Utopian Society: The Blithedale Experiment

Hollingsworth: inflexible, selfish, uses people He believes in the reform of all sinners and attempts to use Blithedale and its residents to achieve these ends, instead of those supported by the group. "It is a sad pity that he should have devoted his glorious powers to such a grimy, unbeautiful, and positively hopeless object as this reformation of criminals" ch 3

*fickle love The Blithedale experiment represented an admirable attempt to create a utopian society. The goal was to create an agrarian culture without class boundaries, competition or possibly even gender roles. Unfortunately, this experiment failed due to certain characteristics of the primary Blithedalers. Coverdale, Hollingsworth, and Zenobia possessed traits that impeded progression toward a utopian society.Their flaws were various but all led to the downfall of the Blithedale Farm experiment: Coverdale 's aloofness, Hollingsworth 's selfishness, Zenobia 's pride, problematic attitudes and hidden agendas. Coverdale serves as the

Furthermore, Zenobia assigns socially-based gender norms to Blithedale, which hinders that aspect of the utopia before it can even be attempted: " 'we women (there are four of us here, already) will take the domestic and indoor part of the business, as a matter of course '" (Hawthorne 16). It is strange that a community of social reformers would immediately keep with the ways they are trying to abolish. Yet Zenobia claims to be a feminist and to embody feminist ideals. She fails to ever treat Priscilla as an equal in the novel, and consistently casts aside her own ideals to defend Hollingsworth 's. He uses her, and upon realizing this she is devastated, despite the fact that she was treating Priscilla just as unkindly. **main vice is