chapters work to dismiss the hope that this experiment will last, especially as Coverdale notes, “Whether he meant to insinuate that our moral illumination would have as brief a term, I cannot say” (Hawthorne 12). Although it makes sense for each character to come into Blithedale with their own ideas about how to make a better society, they begin to put their own desires ahead of the community.
By introducing Mr. Coverdale and the Veiled Lady within the first few opening lines, a sense of illusion enraptures the novel. Even the name “Coverdale” itself suggests a covering up of something. These characters immediately exist under the guise of hiding their true endeavors in the formation of Blithedale. Hawthorne writes, “...nor, in fact, has…show more content… He says, “The better life! Possibly, it would hardly look so now; it is enough if it looked so then” (Hawthorne 6). He acknowledges that he goes to Blithedale in order to find something within him, though he does not know what, as long as it helps his writing project. Going through a snowstorm in an effort to get to Blithedale foreshadows the arduous journey they’ll experience once they get there. His strong desire to leave the oppressing city makes the thought of Blithedale a paradisiacal dream, moreover an unattainable one. However, his apparent excitement and hope for the experiment do exist in his appreciation for the burning…show more content… “On the whole, it was a society such as has seldom met together; nor, perhaps, could it reasonably be expected to hold together long. Persons of marked individuality-crooked sticks, as some of us might be called-are not exactly the easiest to bind up into a fagot” (Hawthorne 28). Though everyone enters Blithedale in order to find a better community, their own nature gets in the way of this very action and Coverdale acknowledges this, but never works to do anything about it. Through his immediate sickness upon his first few days in Blithedale, Coverdale already breaks away from the community. He is simultaneous in Blithedale and not in Blithedale unable to commit to the utopia. As an unreliable narrator, Coverdale acts as a voyeur within the community, without actually pledging a full-fledged commitment. However, he only concerns himself with the characters surrounding his obsession with Zenobia and Priscilla. Watching, rather than participating becomes his ultimate endeavor. Coverdale acts as an unknowable character because he does not know himself. He spends most of the novel judging other characters from a distance without actually forming real relationships. Even he acknowledges his desire to separate himself from the community. He says, “This hermitage was my one exclusive possession while I counted myself a brother of the socialists. It symbolized my individuality and aided me in
