Article #513-1 | Gutenberg Articles

Excerpt

Excerpt from The snow-image, and other twice-told tales, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Robin gazed with dismay and astonishment on the unprecedented
physiognomy of the speaker. The forehead with its double prominence the
broad hooked nose, the shaggy eyebrows, and fiery eyes were those which
he had noticed at the inn, but the man’s complexion had undergone a
singular, or, more properly, a twofold change. One side of the face
blazed an intense red, while the other was black as midnight, the
division line being in the broad bridge of the nose; and a mouth which
seemed to extend from ear to ear was black or red, in contrast to the
color of the cheek. The effect was as if two individual devils, a fiend
of fire and a fiend of darkness, had united themselves to form this
infernal visage. The stranger grinned in Robin’s face, muffled his
party-colored features, and was out of sight in a moment.

“Strange things we travellers see!” ejaculated Robin.

He seated himself, however, upon the steps of the church-door,
resolving to wait the appointed time for his kinsman. A few moments
were consumed in philosophical speculations upon the species of man who
had just left him; but having settled this point shrewdly, rationally,
and satisfactorily, he was compelled to look elsewhere for his
amusement. And first he threw his eyes along the street. It was of more
respectable appearance than most of those into which he had wandered,
and the moon, creating, like the imaginative power, a beautiful
strangeness in familiar objects, gave something of romance to a scene
that might not have possessed it in the light of day. The irregular and
often quaint architecture of the houses, some of whose roofs were
broken into numerous little peaks, while others ascended, steep and
narrow, into a single point, and others again were square; the pure
snow-white of some of their complexions, the aged darkness of others,
and the thousand sparklings, reflected from bright substances in the
walls of many; these matters engaged Robin’s attention for a while, and
then began to grow wearisome. Next he endeavored to define the forms of
distant objects, starting away, with almost ghostly indistinctness,
just as his eye appeared to grasp them, and finally he took a minute
survey of an edifice which stood on the opposite side of the street,
directly in front of the church-door, where he was stationed. It was a
large, square mansion, distinguished from its neighbors by a balcony,
which rested on tall pillars, and by an elaborate Gothic window,
communicating therewith.

Explanation

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales (1852) is a collection of short stories that blend dark romanticism, allegory, and psychological depth. The excerpt you’ve provided comes from "The Devil in Manuscript" (sometimes titled "The Man of Adamant" in other editions), though it more closely resembles the eerie, dualistic imagery of "Young Goodman Brown" or "The Minister’s Black Veil." The passage depicts a young man named Robin encountering a grotesque, demonic figure whose split visage—half-red, half-black—embodies moral and cosmic duality. Below is a detailed breakdown of the text, focusing on its imagery, themes, literary devices, and symbolic significance, while grounding the analysis in the excerpt itself.

1. Context and Setting

The scene takes place at night in a moonlit street, likely in a colonial or early 19th-century New England town (a common Hawthorne setting). Robin, a traveler, waits outside a church—a symbol of purity and order—when he is confronted by a mysterious stranger whose appearance defies natural law. The church’s presence contrasts sharply with the infernal figure, reinforcing Hawthorne’s recurring theme of hidden sin beneath pious surfaces (e.g., The Scarlet Letter, The Minister’s Black Veil).

The moonlight is key: Hawthorne describes it as creating a "beautiful strangeness in familiar objects," transforming the mundane into something romantic yet unsettling. This reflects the Dark Romantic tradition, where nature and human psychology are sites of mystery, terror, and moral ambiguity.

2. The Stranger’s Appearance: A Study in Duality

The stranger’s physiognomy (facial features) is the focal point of the excerpt. Hawthorne’s description is hyper-detailed and grotesque, using contrasts to evoke horror and symbolic meaning:

Split Complexion:
- "One side of the face blazed an intense red, while the other was black as midnight"
  - The red suggests fire, passion, sin, or damnation (hellfire, lust, wrath).
  - The black evokes darkness, death, or moral void (the absence of light/salvation).
- The division runs down the nose, a central feature often associated with judgment or discernment (e.g., the "hook" implies a predatory nature).
- The effect is of "two individual devils" fused into one—a fiend of fire and a fiend of darkness. This mirrors:
  - Moral duality (good/evil within one soul, as in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde).
  - Puritan beliefs in the elect vs. the damned (Calvinist predestination).
  - Gothic doubling (a trope where a character confronts their dark self).
Other Features:
- "Double prominence" of the forehead: Could imply duplicity or intellect corrupted by evil.
- "Shaggy eyebrows and fiery eyes": Animalistic, demonic traits.
- "Mouth... from ear to ear": A grinning, predatory maw, suggesting deception (like the Cheshire Cat’s smile) or gluttony (a sinful appetite).

