithedale”—I have established (among many, many other yet to be mentioned things) that 1) I am not a fan of Coverdale. And 2) I am very interested in exploring these two supposedly opposing virtues/characteristics in our leading women, and what means what in terms of how they are perceived by their fellow Blithedalers. Particularly the men.

Also, Zenobia and Priscilla have an extremely interesting, very complicated relationship. What’s up with that? I will think on this.

Class Tomorrow Canceled

No class tomorrow, Monday, 2/1. Please keep reading The Blithedale, using the syllabus as your guide.

I thought I would share a quotation from this first section. Feel free to comment on it, or post your own.

“…I was taking note of Zenobia’s aspect; and it impressed itself on me so distinctly, that I can now summon her up like a ghost….She was dressed as simply as possible…but with a silken kerchief, between which and her gown there was one glimpse of a white shoulder. It struck me as a great piece of good-fortune that there should be just that glimpse. Her hair–which was dark, glossy, and of singular abundance–was put up rather soberly and primly, without curls, or other ornament, except a single flower. It was an exotic, of rare beauty, and as fresh as if the hot-house gardener had just clipt it from the stem. That flower has struck deep root into my memory. I can both see it and smell it, at this moment” (47).

Envisioning Brook Farm

Go to the Newton Conservators page to see contemporary photos of Brook Farm.

Wolcott's Brook Farm (Massachusetts Historical Society)