John Bennett

Dr. Lawrence

Hawthorne Seminar

December 17, 2001

Crowning Priscilla: Hawthorne’s Use of Flower Allegory in The Blithedale Romance

            The richness of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s fiction stems from a complex and expert weaving together of several literary devices, including everything from the most obvious tools, like setting, plot development, and characterization, to those whose detection require a greater amount of sophistication, such as the use of unreliable narrators (like Miles Coverdale), foreshadowing, and metaphor.  When extended to span an entire work or, as in Hawthorne’s case, much of a prolific literary career, the final device, namely metaphor, becomes allegory: “the description of a subject under the guise of some other subject of aptly suggestive resemblance; a figurative sentence, discourse, or narrative, in which properties and circumstances attributed to the apparent subject really refer to the subject they are meant to suggest; an extended or continued metaphor” (“Allegory,” def. 1,2).  Of the devices Hawthorne employs in his works, his use of allegory or extended metaphor stands out as one that makes his narratives wonderfully complex and eternally thought provoking.  Extending through several of Hawthorne’s narratives are the following allegories: 1) the bosom serpent, 2) the wilderness, and

3) flowers.  The primary focus of this essay is an examination of the flower allegory as it is developed through Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance; however, some time is spent discussing other allegories in certain works as a way of giving credence to Hawthorne’s mastery of the device.  Through this analysis I intend to wonder at a key point in Blithedale’s plot: Priscilla’s crowning by Zenobia. I wish to question whether the transference of the flower symbol from Zenobia to Priscilla recreates Priscilla as the new Zenobia.

The bosom serpent is a borrowed idea that Hawthorne utilizes in his “Egotism; or, the Bosom-Serpent,” in my opinion, to indicate secret sin.  In this short story, Roderick Elliston is “gnawed” at by something from deep inside his breast and is unable to dispense of it.  He is able to identify other characters’ bosom serpents, or hidden sins, but not his own.  However, by the end of the tale, after Roderick has spent much time in contemplating and communing with the serpent, he does manage to uncover his sin.  Replying to his friend, Herkimer, Roderick exclaims: “Could I, for one instant, forget myself, the serpent might not abide within me. It is my diseased self-contemplation that has engendered and nourished him” (793).  Roderick could not detect his sin, because he kept thinking about and obsessing with himself, when what he needed was to forget himself and to love another. 

In The Scarlet Letter, the bosom serpent allegory returns, though its symbol has changed.  Here, Arthur Dimmesdale’s secret sin is his adulterous relationship with Hester Prynn, and it is symbolized through the “A” he finds on his chest, close to his own heart.  As a minister of a Puritan community, he is not able to escape the public eye, nor does he think that he can confess to his people, who think so highly of him.  Therefore, he must keep his sin hidden, lest his parishioners condemn him.  When his guilt drives him to the scaffold one night, he feels the burning of his sin: “Mr. Dimmesdale was overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast, right over his heart.  On that spot, in very truth, there was, and there had long been, the gnawing and poisonous tooth of bodily pain” (134).  From his shriek and subsequent comments to himself, it is obvious that Dimmesdale is in great need of confessing, in order to uncover that unbearable hidden sin and, hence, do away with his guilt.  This is such a universal experience—sin and guilt--that it makes perfect sense that the allegory of the bosom serpent or hidden sin pervades much of Hawthorne’s fiction.  Yet it is but one of his many rich metaphors.

Another allegory that seems to saturate Hawthorne’s work is that of the wilderness.  This

setting-turned-metaphor manifests its meaning as a place where naïve and innocent characters find themselves invited, tempted, or even compelled to see past the façades that protect them from the reality of human experience with its passions, its weaknesses, and its failings.  For instance, in Hawthorne’s tale, “Young Goodman Brown,” as Goodman Brown travels deeper and deeper into the forest, leaving his Puritan town behind, he gains more and more knowledge of not only his own sinful nature, but also of the sin of even the most pious members of the community, not to mention his innocent “Faith.”  When Goodman Brown perceives Faith’s scream and finds her pink ribbon floating down toward the dark forest, he cries out thus: “My Faith is gone! […] There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name.  Come Devil! for to thee is this world given” (283).  Thereby, naïve Goodman Brown, upon venturing into the forest of experience and human truth, at once loses his faith and, at the same time, realizes that his wife Faith is not as pure and innocent as he may have once believed. 

