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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.
Recommended Citation
DeAngelis, John, "Social skepticism, penetralia, and Hawthorne's veiled ethics" (2019). Honors Theses. 1383.
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/honors-theses/1383