The stranger’s sudden disappearance ("muffled his party-colored features, and was out of sight in a moment") adds to the supernatural dread, leaving Robin (and the reader) questioning reality.

3. Robin’s Reaction: Rationalization vs. Supernatural Horror

Robin’s response is telling:

"Strange things we travellers see!"
- He dismisses the encounter as a curiosity, a trick of travel, rather than a supernatural omen. This reflects Hawthorne’s interest in how humans rationalize the uncanny.
- His attempt at "philosophical speculations" (trying to explain the man logically) fails, forcing him to confront the inexplicable.

This moment encapsulates a Dark Romantic tension:

Reason vs. the Supernatural: Can the devil (or evil) be explained away, or is it an inescapable truth?
Appearance vs. Reality: The stranger’s face is a literal manifestation of hidden duality, much like the black veil in Hawthorne’s other works.

4. The Street and Architecture: Gothic Atmosphere

Hawthorne shifts from the close-up horror of the stranger to a wider, moonlit streetscape, using Gothic and Romantic devices:

Moonlight’s Transformative Power:
- It creates a "beautiful strangeness", turning the ordinary into something eerie and poetic. This reflects the sublime—a Romantic idea that terror and beauty are intertwined.
- The sparkling walls and contrasting colors (snow-white vs. aged darkness) mirror the stranger’s duality, suggesting that the world itself is split between light and shadow.
Architectural Grotesquery:
- The irregular, quaint houses with "numerous little peaks" and "steep, narrow" roofs evoke:
  - Gothic excess (decay, asymmetry, the uncanny).
  - Moral fragmentation (just as the stranger’s face is divided, so is the town’s facade).
- The square mansion with its balcony and Gothic window stands out—possibly symbolizing:
  - Wealth and corruption (Gothic windows often appear in haunted or cursed buildings).
  - A portal to another world (the balcony could be a liminal space, like the church steps where Robin sits).

The ghostly indistinctness of distant objects reinforces the unreliability of perception—a theme central to Hawthorne’s work (e.g., Young Goodman Brown’s forest visions).

5. Themes

The excerpt encapsulates several of Hawthorne’s recurring themes:

The Duality of Human Nature:
- The stranger’s face is a literal split between good and evil, reflecting Hawthorne’s belief that sin and virtue coexist in every soul (see The Scarlet Letter’s Dimmesdale).
- The church vs. the demonic figure reinforces this: even sacred spaces are not safe from corruption.
The Supernatural in the Mundane:
- The moonlit street becomes a stage for the uncanny, blurring the line between reality and hallucination.
- Hawthorne often uses everyday settings (forests, towns, churches) to reveal hidden horrors.
The Limits of Rationalism:
- Robin tries to explain away the stranger, but the text suggests that some evils cannot be rationalized—they must be confronted or endured.
- This reflects Puritan anxieties about unseen spiritual forces (e.g., witchcraft, demonic pacts).
The Gothic Sublime:
- The grotesque beauty of the scene (sparkling walls, eerie architecture) creates a sense of awe mixed with terror.
- Hawthorne’s prose lingers on details to build dread through atmosphere rather than explicit violence.

6. Literary Devices

Hawthorne employs several stylistic and structural techniques to enhance the passage’s impact:

Device	Example	Effect
Imagery	"One side blazed an intense red, while the other was black as midnight"	Creates a vivid, horrifying picture of moral duality.
Simile	"The moon, creating, like the imaginative power, a beautiful strangeness"	Links moonlight to creativity and the uncanny, suggesting reality is shaped by perception.
Symbolism	The split face (fire/darkness), the church steps (moral threshold)	Reinforces themes of duality and hidden sin.
Foreshadowing	The Gothic window across the street may hint at future revelations (e.g., a haunted house, a secret sin).
Juxtaposition	The beautiful moonlit street vs. the demonic stranger	Highlights the coexistence of beauty and horror.
Unreliable Narration	Robin’s failed rationalization ("settled this point shrewdly")	Makes the reader question what is real.