Similarly, “The Pastor and His Parishoner,” chapter seventeen of The Scarlet Letter, depicts a meeting in the wilderness of Hester Prynn and Arthur Dimmesdale—the secret and adulterous lovers.  For Dimmesdale, this chance meeting in the woods signifies an opportunity to let down the wall of his minister image and to validate his still-secret affection toward Hester.  When Hester reminds him of the love they had professed for one another, Dimmesdale admits that he does remember, and so they sit hand in hand allowing this “gloomy hour” to linger.  Hawthorne uses the symbol of the forest to echo the sorrow of this truthful and human moment: “The forest was obscure around them, and creaked with a blast that was passing through it.  The boughs were tossing heavily about their heads; while one solemn old tree groaned dolefully to another, as if telling the sad story of the pair that sat beneath, or constrained to forebode evil to come” (179).  So the wilderness seems to transform Hawthorne’s characters, enabling them to cast off their defenses, making them vulnerable to human truth through the unveiling of the heart—be it good or sinful. 

            Nathaniel Hawthorne’s allegory of flowers is one that can also be observed to span many of his works in one way or another.  This floral symbolism signifies several different, but related, contrasts between two basic types of women—innocent or experienced.  The complexity found within the flower allegory mirrors the complexity of human relationships as they develop through Hawthorne’s characters.  But a discussion of the wondrously convoluted associations of Miles Coverdale, Zenobia, Priscilla, and Hollingsworth in Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance must, rightly, begin with, at least, a brief acknowledgement of the connection between Blithedale and Brook Farm.  While the narrator, in his Preface, denies that there is much that is the same about Brook Farm and the fictional Blithedale, there are definitely some similarities.  One critic claims that these parallels are easiest observed in the relationship between Coverdale and Hawthorne, himself (Rosa 135).  He states that both Hawthorne and Coverdale are authors who seek the opportunity to write and to actively participate in a social experiment, which would require them to engage in hard labor as prescribed by the community.  Yet, without any drive toward social reform, both men become disillusioned (Rosa 136).  According to Rosa, though Hawthorne may have been interested in Brook Farm as the new “Transcendental utopian community,” what he truly sought was a way of supplying himself with enough time and money to be able to write (Rosa 134).  This critic uses the “Celestial Railroad” character of the Giant Transcendentalist in order to suggest that Hawthorne meant to criticize transcendentalism.  Commenting on the part of the story when the train passes by this character, who looked “like a heap of fog and duskiness,” Rosa states: “[…] what Hawthorne is saying is that there is no easy way to a pure heart or easy conscience no matter what modern conveniences, that is, current philosophy or religion, would lead you to believe” (Rosa 116).  According to this statement, Hawthorne may have seen Brook Farm as a failure, because there is, in fact, no design or set formula that will lead to human clarity and happiness; social reform will not lead to individual grace.

             In addition to the Hawthorne-Coverdale connection, Dan McCall, another critic, asserts that Zenobia bears a great likeness to Hawthorne’s friend, Margaret Fuller.  Fuller never actually resided at Brook Farm; however, she was partially responsible for planning this utopian experiment (Lewis ).  Although friends such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry James, and Bronson Alcott recognized in her a very healthy ego, similar to Zenobia, Fuller did, on occasion, unveil her human weaknesses and her unfruitful desires (McCall 76).  McCall quotes Fuller as having said, “I am not fitted to be loved.  No one loves me.  I have no child, and the woman in me has so craved this experience.  The Woman in me kneels and weeps in tender rapture; the Man in me rushes forth, only to be baffled.  Yet the time will come, when, from the union of this tragic king and queen, shall be born a radiant sovereign self” (McCall 76).  This kind of discourse definitely tends to parallel the thoughts and actions of Hawthorne’s Zenobia.  While most of the time Zenobia appears to be a very articulate woman of power and beauty, at certain points in the novel, as will be discussed later, her sensitivity or her feminine characteristics come through quite plainly.  More obvious, though, is the writer connection; both Fuller and Zenobia are female authors. 

For many readers, an automatic response to Zenobia as a woman writer may yield remembrances of Hawthorne’s phrase, the “scribbling women.”  Once more, McCall quotes Fuller on the matter: “These gentlemen are surprised that I write no better, because I talk so well.  But I have served a long apprenticeship to the one, none to the other.  I shall write better, but never, I think, so well as I talk; for then I feel inspired.  My voice excites me, my pen, never” (McCall 76).  He then compares this statement to an instance where Zenobia claims that the pen is not meant for women.  Zenobia exclaims: “Her power is too natural and immediate.  It is with the living voice alone that she can compel the world to recognize the light of her intellect and the depth of her heart” (McCall 76).  According to McCall’s argument, the power of a woman, specifically Margaret Fuller, lies in immediacy.  Women, then, are most effective when they vocalize their thoughts and, especially, their passions.  As will be shown later in the essay, Hawthorne may not have denounced women writes as a whole, but he did notice that women wrote best when they effectively expressed or projected their true selves including their deepest desires and passions.  There are surely a number of other Brook Farm connections that could be mentioned in a study dedicated to comparing the historical and fictional settings, yet the scope of this paper is inadequate for such an examination.  For it is the use and effectiveness of Hawthorne’s flower allegory in The Blithedale Romance which drives this paper forward.

