44 pages • 1 hour read
The Marble Faun
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Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Miriam, Hilda, Kenyon, Donatello”
Four young friends—the American artists Miriam, Hilda, and Kenyon along with their Italian friend whom they have nicknamed “Donatello”—visit a sculpture gallery in the Capitol in Rome. Miriam remarks that Donatello bears a striking resemblance to the nearby statue of a faun by the ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles—a statue in which “the characteristics of the brute creation meet and combine with those of humanity” (10). Donatello strikes a pose just like the statue, and the other three marvel at the resemblance. In an aside to Hilda, Miriam adds that Donatello is a “simpleton” just like the fauns of mythology, and that he is even more foolish for being in love with her (Miriam).
Chapter 2 Summary: “The Faun”
The American friends continue to reflect on Donatello’s resemblance to the Faun; indeed, he seems to possess “the gift of eternal youth” (14). As they are leaving the gallery, the friends notice a shadowy, bearded figure standing behind a pillar. Hilda recognizes him as Miriam’s model.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Subterranean Reminiscences”
The American friends continue to reflect on Donatello’s resemblance to the Faun; indeed, he seems to possess “the gift of eternal youth” (14). As they are leaving the gallery, the friends notice a shadowy, bearded figure standing behind a pillar. Hilda recognizes him as Miriam’s model.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Subterranean Reminiscences”
Hawthorne provides background on the characters. Miriam is a beautiful, “airy, free, and affable” young woman and a talented artist of mysterious origins (18). Kenyon and especially Hilda are her closest friends. Donatello, a young man from Tuscany visiting Rome who is of a “simple and physically happy nature” (21), joined the friendship of these three, fell in love with Miriam, and has been trying to court her.
In a flashback a few months before Chapters 1-2, the friends visit the Roman catacombs with a guide. Donatello is afraid of the dark, gloomy atmosphere and wants to leave. The guide tells the story of a man in ancient times who went to the catacombs to spy on Christians, got lost, and haunts the tombs now as a ghost. As the friends turn a corner into a chapel, they realize with alarm that Miriam is no longer with them.
Chapter 4 Summary: “The Spectre of the Catacomb”
Donatello vows that he will look for Miriam. After the friends and the guide strenuously call for her, Miriam appears, to the great relief of all. She points to a shadowy figure standing in the shadows of a side chapel. The others fear that it is a ghost. The figure speaks, telling them that Miriam called him forth and that he must now shadow her footsteps.
Hawthorne explains a bit of backstory. While she was wandering in the catacomb, Miriam found the lost man and led him back to safety. The man has continued to stalk Miriam ever since. Occasionally Miriam invites him into her studio and paints or sketches his portrait. The story of the mysterious “model” has spread throughout Rome.
Ever since the incident, Miriam’s friends notice her mood has become “despondent” and “melancholy” with “morbid symptoms.” The presence of the model is especially troubling to Donatello, who comes to hate the mysterious figure with a passion.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
Chapter 1 opens with an image that foreshadows the theme of good and evil that will be at the heart of the story. This is the statue of “the Human Soul, with its choice of Innocence or Evil close at hand, in the pretty figure of a child, clasping a dove to her bosom, but assaulted by a snake” (7). The image both evokes the serpent from the Garden of Eden and foreshadows the novel’s later association between doves and Hilda—the purest of the four friends. Hawthorne also dwells on the symbol of the faun throughout the first two chapters, firmly establishing Donatello as the embodiment of that rustic and idyllic creature. This first section of the book illustrates the friendship and aesthetic interests of the four main characters, the Roman setting with its wealth of art and culture, and Donatello’s unrequited infatuation with Miriam.
Chapters 3-4 present a flashback to the Roman catacombs that explains the origin of the mysterious model’s attachment to Miriam. The catacombs make for a macabre, Gothic and evocative setting, showing Hawthorne’s indebtedness to the Romantic movement. Like the catacombs, Miriam’s studio in Chapter 5 will be a typically Romantic setting, with its rough, irregular and ruined appearance. By the end of this first section, the instigating conflict is already set in place.
The attachment of the model—later identified as Brother Antonio—to Miriam is one of the more elusive elements of the book. As Hawthorne’s postscript explains, the papal government is watching Miriam on suspicion of political intrigue, so it’s possible that Antonio is simply a spy. However, his insistence that Miriam bound him to her by saving him suggests a parallel to her relationship with Donatello, whom she will lead first into sin and then to salvation. Miriam and Brother Antonio’s relationship therefore both foreshadows and twists the motif of a female savior that informs both Miriam’s and Hilda’s storylines.
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By Nathaniel Hawthorne
