Blithesdale Romace + Transcendental Wild Oats

We said that The Blithesdale Romance was a satire. I think that, as a satire, Transcendental Wild Oats almost works better. I think that The Blithesdale Romance kind of gets caught up in the romance. I mean, the story leaves the collective for a good while near the middle of the end, and becomes for the most part about the mystery that involves Zenobia and Priscilla. Coverdale is obsessed with it, obviously. And he even romanticizes the city, when he goes back to it. He says, “Whatever had been my taste for solitude and natural scenery, yet the thick, foggy, stifled elements of cities, the entangled life of many men together, sordid as it was, and empty of the beautiful, took quite as strenuous a hold upon my mind” (73). He seems to be a romantic – his status as a poet is mentioned more than once, and in his last scene with her Zenobia tells him to write a ballad about what just happened (110) – and he mentions too how he had “[…][suffered] his colorless life to take its hue from other lives” (120). Although I guess you can say that allowing your life to be affected by others is part of the collective, I still think the story, in the end, was more about individual people, the individual romance.

In Transcendental Wild Oats, it is obvious that Louisa May Alcott is making a statement against the sustainability of collectives and against the beliefs of her father, which we talked about in regard to other readings. But it seemed to me that she loved her father too, as she does strive to redeem him at the end of the story. She understands Abel’s pain in Fruitlands not succeeding, saying, “Deep waters now for Abel, and for a time there seemed no passage through. Strength and spirits were exhausted by hard work and too much thought. Courage failed when, looking about for help, he saw no sympathizing face […]” (7). And she does redeem the character at the end, as he realizes that he must survive in order to provide for his family (7). I can’t remember from other readings if Alcott’s father ever truly came to this realization, but I do remember reading at some point in the Buell book that Alcott provided for the family with her writing. But I do know from my knowledge of the reality behind the story of Little Women – thank you, middle school research paper / grade-school book – that she loved her family a lot. But the father in that story, if he was based on her father like the other characters were based on her family, was off at war. So I think she kind of avoided interjecting any feelings beside love and fear for his safety.

But with Transcendental Wild Oats, I think Alcott made clear her stance on collectives. I think Hawthorne did too, but he also had the whole Veiled Lady thing going on, which was mentioned in class. That scene with the witchcraft in the woods really threw me off. It actually reminded me of “Young Goodman Brown,” which I read in 9^th grade. Just looked it up, and Hawthorne wrote that too! But it was hard to see how that scene fit into the satire.