            A discussion on flower allegory in The Blithedale Romance may best begin with a brief explanation of the characters as a whole.  In this novel, the four main characters go to Blithedale for different self-serving purposes.  These separate goals show the characters to be different in their desires; however, once they begin interacting with each other, the complicatedness and the richness of human interaction becomes noticeable.  One critic considers this confusion that arises as a downfall of the novel.  Robert Long refers to Henry James’ The Bostonians in order to comment on this issue.  Along with Marius Bewely, Long believes that in the writing of his novel, James meant to create a “corrected version” of The Blithedale Romance (Long 121).  He purports: “The difference between Hawthorne’s novel and James’s […] is the difference between Hawthorne’s ‘shadows and confusions’ and James’s lucid social relationships […]” (Long 121).  Does confusion in the thoughts, actions, and interactions of characters necessarily make those characters inferior to similar characters who operate in a more lucid or logical manner?  I would argue that the confusion, or what some call the ambivalence, of Hawthorne’s Blithedalers mimics the confusion found in real-life relationships.  This is part of what makes The Blithedale Romance a great novel—that the constantly changing relationships actually overshadow the plot itself.  The critic Benjamin Grossberg claims that one question that seems nearly unavoidable in looking critically at the novel asks what caused the failure of the Blithedale experiment (Grossberg 3).  Gossberg concludes that the problem is the community members’ failure to agree on a unified vision.  Tied to this is characters’ “inability to find concert with themselves” (Grossberg 23).  Does the failure of Blithedale warrant as much contemplation, though, as do the characters and their relationships with each other?  By the end of the narrative, the failure of Blithedale pales in comparison to the failed characters: Coverdale and Zenobia.  The last statement of the book does not have anything to do with Blithedale; it is, instead, the confession of a man (Miles Coverdale) who was in love but could not act on his feelings.  Coverdale explains:

I perceive, moreover, that the confession, brief as it shall be, will throw a gleam of light over my behavior throughout the foregoing incidents, and is, indeed, essential to the full understanding of my story. […] As I write it, he will charitably suppose me to blush, and turn away my face:—

I—I myself—was in love—with—Priscilla! (224)

It is this kind of confusion and paralyzed will that is notable throughout the novel and which pays tribute to the very complexities of human relationships.  Well thought-out allegories should also allow for confusion and wondering, so that moments of clarity may be reached only through thoughtful consideration of the given metaphor.  The symbol of the flower works quite well as a comparison to human beings in that there is great variety that can be found, some thrive better than others in given environments, and there is also the similar cycle that all living things share—that of budding, blooming, and dying.

             Coverdale, Zenobia, Hollingsworth, and Priscilla—four characters who come together to create a utopian society—are, to one critic, considered masqueraders living out a “mock-life,” “[…] and Zenobia in particular is characterized as seeming like an ‘actress’ ” (Long 130).  With her astounding beauty and forthright articulation of ideas, she certainly seems so.  Long mentions both Zenobia’s stage name and Westervelt’s handsome face and his spectacles as masks that hide each character’s true self (Long 129).  He argues: “Hawthorne’s masking imagery calls attention to the difference between outward appearance and inward truth and reality […]” (Long 129).  Though this line of reasoning definitely presents yet another allegory, that of the veil or the mask, it also provides a good starting point for an examination of the Characters of Zenobia and Priscilla.  In trying to establish the meaning of the flower symbols, one must approach each character both as a masquerader and as her true self.

            Kent Bales, another critic, explores the value of Hawthorne’s allegories.  He argues against those who see allegory as evasive of unacceptable human truths and impulses.  In addition he disagrees with critics who see allegorists as mere rhetoricians or debaters forming arguments.  Bales claims: “On the contrary, allegory is a mode of apprehension and expression well suited to ambiguous and mysterious material, perhaps best suited of all to exploring the human mind and the ambivalences that are so typical of it” (Bales 41).  While, according to Bales, many critics have asserted that the allegory found in The Blithedale Romance is a novelty used to show Coverdale’s bad faith or unreliability, he believes that Blithedale’s image of woman creates an allegory that shows “Hawthorne’s veiled tender of good faith”  (Bales 44).  What must be mentioned, once again, is that it is this very rich confusion and the metaphors designed around it that create Hawthorne’s fictions as works that approach and take pride in the complicated realities of human relationships.  It is only fitting, then, that a fairly sophisticated symbolic representation be constructed so as to be as interesting and as varied as each of the characters of Zenobia and Priscilla. 

