Guilt and Transgression in Roger Malvin's Burial
The Tragedy of Miscalculation
Nov 6, 2009 Christopher Mansour
Henryk Siemiradzki's painting, "Christ and Sinner", sorrowfully and masterfully encapsulates the darkest epiphany of Christian life. Namely, the Judeo-Christian fear and unshakeable awareness of one's sins, of the presence of a watchful creator, and of that impending divine judgment in which the human soul is either lifted into paradise or cast into eternal damnation. It is a revelation Fyodor Dostoevsky very succinctly states in The Brothers Karamazov, that "each of us is guilty before the other for everything"(374). A fallen race, no person is truly innocent.
Human Nature is Uncertain
"Roger Malvin's Burial" by Nathaniel Hawthorne is an examination of the consequences of moral choice and spiritual denial, if not pride. Like many of Hawthorne's works, it offers no complete answers to the questions of existence, but rather, hypothesizes about why people choose to be sinful, why human nature is fallen, and why these mysterious sins alienate people from one another--from God. Reuben Bourne's fall into disgrace and sinfulness parallels Siemiradzki's depiction. The prostitute's face is cast into shadow, contrasting with the bright sunlight illuminating Jesus. Hers is the darkness of ignorance and fear. Frightened by the gentle, radiant authority of Jesus, she cowers guiltily before him.
Similarly, guilt sunders Reuben Bourne's heart and soul, compelling him to redeem himself. Because Reuben chose to break his vow and leave Roger Malvin's remains unburied, unprayed for, a 'sepulchral' cloud darkens his soul. For like Siemiradzki's prostitute, he cannot face up to his wrongdoing and admit that he has selfishly abandoned a loving father-figure to die alone in an untame wilderness. Having falsely told his lover that he buried her father, that Malvin died in his presence, Reuben lives a kind of life-in-death existence wrought by sin.
St. Paul's epistles lay the blame for the inexplicability of sin on Adam and Eve's fall from grace. Because they ate the forbidden fruit, they allowed "sin [to enter] the world" and "death through sin"(Romans 5:12). But this description hardly describes the inexplicability of sin. St. Paul then writes, "but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do"(Romans 7:14-15). Humans are conceived in sin. In this absurd existence where humans live from hand-to-mouth, they are incapable of truly understanding good or evil. Out of this ignorance, speculate Hawthorne and St. Paul, humans act evilly. If Reuben is evil, has he ever truly been "good?"
Moral Cowardice and Spiritual Death
Reuben is tormented by the gravity of his lies. He "regret[s], deeply and bitterly, the moral cowardice that had restrained his words when he was about to disclose the truth to Dorcas"(Hawthorne 25). So fearful of the loss of the girl's love, so aware of his selfish desire to save himself, that he falls into a morose silence. The "moral cowardice", implies Hawthorne, arises from his Christian duty to make funerary arrangements for a comrade and a father-figure, his duty to disclose the truth to Dorcas and admit he has deprived the old man of any last rites. His "pride" and "dread of universal scorn [forbid] him to rectify [his] falsehood[s]"(25).
Spiritual pride contaminates Reuben for he feels "he deserve[s] no censure" for abandoning Roger. He is as full of shameless self-love as Siemiradzki's prostitutes, for he "no longer loved deeply except where he saw...some reflection or likeness of his own mind"(Hawthorne 26). Failing to acknowledge Malvin's loving sacrifice, Reuben's selfish "concealment" of his crime becomes a kind of moral death. He sometimes "imagine[s] himself a murderer"(25) tormented by the "mental horrors" of his crime. In light of social obligations, the neglecting of the corpse is spiritual murder.
Many cultures, such as the Ancient Greeks, believe that the neglect of funerary rites condemns the spirit to wander aimlessly in the underworld. To Christians, dying without last rites means the spirit's denial of paradise. Paralyzed by guilt and fear, Reuben almost believes "his father-in-law was yet sitting at the foot of the rock,...awaiting...pledged assistance"(Hawthorne 25). The darkness of sin overcomes his spirit. Reuben abandoned the old man because of his "selfish love of life"(24) and because Roger intended for him and Dorcas to marry. Years later, a "deep vow" compels him, "an unburied corpse" calls "out of the wilderness"(25).
The Tragic Miscalculation
Reuben willingly condemns his own soul to judgment by deeming it "too late" to secure assistance in the recovery of Malvin's remains and the "long-deferred sepultre"(Hawthorne 25). He is now a twisted and apathetic soul. The "consequence of his prevarication" is that he refuses to "obey the call" of providence and decency. So disdainful is Reuben, after years of anger and self-destructive behaviour, that he falls into the hell posited by Dostoevsky: "the suffering of being no longer able to love". He secretly fears a supernatural wrath awaits him if enters the woods alone, that some force would lead him "to Malvin's bones"(25).
A broken man, sorrow and guilt "[bind] down his spirit", gnawing "into his heart". When he inevitably returns to the site of Malvin's death, compelled by providence, he finds the rock wall where Malvin died. A "supernatural voice" has summoned him. In a moment of epiphany, he believes Heaven demands he expiate his sin--fulfil his broken vow. Tragically, the same moment he recognizes the site is the same instant he unintentionally shoots his only son. Providence extols a terrible sacrifice so that he can expiate past indiscretions. To repair the spiritual harm wreaked by his broken vow, his son Cyrus, is killed, mistaken for a deer.
The oak bough, blighted through Reuben's "guilt", represents his sullied blood oath. In agony, he confesses his sins to Dorcas, earning absolution in "the hour when he [has] shed blood dearer to him than his own"(Hawthorne 32). Reuben Bourne, a failed warrior and untrue man, salvages a shred of Christian dignity.
Whatever the origin of sin, in each person lies an eternal struggle.
References:
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Roger Malvin's Burial." U Virginia Library. 10 Oct. 2009.
Siemiradzki Christ and Sinner
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