Somewhat on the Community System: Representations of Fourierism in the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Studies in Major Literary Authors)

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Hawthorne wrote much of his major fiction in the decade that the theories of Charles Marie Francois Fourier crossed the Atlantic and contributed to a wave of communitarian experimentation in the American North. Famously, Hawthorne briefly lived and worked at Brook Farm, a Transcendentalist commune that formally "converted" to Fourierism when he had left and was embroiled in litigation to recover money he had invested in the community. In his fiction, Hawthorne responded directly to Fourierism and its critique of capitalism. He used his experiences at Brook Farm as the inspiration for "The Blithedale Romance," and in "The House of the Seven Gables" cast one of the principal characters as a recovering Fourierist. In "The Scarlet Letter" he engaged with Fourierist debates on marriage and the regulation of desire. ""Somewhat on the" "Community-System"" examines these interventions, and argues that Hawthorne's fiction both seeks to contain Fourierism and responds to its allure. Moreover, in formulating alternative, morally acceptable utopias (ones that are predicated on middle-class marriage), Hawthorne's fiction appropriates key aspects of Fourierist theory