            Through his article, “Flower Imagery in Hawthorne’s Posthumous Narratives,” Max Autrey discusses what he considers to be Hawthorne’s favorite literary analogy: man and plant.  The main focus of his argument is centered on Hawthorne’s tendency to uphold utility over beauty within his narratives (Autrey 215).  He states, “Hawthorne explains that the loss of Eden, and the consequent loss of eternal youth and beauty, makes it mandatory that emphasis be placed on utility instead of beauty in reference to man and also plant life […] he consistently describes the development of man in terms of the seasonal cycle of vegetation and assesses his usefulness through a comparison with the service and produce of plants” (Autrey 216).  This is certainly an interesting thesis, especially when applied to Blithedale.  How important is the utility or fruition of Zenobia and Priscilla compared to their beauty?  When one considers Hollingsworth’s decision to leave Zenobia and run off with Priscilla, it may seem that her utility is crucial to their relationship.  As soon as Hollingsworth discovers that Zenobia no longer has money, and, hence, will no longer be productive for him, he leaves her for her sister.  In addition, if one considers Zenobia’s work as a writer, it seems that she is nearly unproductive there as well, (aside from her story of “The Veiled Lady.”)  Priscilla, on the other hand, is fruitful in more than one way.  First of all, she has an innocent and virginal quality to her, so that, as she develops, she will be ready to bear children.  Secondly, though, Priscilla ends up with her father’s inheritance; this makes her very attractive to Hollingsworth, who needs financial backing for his social reform.  Lastly, she is also productive in her work as a seamstress.  Priscilla creates her exquisite purses as well as a night cap for Coverdale when he is sick in bed.  This idea of utility over beauty may be a good explanation as to why Zenobia’s favored beauty cannot last and why both men confess their love for the less vibrant but more useful Priscilla.

            Contrary to Autrey’s theory, one critic believes that Hawthorne uses flower imagery to show the development of affection in his narratives (Kloeckner 324).  He indicates that flowers symbolize love.  Perhaps the most interesting strain in Kloeckner’s thought, though, is that of the connection between flowers and what he calls an “Edenic quality of true love” (Kloeckner 325).  This idea may not hold to be true in The Blithedale Romance.  What flowers may, instead, represent is a natural human attraction to what is alive and what is physically beautiful.  It is Zenobia’s vivacity that causes the exotic flowers she wears to fit her so well.  The problem that arises, here, is the question of what Edenic love is.  Is it that lusty primal attraction that Coverdale and Hollingsworth initially feel toward Zenobia, or is it Priscilla’s innocence, which makes her the more appropriate wearer of posies and violets and other delicate flowers?  In any case, Kloeckner brings up the essential question: “What do flowers represent in The Blithdale Romance?  There may be many possible answers to this curious question, for it is almost as complicated a question as the question: What do Zenobia and Priscilla represent themselves?

            The doctoral dissertation of Judy R. Smith may prove to be helpful in attempting to decipher a consistent way of looking at Hawthorne’s flower allegory.  In her introduction, she speaks of images of “innocent posies,” “destructive weeds,” “fair maidens,” and “dark women” being treated in various different ways in order to communicate something about human relationships (Smith viii).  In one chapter, Smith wonders at the development of flower symbols in The Blithedale Romance.  She claims that Zenobia’s symbol, the flower, should be some indication to the reader that hers is a life of impermanence.  Just as a flower blooms to eventually die, Zenobia is to going to die.  Smith states it thus: “In constructing such a flower symbol for Zenobia, there is the suggestion that the passionate, mythic vitality of such a woman is fated to die—to be transformed into an artificial gem—because such an exotic species cannot exist in a climate unfavorable to it.  Coverdale fosters that climate by constructing Zenobia’s personality from glimpses of her outward appearance” (Smith 110).  So, Smith has presented another way to consider flower symbolism in Blithedale.  She suggests that Zenobia’s flower may represent a physical beauty that must soon fade.  But it may be more than just beauty, for, later in the chapter, Smith addresses the question of why Priscilla—the “pallid posy”—wins out over Zenobia—the “full-blown rose.”  Smith argues:

The full-blown rose, the appearance of sexual experience, inevitably engages itself in battle with men and with the women they champion.  Strength in an Hawthornean woman is invariably a questionable attribute because it saps men of their superiority; so in the destructive battle of the sexes the mature rose inevitably loses to the weak, virginal, pallid posy. (Smith 114)

And it does seem true that Zenobia, such a strong woman character, is a threat to the men of Blithedale, especially Coverdale.  Her captivating beauty combined with her sharp intellect and precise articulation makes her a very strong female character, indeed.  It does seem that Zenobia is able to “sap” the male characters of some of their power.

