24 pages • 48 minutes read
The Hollow of the Three Hills
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Character Analysis
The Lady
The lady is an unnamed protagonist who seeks the assistance of the old woman to learn the fate of family members that she has left behind. Plagued with shame and guilt, the lady spends the story in paroxysms of fear as she learns the fate of each person she has deserted. She asks the old woman to help her because she can no longer stand not knowing; the only thing stronger than her shame is her need to know the truth about her family. Having been married to a Puritan minister, the lady is intimately acquainted with the destructive power of shame. Instead of mourning their daughter’s absence or inquiring about her welfare, they instead focus on the dishonor she has brought to them. Being in the same environment in her marriage has further created a sense of anxiety around shame. She is described as being beautiful but “pale and troubled, and smitten with an untimely blight in what should have been the fullest bloom of her years” (Paragraph 1). Her wan appearance could be a result of her guilt or of the unnamed illness she is experiencing. It is unclear if the “untimely blight” is what has led her to seek out the counsel of the old woman, but the timing of her death shows that regardless of her illness, her shame and the pain of her child’s death also contributed to her death. It is this same shame and fear of religious judgment that influenced her decision to leave her family behind, creating a vicious cycle of societal pressure.
The lady’s desperation to see the results of her desertion is shown in her actions. She follows the old woman’s instructions to kneel before her and rest her forehead against the old woman’s knees. This position of supplication shows that the lady is willing to submit to the old woman even though she is afraid of her. After each subsequent vision, the lady grows weaker emotionally. The shame she feels from seeing the pain she has caused is overwhelming, and before the last vision she is only able to “faintly” (Paragraph 19) ask to see one more vision. The old woman understands that the lady wishes to see her child and shows her a morose vision of the child’s funeral. Having realized her wish to see the family she deserted, the lady dies, presumably from her unknown ailment but also from the combination of shame and grief she feels.
The Old Woman
The old woman is the unnamed antagonist of the story. Described as a “withered hag” (Paragraph 15) and as being “withered, shrunken, and decrepit” (Paragraph 1), she fits the archetype of a witch. Traditionally, the witch archetype is an old woman who has magical powers and dangerous intent. The fact that the lady seeks the old woman out shows the lady’s desperation. In contrast to the clearly spoken motive the lady provides when asking for the meeting, the old woman never states why she is willing to meet with the lady to facilitate the visions. The old woman’s smile is compared to “lamplight on the wall of a sepulchre” (Paragraph 3): A sepulcher is similar to a tomb. The comparison of the old woman to a sepulcher links the old woman to death, emphasizing her evil intent. The old woman claims to not have the power to provide information about the lady’s family, yet she aligns herself with evil forces that allow her to show the lady visions of her family.
The old woman takes pleasure in the young lady’s pain. After each of the first two visions, the old woman is described as “smiling in the lady’s face” (Paragraph 12). Each vision causes the lady extensive emotional pain and builds upon the shame that she feels. The old woman takes delight in this, taunting the young lady after she sees a vision of her parents suffering. She takes advantage of the lady’s desperation by putting her in the supplicant’s position, forcing her to be in a greater position of weakness when she is already both physically and emotionally weak. After the lady dies, the old woman laughs and declares that the past hour has been a fun game for her. The old woman’s motive in accepting this meeting has, at the end of the narrative, been revealed: She enjoys hurting those who are weaker than her. To the old woman, the lady’s pain is a game or “a sweet hour’s sport” (Paragraph 22). After the old woman leaves, she will go back to her regular life, while the lady no longer has her life.
The old woman plays an important part in illustrating the story’s theme of The Destructiveness of Shame and Guilt. The shame that the lady feels is what leads her to contact the old woman in the first place, which contributes to the lady’s death. If not for the shame that the lady feels, the old woman would not be able to torment her in the way that she does. The lady is emotionally weakened after each vision, but it is not until she sees a vision of her child’s funeral that she dies. The pain of seeing her child’s death is so great that it contributes to the lady’s death, and the lady would not have had access to that knowledge without the help of the old woman.
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By Nathaniel Hawthorne
