Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Roger Malvin's Burial".

Summary

The narrator offers the reader a tale from the period of Lowell's Fight. This was a defence of frontiers in the year 1725.

The story opens with a portrayal of two weary and wounded men on their way home from the battle through wilderness. The older man, Roger Malvin, who acted like a father for the younger, called Reuben Bourne, feels that he is dying. Malvin urges Bourne to leave him, as waiting for his death would deprive Bourne of the strength needed to carry on. Bourne hesitates, asking what he should tell Malvin's daughter Dorcas, if he left him unburied in the wilderness. Malvin convinces Bourne that he would not have his own soul stained by the useless death of a young man, and on his earnest entreaty, Bourne assents to leave him. Bourne gives Malvin the promise to return and bury his body, while Malvin gives Bourne a blessing for the intended marriage of Bourne to Dorcas. Bourne binds his handkerchief on the topmost branch of a sapling beneath which Malvin sits so that he could find the place later. He then continues alone and is found by a party sent for help.

On Dorcas's question about her father, Bourne is unable to confess the truth of his leaving Malvin still breathing for his own selfish love of life. He is tortured by unmerited praise, as Dorcas spreads the story of his exemplary behaviour. After few months, Bourne and Dorcas are married. Bourne is still tortured by his moral cowardice. He does not dare to confess out of pride and out of fear of losing Dorcas's affection. Also he dreads universal scorn. He begins to feel himself like a murderer and sometimes he imagines Malvin still sitting by the rock and awaiting his pledged assistance. Superstitious fears forbid him to return to the forest alone to bury Malvin's bones. Bourne turns into an incompetent farmer, a neglectful husband, and a selfish creature loving none but the picture of his youth, his son Cyrus, now aged 15.

The family finally leaves the town for wilderness. It is the twelfth of May, the 18th anniversary of Malvin's death. Dorcas commemorates her father and is grateful for her husband's care offered to the dying man. Bourne and Cyrus go hunting. Bourne hears the sound of some animal in the bush and shoots it. Suddenly he realizes he is in front of the rock where he left Malvin eighteen years ago. The sapling where he bound his handkerchief grew into a strong oak, but its top branches are struck by blight. Meanwhile Dorcas sings a song celebrating household happiness, believing that Cyrus has shot a deer. The men are not returning, so Dorcas goes to the forest to find them. What she finds is however her husband over the dead body of their son. For the first time in years, Bourne prays, feeling expiated through the tragic accident.

Analysis

(from Portable Hawthorne)

- a myth of guilt for imagined parricide resulting in actually committed filicide

- a haunted man acts under compulsion until he accidentally kills his son: "His sin was expiated, the curse was gone from him; and [...] a prayer, the first for years, went up to Heaven from the lips of Reuben Bourne."