            Hawthorne, himself, is said to have felt a bit put off by the powerful women of his day, especially those who took to writing.  James D. Wallace considers Hawthorne’s attitude toward women, and he finds that, in general, Hawthorne was supportive of good women writers.  This point is addressed in order to consider Zenobia as a writer and to attempt understanding of Hawthorne’s and/or Coverdale’s disposition toward her.  Wallace begins his article by considering why, if Hawthorne referred to women writers as “scribbling women,” he included women writers when he was making a recommendation to an Englishman who was a friend of his publisher William D. Ticknor.  The article shows “that the rhetoric of Hawthorne’s comments on women writers is the rhetoric of his own self-critiques, that the indecorous exposures of the personal, the familial, and the bodily that he condemned them were preoccupations of his own art, and that the women writer came to represent for him the bodily and mutable, the mortal that he sought to purge from and to embrace in his own work” (Wallace 203).  Wallace mentions several instances from within Hawthorne’s writings and letters where it may become evident that the reason he criticized women writers so harshly is that he saw too much of what dissatisfied him about his own work (Wallace 208).  In approaching Blithedale from this perspective, it may be reasonable to assume that Hawthorne/Coverdale does not begrudge Zenobia for being a woman writer.  It is as if Hawthorne believed in good writers no matter what gender.  The reason that his “scribbling women” comment took form, then, was that he noticed that many women writers made what he considered some of his own big mistakes.

            To readdress the idea of love in The Blidedale Romance, so as to further my analysis of the flower allegory, I look to John N. Miller and his discussion of Eros in the novel.  Miller holds that heart is at the center of the conflict of The Blithedale Romance.  Throughout his article, Miller looks at love by means of both eros, or sexuality, and sympathy.  He pairs the confusion of female eros against a tendency toward sympathy and, hence, true love.  “In the grip of eros, however, human characters become emotionally ambivalent, unstable, unpredictable, and—in their unfaithful yearning for union with the Other—incomplete” (Miller 15).  It is almost as if Miller sees the whole of The Blithedale Romance as a series of confusions that constantly prevent or distract characters from expressing their actual love for each other.  Now, it seems, there is a second meaning of true love—sympathy.  Miller’s argument of the distractions of eros in the midst of sympathy seems to make a great deal of sense as an explanation of the confusion or complicatedness that develops in the novel.  In addition, by consulting the text of Blithedale, it quickly becomes clear that Zenobia’s flower (for hers may been seen as the defining symbol of the allegory, since it is paired so tightly with her) represents the erotic, the sexual and the experienced.

            Also concerned with female eroticism is Jennifer Fleischner.  In one of her articles, an interesting idea that she develops is that it is the idealized form of woman, as seen in Faith, Priscilla, and Hilda “that proves lethal” (Fleischner 516).  She sees that when certain male characters “cast off the eroticized female in order to embrace the idealized one,” they lose touch with experience, which, to Fleischner, spells the end of interpretation—“the end of the male artist’s capacity for production” (Fleischner 516).  She also asserts that each of these male characters is faced with a split; their natural, sexual desires are with the natural woman, such as Zenobia, but their confessions confirm the opposite, that they really love the spiritual woman—“the perfectly airy and idealized one” (Fleischner 517).  A question necessarily arises from a consideration of Fleischner’s last statement: Why, in the end, do the male characters choose innocent Priscilla over experienced Zenobia?  The answer to this question is of key importance to the development of this paper in that it may lead to an answer to my question as to whether Priscilla will become the new Zenobia.  It might seem easiest to just assume that Zenobia are essentially different and that Coverdale and Hollingsworth both simply prefer, in the long run, a spiritual woman to an erotic one.  If that is the case, then my question is answered.  However, one must consider the fact that Priscilla has been growing and developing or, in Zenobia’s words, becoming more “wild.” 