7. Significance in Hawthorne’s Work

This passage is quintessential Hawthorne:

It blends psychological realism with supernatural horror, a hallmark of Dark Romanticism.
The split visage prefigures later doppelgänger tales (e.g., Poe’s William Wilson, Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde).
The church setting ties into Hawthorne’s critiques of Puritan hypocrisy—even sacred spaces are vulnerable to evil.
The moonlit Gothic streetscape reflects his obsession with hidden histories (e.g., The House of the Seven Gables).

8. Possible Interpretations

Allegory of Sin:
- The stranger could represent temptation or the devil, testing Robin’s faith (like Young Goodman Brown).
- The red/black split may symbolize lust (red) and despair (black)—two sins that haunt Hawthorne’s characters.
Psychological Projection:
- The figure might be a manifestation of Robin’s own doubts or guilt, externalized (as in The Minister’s Black Veil).
Social Critique:
- The duality could reflect New England’s contradiction—a land of pious settlers with dark secrets (e.g., witch trials, slavery).
Existential Horror:
- The stranger’s inexplicable nature suggests that evil is an inherent, unknowable force—not something that can be neatly explained.

9. Conclusion: Why This Passage Matters

This excerpt is a microcosm of Hawthorne’s genius:

It terrifies through suggestion, not explicit gore.
It layers symbolism (color, architecture, light) to create depth.
It challenges the reader to decide: Is this supernatural, psychological, or allegorical?

The split-faced stranger lingers in the mind because he is both specific and universal—a monster and a mirror, forcing us to ask: What hidden dualities lurk beneath our own faces?

Questions

Question 1

The stranger’s "party-colored features" and sudden disappearance most strongly evoke which of the following literary traditions?

A. The pastoral idyll, where nature’s harmony is momentarily disrupted by human folly.
B. The Gothic grotesque, where physical deformity symbolises moral or metaphysical corruption.
C. The picaresque adventure, where a roguish protagonist encounters a series of bizarre but ultimately harmless figures.
D. The Enlightenment satire, where exaggerated traits serve to ridicule societal pretensions.
E. The chivalric romance, where a knight confronts a supernatural foe as a test of virtue.

Question 2

Robin’s attempt to "settle this point shrewdly, rationally, and satisfactorily" is undermined by the text primarily through:

A. the explicit narration that his speculations are flawed.
B. the introduction of the church as a symbol of divine judgment.
C. the contrast between the stranger’s vivid description and Robin’s mundane surroundings.
D. the immediate shift to external observations, suggesting his intellectual failure.
E. the moon’s "imaginative power," which implies perception is inherently unreliable.

Question 3

The "beautiful strangeness" created by the moonlight serves which of the following functions in the passage?

A. It mirrors the stranger’s duality by transforming the familiar into something both alluring and unsettling.
B. It provides a moment of aesthetic respite, softening the horror of the stranger’s appearance.
C. It reinforces the Enlightenment ideal that reason can illuminate even the darkest corners of experience.
D. It symbolises the Puritan belief that divine light reveals hidden sins in the world.
E. It foreshadows Robin’s eventual descent into madness by distorting his perception.

Question 4

The architectural details of the houses—"irregular and often quaint," with "numerous little peaks" and "steep and narrow" roofs—are most thematically resonant with:

A. the economic disparities of the town, where wealth and poverty coexist uneasily.
B. the Puritan emphasis on simplicity and modesty in worldly possessions.
C. the stranger’s physical deformity, as both reflect a world out of joint.
D. the idea of moral fragmentation, where outward order masks inner chaos.
E. the Gothic convention of using decaying structures to symbolise the past’s haunting presence.

Question 5

The passage’s treatment of the stranger’s visage—half-red, half-black—is most analogous to which of the following conceptual frameworks?

A. The Jungian shadow, where the repressed aspects of the self manifest in exaggerated form.
B. The Aristotelian golden mean, where virtue is a balance between opposing extremes.
C. The Platonic allegory of the cave, where appearances deceive the unenlightened.
D. The Freudian id-ego-superego triad, where primal impulses clash with moral constraints.
E. The Nietzschean Übermensch, who transcends conventional moral binaries.

Solutions and Explanations

1) Correct answer: B

Why B is most correct: The stranger’s grotesque, split visage—half-red, half-black—aligns with the Gothic grotesque tradition, where physical deformity or exaggeration symbolises deeper moral or metaphysical corruption. Hawthorne’s description emphasises the unnatural fusion of opposites (fire/darkness), a hallmark of Gothic literature where the monstrous often reflects psychological or spiritual fragmentation. The sudden disappearance further reinforces the supernatural dread central to Gothic grotesquery.