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Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Restricted Thesis: Campus only access

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

English

Abstract

After writing The House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne took the voyeur’s view to illustrate the perversion of penetration and produced The Blithedale Romance. Though all seems ameliorated by Holgrave and Phoebe’s moment of intimacy in the reception room, Hawthorne felt compelled to continue grappling with veils, seclusion, and sociality. The Blithedale Romance is dense with connections to Hawthorne’s earlier works; however, it seems to stand outside his personal struggle to exist as an individual self within the public sphere. The constant eroticization throughout and morbid ending to The Blithedale Romance certainly contrasts the joyous ending to The House of the Seven Gables. But to ignore Coverdale and Zenobia would be to ignore Hawthorne’s final justification for an ethic of social skepticism.

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