Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Roger Malvin’s Burial”:

A descendant of the infamous Judge John Hathorne, Nathaniel Hawthorne changed his last name with hopes to sever all ties to the judge out of embarrassment of the Salem Witch Trials. Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts and was originally part of the Transcendentalist community called Brookwood Farm. He later left disillusioned and joined the ranks of the Anti-Transcendentalist community. In 1846, Hawthorne wrote a collection of short stories called Mosses from an Old Manse Volume 2. This collection included the short story, “Roger Malvin’s Burial.” The story is about an ambitious young man, Reuben Bourne, not fulfilling the promise he makes to a dying man (Roger Malvin) after a battle. Reuben promises that he will walk to the next encampment and rest and will later return to give Roger a proper burial. Reuben never returns to Roger Malvin because he feels like a coward and traitor after regaining conscious and could not admit to Dorcas (Roger’s daughter) that he had left him dying in the woods. Reuben later marries the daughter of Roger and they both have a child named Cyrus. After many years as a family, the guilt inside of Reuben becomes so much t

This forest has a captivating attraction with Reuben because while he is relocating his family, he always veers off course towards this forest unconsciously. This sylvan forest is the same one that Reuben leaves Roger Malvin to die. After Cyrus is repeatedly telling Reuben of the incorrect course, Reuben returns to the designated course. “Cyrus Bourne was sufficiently skilled in the travel of woods to observe that his father did not adhere to the course they had pursued in their expedition of the preceding autumn” (Hawthorne 264). But Reuben later returns to the course destined towards the forest where Roger Malvin died. “Reuben’s thoughts were obviously dwelling on something other than the relocation of his home” (Crews 78). These actions symbolize that the breaking of the vow had been on his mind after almost 18 years.

Reuben Bourne ties his handkerchief to a sapling, in the area of woods where he leaves Roger Malvin, to indicate his promise to return is a symbol of responsibility for Roger. “The oak sapling upon which Reuben tied his bloodstained handkerchief is partly as a signal of rescue for Roger and party to symbolize his own vow to return” (Crews 82). This handkerchief is a physical vow Reuben makes to Roger Malvin to help attest that he will be back to perform a proper burial. “As he bound it [the handkerchief] to the tree, he vowed by blood that stained it that he would return, either to save his companion’s life, or to lay his body in the grave.” (Hawthorne 256). After a decade and a half, the sapling grows into an unperturbed life with a surfeit of vegetation when Rueben comes across the sapling accidentally while relocating his family. The branch with Reuben’s insignia of promise is “withered, sapless, and utterly dead” (Hawthorne 267.) The tree is Reuben, whose innocent young life has been “bent” (Reuben bends the sapling downward to affix the insignia) to a “sworn purpose and to a secret self-reproach” (Crews 82). Reuben grows as the tree grows, becoming mature in superficial respect but wretched at the top, in his soul or mind, and when the fragments of the withered branch fall at the end, its meant to conclude that his guilt has been withdrawn (Morsberger 31). The guilt all starts from the culpable feelings that Reuben has from not giving Roger a proper grave in the forest.

Hochberg also states that Reuben means “behold, a son” in Hebrew (318). And Dorcas means “gazelle” or a “deer” in Greek (Hochberg 318). This is significant because Reuben thought he shot a deer, and Dorcas shows up asking whether he feel asleep over a dead deer, this moment sharpens the actual tragedy.

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