            Will Priscilla take over as the new Zenobia?  In order to approach this question, a closer look at the character of Zenobia is required.  Mary Schriber’s “Justice to Zenobia” offers a unique view of this character.  Her article begins with this statement on Zenobia: “Zenobia, of Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance, is either a disappointing heroine in a radically flawed work or one of the most misunderstood characters in nineteenth-century American Literature” (Schriber 61).  She does her best to question the death of Zenobia and argues that many critics have too readily been accepting of Miles Coverdale’s account of the alleged suicide.  The first pages of the article are dedicated to an explanation of Coverdale’s character.  After showing some evidence of narrator’s lack of reliability, Schriber goes on to describe Zenobia as a character who is more reliable and more in-control of her emotions and responses: 

She can be either angry or playful, depending upon an intelligent assessment of the situation, on subjects she takes seriously.  She reacts angrily to Coverdale’s condescending smile at her mention of ‘women’s wider liberty,’ for example, but when the subject of women’s work comes up, she piles up infinitives that signal a whimsical approach to the issue. (Schriber 68) 

She later suggests that, if Zenobia does commit suicide, that perhaps it is because of her loss of hope for “the improvement of women’s lot” (Schriber 76).  She believes that, since Zenobia had such control over her reactions toward men that her death may have been prompted by what can be considered feminist reasons (Schriber 77).  This author does not believe that Zenobia’s character could have changed so fundamentally so quickly as to cause her to commit suicide over her own failed love affair.  While her argument is logical, Schriber seems to ignore Zenobia’s breakdown when Hollingsworth proclaims his love for Priscilla and they leave together.  It is true that Zenobia’s character maintains an appearance of strength and stability, but, it may be that the façade cannot keep her safe from the hurt of a failed love affair.  At the Eliot’s Pulpit, Zenobia responds to her thwarted love affair: “Settling upon her knees, she leaned her forehead against the rock, and sobbed convulsively; dry sobs, they seemed to be, such as have nothing to do with tears” (201).  When Schriber claims that perhaps Zenobia’s motivation for committing suicide is a feminist one, it causes one to most likely agree that Zenobia’s feminism was crucial to her character; yet it does not seem plausible that she killed herself for frustration in her work for gender equality.  Why would she not simply go somewhere else where she may find more female support?  Zenobia, the real Zenobia, tends to hide behind her stage name as well as her powerful personality as a feminist.  The flower that she wears parallels her womanly confidence, her beauty, and even her mortality.

            There are many instances in the text of the novel that mention the flower of Zenobia.  As Coverdale first meats her, he is awestruck by her appearance as a whole, but, specifically with the flower she wore in her curly hair.  Coverdale relates:

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.  […] So brilliant, so rare, so costly as it must have been, and yet enduring only for a day, it was more indicative of the pride and pomp, which had a luxuriant growth in Zenobia’s character, than if a great diamond had sparkled among her hair. (17)

In this first mention of the flower symbol, most of what need to know about Zenobia and her symbol is quickly revealed; she is likened to this flower, which only endures for a day.  Zenobia, in all of her brilliance is destined only to last a short time.  Interestingly, a second symbol is also erected in this very dense passage.  The flower is compared to a diamond, and, as Zenobia is identified with the flower, she is now somehow connected with the stone. 

A short time later in the story, Zenobia, realizing that her flower is wilted, flings it to the floor without concern (22).  Observing this somewhat disturbing action (as the flower was seemingly a part of Zenobia), Coverdale thinks, “It [would] befit the bounteous nature of this beautiful woman to scatter fresh flowers from her hand, and to revive faded ones by her touch” (22).  It is right that Coverdale should be upset or confused by this action.  The careless disposal of Zenobia’s flower causes readers to wonder what she is figuratively throwing away.  Perhaps this action is a simple foreshadowing of how she will be disposed of by Hollingsworth.  Or, the flower could be a reminder that her physical and erotic beauty will not last forever.  In my opinion, it is an action that shows Zenobia’s desire to remain young and vibrant.  However, Coverdale’s statement makes the selection all the more confusing.  To scatter fresh flowers and revive faded ones might mean for Zenobia to influence young women and to support those who have become jaded.  Another possibility for finding meaning in the scattering of flowers may have to do with her ideas and her writing.  As previously mentioned, Zenobia, who may have been fashioned after Margaret Fuller, had a very difficult time writing.  She was much better with speaking, because her thoughts were immediate, and she could present her ideas very well.  So, perhaps the wilting flower symbolizes on of Zenobia’s idea’s that was dying away, and instead of writing it down to make it permanent, like a diamond or other gem, she throws it away.  If this is so, then Coverdale is saying that it would be much better it she were able to spread her fresh ideas around by writing them down or to resurrect past notions by re-writing them.  Coverdale comments on Zenobia’s writing:

Her poor little stories and tracts never half did justice to her intellect; it was only the lack of a fitter avenue that drove her to seek development in literature.  She was made (among a thousand other things that she might have been) for a stump-oratress.  […] her mind was full of weeds. (42)

Here, after acknowledging that Zenobia would do much better with a different kind of communication, Coverdale suggests that her mind is full of weeds.  What this tells us, in further developing the flower allegory, is that the dark, experienced, robust Zenobia thinks differently from other people.  It is as if her passion is greater than others, because she is connected to that which is primal and natural.  This may be why she cannot scatter flowers then, because weeds are what she has to offer.  She wishes to share her ideas, but her physical beauty is that which overwhelms those who see her.

