Roger+Malvin's+Burial+-+Nathaniel+Hawthorne



Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Roger Malvin's Burial" explores how guilt can take over a person's life and the mechanisms they use to try and escape their guilt. After Reuben Bourne returns to his home saying his father figure, Roger Malvin, had been lost on the journey, he is regarded as a hero in his community. However, upon telling the story to Malvin's daughter Dorcas, he "felt it impossible to acknowledge that his selfish love of life had hurried him away before her father's fate was decided" ( Hawthorne 1131). He never answers Dorcas's questions outright, and lets her believe what he implies rather than just telling the truth. Reuben and Dorcas marry, but the burden of Roger's death and his failure to carry out his promise of burial to Roger consume Reuben's life.

In modern times, Reuben might be diagnosed with something similar to avoidant personality disorder, which "is characterized by a long-standing pattern of feelings of inadequacy, extreme sensitivity to to what other people think about them, and social inhibition" (Psych Central Staff). Reuben is so afraid that the people he is involved with reject and scorn him for leaving Roger behind that he avoids talking about what happened: "Reuben felt it impossible to acknowledge that his selfish love of life had hurried him away before her [Dorcas] father's fate was decided. He spoke not; he only bowed his head; and, between shame and exhaustion, sank back and hid his face in the pillow" (Hawthorne 1131). In reality, they probably would have been supportive and understanding of his predicament. Both Roger and Reuben would have died if Reuben had stayed, so he really has nothing to feel guilty about. This short story is a product of Hawthorne's studies into human psychology and shows that the more Reuben tries to escape what happened in the forest with Roger, the more miserable he becomes.

Many circumstances kept Reuben from telling the truth to his wife and his main motivation was his fear of her rejection: "He regretted, deeply and bitterly, the moral cowardice that had restrained his words when he was about to disclose the truth to Dorcas; but pride, fear of losing her affection, the dread of universal scorn, forbade him to rectify this falsehood." (1132) This is further evidence of his tendency to avoid rejection and shows how sensitive Reuben was to what others, even those closest to him, thought about him. He tries to escape judgment from his peers by being taciturn and moody. The only person to "escape" from his moods is Reuben's son Cyrus. "Reuben's secret thoughts and insulated emotions had gradually made him a selfish man, and he could no longer love deeply except where he saw or imagined some reflection or likeness of his own mind. In Cyrus he recognized what he had himself been in other days; and at intervals he seemed to partake of the boy's spirit, and to be revived with a fresh and happy life." (1133) Reuben is again running from his true feelings. He feels he is such a failure and that all the things that were good about him are gone. It is made clear that Reuben's 'love' actually "becomes a form of hate, for his son represents life and part of the father's being...that is no longer the father's...gone because he is consumed with guilt over leaving his father-in-law to die in the wilderness eighteen years earlier. Reuben, wavering between admiration and resentment, reaches a point at which he can no longer bear facing his other, 'better' self and 'accidentally' shoots and kills his son" (Sebouhian 44). This resentment is another symptom of his avoidance disorder; his feelings of inferiority inhibit his relationships (Psych Central Staff) with his son and wife.

It is clear that Reuben's mental state is deteriorating rapidly during the scene in which he shoots his son: "Unable to penetrate to the secret place of his soul where his motives lay hidden, he believed that a supernatural voice had called him onward, and that a supernatural power had obstructed his retreat." (Hawthorne 1136) Here Reuben has pretty well let go of rational thought and given into his mental condition. "Reuben is 'wounded' on his journey into the forest, as Hawthorne's characters always are, but he never accepts his wounds or understands them." (Liebman 258) Bringing this conclusion to modern day psychiatric, perhaps if Reuben had gotten help for his mental problem, he would not have convinced himself that killing his son expiated his sins, which he clearly whole-heartedly believes: "Then Reuben's heart was stricken, and the tears gushed out like water from a rock. The vow that the wounded youth had made the blighted man had come to redeem. His sin was expiated,--the curse was gone from him; and in the hour when he had shed blood dearer to him than his own, a prayer, the first for years, went up to Heaven from the lips of Reuben Bourne" (Hawthorne 1139).

The irony here is that Reuben really did not have anything to be guilty of when he left Roger in the woods, but he felt the guilt anyway and tried to escape it. Then, when he shoots his son, he feels that he has escaped from the guilt by atoning for his sins. In reality, he has just committed an act that could truly ruin his life with guilt, but instead, in his mind, it offers escape. Hawthorne weaves a psychologically complex character in Reuben, and his study shows how distorted the human mind can become when people manifest their negative emotions into actions in order to escape their pain.

__Works Cited__

"Avoidant Personality Disorder." Psych Central. American Psychiatric Association. 1994. Web. 28 April 2011

Liebman, Sheldon W. "'ROGER MALVIN'S BURIAL': HAWTHORNE'S ALLEGORY OF THE HEART." //Studies in Short Fiction // 12.3 (1975): 253. //Academic Search Complete //. EBSCO. Web. 28 Apr. 2011

Sebouhian, George. "From Abraham and Isaac to Bob Slocum and My Boy: Why Fathers Kill Their Sons."//Twentieth Century Literature // 27.1 (1981): 43. //Academic Search Complete //. EBSCO. Web. 28 Apr. 2011

Jennifer Parks