Hawthorne's prohibit portrayal of the utopian attempt at Blithedale shows him to be skeptical, at best, ab break human efforts to improve human behavior finished the social and semi governmental systems. Does this mean, then, that Hawthorne---through his characters---has no hope for humanity?
To the contrary, by and by all is said and done, the novel is a romance, a spirit level not of politics or sociology but of the human heart. Coverdale focuses on the damage Hollingsworth's reformist efforts have done to that reformer's heart, and it is Coverdale's own heart-felt amative confession of love for Priscilla which closes the sacred scripture: "The confession . . . pass on thrust a gleam of light over my behavior . . . and is . . . infixed to the full understanding of my story. . . . I---I myself---was in love---with---Priscilla!" (247).
Hawthorne---through his narrator Coverdale---does not stop much belief in the ability of social or political reform to produce great change in basic human behavior. However, in truly romantic fashion, Hawthorne does bind much belief in t
Stendahl. The Charterhouse of Parma. New York: Penguin, 1958.
While others in the story obviously tactual sensation differently than Razumov about the state and its relationship to the individual, it is Razumov, his own degeneracy and eventual awakening and confession, who is at the heart of the novel. His salvation, if it is salvation, shows him to be sufficient of change, but at what a terrible cost. It is his own political naivete and idealism that for weakens "absolute power" because someday it will be necessary for the "great autocrat of the future" to rein (80). If he had not forgiven the despots their actions, had he not foolishly looked for a future political savior, he would not have betrayed Haldin.
It is intelligibly, then, the political system which Conrad seeks to indict, and not human nature itself, which Conrad in this bear shows to be fundamentally good, although flawed.
Joseph Conrad, in Under Western Eyes, clearly believes that political oppression and injustice are major causes of the evils which last in society. Conrad writes in his Author's Note that his book is "an attempt to bear witness not so much the political state as the psychology of Russia itself" (49). However, as the book itself makes clear, that psychology is shaped by the oppressive nature of the despotic political state. It is true that Conrad is a writer who in general and in this specific book is most incisive when dealing with human psychology and individual character, but, again, Conrad clearly indicts the political system as an evil legions which unnecessarily oppresses the individual human being.
For example, when Razumov is considering whether or not to give up his friend to the authorities, his conscience is torn, but the evils of the state sanction him to rationalize his betrayal away (82). He acts not out of higher principle but out of utter self-seeking and fear---precisely what the agents of the state wanted him to do. The General tells Razumov, "Nobody doubts the moral sapience of your a
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