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Nathaniel Hawthorne uses Miles Coverdale to depict the process by which an individual reconstructs past experience into an emotionally and intellectually acceptable form. Through Coverdale's narrative, Hawthorne illustrates that truth is at best an approximation, that the transformational effects of time and distance obscure one's memory of remembered events, thus making absolute truth impossible to discover. As Coverdale attempts to understand his past--reordering, reassessing, and assigning it significance--a subjective interpretation of his past experience evolves. It iLs Coverdale's subjective interpretation of experience which Hawthorne presents in The Blithedale Romance; the ambiguity and mystery of Coverdale's narrativeare necessary to the design of the romance, for both elements characterize the area between truth and imagination in which experience is perceived and interpreted.

Through a close study of Hawthorne's four major romances--The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun-—this thesis singles out all significant references to apparel or accessories and evaluates the use he makes of them.

This thesis is a study of the four long romances, The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun, with emphasis upon Hawthorne's use of symbolism as a means of presenting the basic moral and spiritual truths of human life. The first chapter explains the nature of symbolism and the reasons why Hawthorne used it so extensively. In each of the last four chapters, the symbolism in a single romance is considered for the purpose of discovering the manner and effectiveness of its use in exemplifying the central theme of that particular story. Although Hawthorne's short stories are extremely rich in symbolism, it was not possible to include them in the present study.

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