31 pages • 1 hour read
The Wives of the Dead
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Character Analysis
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804, Nathaniel Hawthorne lived nearly his entire life there, working as a customs official and author of short stories and novels. Though painfully shy, Hawthorne made friends with several of America’s most prominent voices, including writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Herman Melville, along with college friend Franklin Pierce, who later became a US president. Hawthorne also enjoyed a long and happy marriage to Sophia Peabody, with whom he had three children.
He was haunted by his family history, which included prominent Puritans—among them, John Hathorne, a harsh Salem Witch Trial judge—and he added a “w” to his last name as a way of distancing himself from his forebears. Hawthorne’s ruminations on sin, guilt, and redemption found their way into his writings, many of which have an eerie quality that place them in the literary tradition of dark romanticism. His most famous novel, The Scarlet Letter, concerns a colonial woman whose unmarried pregnancy hurls her into a confrontation with her community; the story highlights Hawthorne’s concern about injustices women suffered.
Mary
Married to the brother of Margaret’s husband and sharing a home with them, Mary is the quieter and calmer of the two wives. On news of the husbands’ simultaneous deaths, Mary is first to steady herself and then steadies her sister. Like Margaret, Mary awakens to a knock at the door, where a messenger brings news that her husband may be alive after all. Mary decides against waking Margaret to share the news, as it might only exacerbate her sister’s pain. It’s possible that Mary, hoping against hope, simply dreams that she receives the good news.
Margaret
More impassioned and impulsive than her sister-in-law, Margaret struggles mightily with the news of her husband’s death until Mary calms her down. Like Mary, Margaret awakens to a knock at the door that heralds good news about her husband. Also like Mary, she refrains from waking her sister to share the news, fearing her own good fortune will contrast painfully with the other’s tragedy. It’s also possible she merely dreamed this scene, a wish-fulfillment fantasy brought forth by the agony of loss.
Margaret’s Husband, a Landsman
A looming presence in the story, Margaret’s unnamed husband—a “landsman,” someone not a sailor like Mary’s husband—is away serving the colony in battle against French settlers. He is reported killed in action, only to be resurrected by a messenger’s news that he is safe after all. Margaret receives the news, but it’s possible she merely dreamed it.
Mary’s Husband, a Sailor
Lost at sea but later reported safe, Mary’s unnamed sailor husband, like Margaret’s, haunts the story. He’s a tragic figure swept from Mary’s life but later brought back in a report given to Mary late at night. The story implies that he might be alive or might still be dead and that Mary merely dreamed of his rescue, or even that Mary has dreamed the entire story, and he may not exist at all.
Goodman Parker
Goodman Parker is an innkeeper whom Margaret knows from town. He drops by late at night to inform her that her husband has been found alive and well despite an earlier report that he perished in battle. Margaret, however, may have dreamed this encounter with Goodman to comfort herself. Parker’s subsequent leave-taking hints at Margaret’s dreamlike state, as he walks off through the shifting darkness “like order glimmering through chaos, or memory roaming over the past” (14).
Stephen
Stephen, a sailor and ex-suitor of Mary, brings news late at night that Mary’s husband is still alive and well. Mary doesn’t want to talk to Stephen at first, as his presence discomforts her, “for she was no whit inclined to imitate the first wife of Zadig” (20), a character in a Voltaire story who betrays her husband for an earlier suitor. Still, his report greatly comforts her. Stephen appears to be doing something noble, in effect helping Mary by telling her the good news about her husband. Like Goodman Parker, who informed Margaret that her husband was still among the living, Stephen departs after giving his report, walking away through mottled moonlight and shadow, symbolically reflecting Mary’s alternating uncertainties and hopes, and foretelling the possibility that Mary’s murky and shifting view of Stephen’s leave-taking reflects, not reality, but a dream-state while she sleeps.
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By Nathaniel Hawthorne