            While Coverdale is recovering from his illness, he obsesses over Zenobia.  Then it hits him: “Zenobia is a wife!  Zenobia has lived and loved!  There is no folded petal, no latent dew-drop, in this perfectly developed rose!” (45).  Here, the flower takes on an entirely erotic aspect, as Coverdale fantasizes about how Zenobia is sexually experienced.  This instance of flower symbolism is used as a contrast to Priscilla, who is perceived as innocent and untouched, decorated only with posies, violets, or other delicate flowers.  There is a point in the story where Zenobia decorates Priscilla with flowers; however, she includes among the blossoms “a weed of evil odor and ugly aspect.”  This is an attempt of Zenobia to influence Priscilla, yet, to Coverdale, “[the weed] destroyed the effect of all the rest” (55-6).

            When Coverdale finds himself in Boston, he is afforded the chance to see Zenobia dressed up.  She is completely transformed, and even the flower looks different.  Coverdale reports:

Even her characteristic flower, though it seemed to be still there, had undergone a cold and bright transfiguration; it was a flower exquisitely imitated in jeweler’s work, and imparting the last touch that transformed Zenobia into a work of art. (149)

Once again, the connection is made between the flower and jewelry.  Interestingly, the flower of Zenobia becomes less fluid as the novel proceeds.  Along with it, Zenobia’s character becomes more and more like stone, specifically marble, until she, herself becomes a work of art.  This almost petrifies Zenobia into an immutable self, never able to break out of her present personality.  The vivacity of Zenobia is beginning to fade as Priscilla is beginning to blossom.  This becomes unavoidably clear when her father comes and informs her that Priscilla will now be receiving his inheritance.  Somehow, it is as if, by losing the affection of her father, and later that of Hollingsworth, that the Zenobia with whom Miles Coverdale was so enraptured becomes frozen as a work of art, never to be forgotten or changed in the minds of those who knew her best. 

            Priscilla’s character is equally complex and confusing.  Two critics attempt to explain Priscilla’s vagueness.  The Lefcowitz’s begin by identifying Zenobia and Priscilla’s particular symbols as the flower and the purse, respectively.  They then focus on the character of Priscilla in order to show that “Priscilla’s ambiguity is not so much an effect as a cause: that is, the novel’s suggestion of a pernicious moral climate develops from Hawthorne’s ambivalent conceptualization of Priscilla’s ontological status as the personification of an unalloyed spiritual good” (Lefcowitz 265).  “From this point of view, it is the exploitative and spiritually bankrupt nature of the moral environment that renders Priscilla inadequate and corruptible, not any a priori hesitancy or ambivalence about her intrinsic plausibility” (Lefcowitz 265).  Hence, the authors of the article hold that given a different scenario, Priscilla may not be seen as inadequate.  Looking closer at Zenobia and Priscilla’s characters, the Lefcowitz’s identify them as “dual components of a split character.”  They claim that each sister shares the other’s key symbol but in different ways.  For instance, though the purse is clearly associated with Priscilla, Zenobia also has ways of hiding herself.  Similarly, while Zenobia’s main symbol is the flower, Priscilla does have her flowers throughout the book Of course, compared to Zenobia’s flower, Priscilla’s are frail and wilted.  (Lefcowitz 271).

When Priscilla enters on the scene at Brook Farm, Coverdale notices right away that she is nothing like Zenobia, though he is unaware of their sister relationship.  As soon as Coverdale first describes Priscilla, he compares her to Zenobia on the basis of flower symbolism: “Her brown hair fell down from beneath a hood, not in curls, but with only a slight wave; her face was of a wan, almost sickly hue, betokening habitual seclusion from the sun and free atmosphere, like a flower-shrub that had done its best to blossom in too scanty light” (27-8).  As with Zenobia’s case, Coverdale starts by describing Priscilla’s physical appearance first.  What may come to mind for the reader, at this point is either the idea of the development of Priscilla physically or otherwise. 

