The Marble Faun

Hilda lives in a medieval building surmounted by a tower. She reaches the tower by ascending a staircase and there maintains a shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary that has burned for centuries. White doves habitually fly around the outside of the tower, and Hilda befriends them. Miriam likens Hilda herself to a dove in her white dress. The tower and shrine function as a symbol of Hilda’s moral purity, reserve, and separation from the outside world. Miriam compares Hilda’s home to a “hermitage” and says that “in your maiden elevation, you dwell above our vanities and passions, our moral dust and mud, with the doves and the angels for your nearest neighbors” (41). She goes so far as to call Hilda a “saint” for her piety and faith. Hilda’s home visually symbolizes her character.

When Hilda speaks of her desire to “attempt a flight from the top of [her] tower, in the faith that I should float upward,” Miriam warns her that “if it should turn out that you are less than an angel, you would find the stones of the Roman pavement very hard” (41). This foreshadows Brother Antonio’s death by falling and more generally suggests the theme of man’s imperfection and fall into sin.

Donatello also has a tower on his estate, which he frequently ascends; this might suggest that he has the potential to attain the spiritual heights that Hilda has reached.

The ruins of Rome, e.g., the Coliseum, symbolize the corruption of human nature and the decay of civilization. The ruins evoke the glory and achievements of an ancient culture. Paradoxically, the ruins are preserved for tourist consumption, as a reminder of a civilization that no longer exists. They coexist with the modern city, as if to prove that Rome’s glory is mostly in the past. For an American author like Hawthorne, the ruins represent the age of the Old World in contrast with the newness and possibilities of America, represented by Hilda, Miriam, and Kenyon.

Yet although they are a melancholy symbol, the ruins also bear the possibility of new life: In Chapter 56 Kenyon salvages an ancient statue from ruins in the campagna, hoping that the piece will be a beautiful addition to the art world. The ruins and monuments of Rome can also teach moral lessons to those in the present day; as Hilda says, “There are sermons in stones, and especially in the stones of Rome” (see Quotes).

In Chapter 25, Donatello treats Kenyon to “Sunshine,” a wine with a secret recipe that Donatello’s family has made for centuries. It is of a “pale golden hue” and tastes so exquisite that it makes the drinker pause and savor it as “more a moral than a physical enjoyment” (164). A halo of golden light seems to shine around the glass of wine as it sits on the table. Coming right after the moral crisis of Brother Antonio’s murder, Donatello’s wine has a quasi-sacramental quality, performing a restorative function and reminding the two men of better times and the goodness of the natural world. Kenyon says that Sunshine is “surely the wine of the Golden Age, such as Bacchus himself first taught mankind to press from the choicest of grapes” (164). Thus, the wine is, like the faun, a symbol of a mythic past that was idyllic and filled with a joy born of nature. It also “symbolizes the holy virtues of hospitality and social kindness” (165), momentarily cleansing the characters from their experiences of sin and moral corruption.

Ironically, although Sunshine demands that the drinker slow down and savor, it is also effervescent: Its best qualities “escape” once the bottle is uncorked, so that one must hurry to enjoy it. This reflects the melancholy insight that the good things in life are transitory and fleeting; like Donatello’s period of happiness as the “faun,” we must make the best of them while we can.