Literature Network » Nathaniel Hawthorne

"A frail structure of our own rearing": The Value(s) of Home in The Marble Faun.(Critical Essay)

Content courtesy of

From: ATQ (The American Transcendental Quarterly)
Date: 20000601
Author:Sterling, Laurie A.

[W]hen people insist on building indestructible houses, they incur, or their children do, a misfortune analogous to that of the sibyl, when she obtained the grievous boon of immortality.

Nathaniel Hawthorne The Marble Faun

In many ways Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, which was written while he was far from home and which ends with the artist Kenyon asking Hilda to lead him home, examines the methods by which we construct our "homes." The homes within the novel are many and metaphoric: physical dwellings, ideological homes, moral homes, and artistic homes. From his early ...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Other Articles on Nathaniel Hawthorne

About Our Articles: We've partnered with Highbeam Research to provide these article excerpts for your research needs. However, due to copyright laws, we cannot publish the whole article. To view these articles in full length you'll need to use the link above to access the free trial at Highbeam.