            Later in the narrative, on May Day, Zenobia and Priscilla were known to be out gathering flowers together.  Coverdale relates: “They had found anemones in abundance, houstonians

by the handful, some columbines, a few stalked violets, and a quantity of white everlasting-flowers, and had filled up their basket with the delicate spray of shrubs and trees” (55).  It is interesting to note, here, the types of flowers being collected.  They are delicate, but found in the wild.  Later, when Zenobia talks about how Priscilla is changing, she says that Priscilla is becoming wilder likening her to a squirrel who wanted desperately to scamper up into the trees (56).  It may be that the weed Zenobia entwined in Priscilla’s flowers took hold and influenced her.  Conversely, Hollingsworth saw a change in Priscilla, for the good.  Hollingsworth announces: “You will find her altered very much for the better, since the wintry evening when you put her into my charge.  Why Priscilla has a bloom in her cheeks now!” (79).  With this statement, it becomes official that she is developing.  Again the flower symbol arises as Hollingsworth notices that she is blooming.  This may be referring to her physical development or, possibly her general disposition.

            One of the more shocking comments that Coverdale makes, concerning Priscilla, occurs when the two of them are left at Eliot’s Pulpit.  Noticing that Priscilla is upset, Coverdale tries talking to her, although it seems much more than talking that he intends. Coverdale thinks:

No doubt it was a kind of sacrilege in me to attempt to come within her maidenly mystery.  But as she appeared to be tossed aside by her other friends, or carelessly let fall, like a flower which they had done with, I could not resist the impulse to take just one peep beneath her folded petals (115).

This excerpt is doubtlessly highly sexual and erotic; secretly, Coverdale wants to experience Priscilla.  Of course the scene then continues with a heart-to-heart conversation between  both of them, and we are left wondering if there was any physical contact or if Coverdale simply fantasized about it as he had done when he found out that Zenobia had been married.  The similarity in the thinking about the two sisters, Zenobia near the beginning of the story and Priscilla near the middle of the story, seem to indicate a transference of interest on Coverdale’s part transformations on both the parts of Zenobia and Priscilla.  This may indicate some sort of hinting at the transfer of the crown that happens in the latter part of the book.  Perhaps, then, Priscilla is tending toward taking over as the new Zenobia.  Or, at least, Coverdale dreams of it; however, she has a long way to go, and it may not even be possible for her to change her essential self. 

            On seeking Priscilla out, in the Chapter called “They Vanish,” Coverdale adds to the flower allegory by referring to Priscilla as a leaf.  At this point in the story, Coverdale is worried that Zenobia will not let him see Priscilla, but her comforts himself with the following thoughts.  He recounts:

But, as Priscilla was only a leaf, floating on the dark current of events, without influencing them by her own choice or plan—as she probably guessed not whither the stream was bearing her, or perhaps even felt its inevitable movement—there could be no peril of her communicating to me any intelligence with regards to Zenobia’s purpose. (154)

Apparently, even this late in the novel, Priscilla follows Zenobia blindly.  During the meeting, Coverdale plainly admits that he now considers Priscilla to be a flower.  With this admission, he compares her to Zenobia.  It may very well be that as Zenobia declines, Priscilla, unbeknownst to her, becomes the next Zenobia—the perfect woman in the eyes of Coverdale and Hollingsworth.  Coverdale is hopeful that she has become her own woman, so he asks her if she has come of her own free will.  Here, Priscilla responds, “I am blown about like a leaf […] I never have any free-will” (157). 

            Very near the end of the narrative, when Hollingsworth has flung Zenobia away and taken Priscilla away, Zenobia removes the crown to send it to Priscilla.  Zenobia gives Coverdale a message for Hollingsworth: “ ‘[…] Tell him he has murdered me!  Tell him that I’ll haunt him! […] And Give him—no, give Priscilla—this!’ ”  So she gives up her crown with the flower in it.  With this gesture, she essentially gives up herself and passes on the symbol to what readers of Hawthorne may see as the real woman.  The fact is, that Priscilla bloomed into a beautiful woman, and, as other critics have mentioned happens in several of Hawthorne’s stories, she, the delicate blossom or the innocent spirit is chosen above the beauty of the experienced Zenobia.

Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance, then, creates two sisters who are opposites, yet connected in their opposition.  And, to express it very basically, they represent two different types of women, both attractive for different reasons.  Men love Zenobia, because she is beautiful, healthy, and powerful; however, somehow, her sister, the pale and innocent young girl captures the hearts of both Hollingsworth and Coverdale.  It may very well be that these two men, while enticed by Zenobia’s sexuality, will not choose her because she has too much confidence and power.  Perhaps Hollingsworth has ulterior motives concerning the inheritance, but for Coverdale, it could simply be that he wants a woman who will support him and listen to him.  Whatever the reason, the choice is made, and it “kills” Zenobia.  As to the question of whether Priscilla becomes Zenobia, I argue that in the most important way she does.  What I mean by this is that she physically takes Zenobia’s place with Hollingsworth and even wins over the heart of Coverdale, be it a bit too late.  It is not expected that her personality will change drastically, but now Priscilla is to experience all that Zenobia has and perhaps more.