The Marble Faun: An Investigation into Human Nature Anonymous College

In The Marble Faun; or The Romance of Monte Beni, one of the major themes investigated by Hawthorne is the double nature of human beings. The dual nature of man, who occupies “a middle ground between spirit and flesh, between the ideal and the material, essence and existence” informs the entire novel (Schneider 39). Hawthorne likens the condition of man to the double-faced character of Italy, which is the background to the novel. On the one hand, Hawthorne admires Italy for its backwardness and its idyllic and pastoral countryside, but also views Italy as the site of corruption, a country at loss, whose heroic past has now long vanished. As the characters find themselves trapped between dark and light, evil and good, innocence and experience, the author promises that "some airy and unsubstantial threads, intermixed with others, twisted out of the commonest stuff of human existence," will be woven into his narrative (Hawthorne 2). By borrowing from the Italian chiaroscuro tradition, Hawthorne delves into the opposing forces that constitute human nature. In the alternation between light and shadow, one may examine more closely the relationship of appearances to reality. Neither condition could exist without its opposite. As...