Silas Foster Character Analysis

Silas Foster, the farm manager at Blithedale, teaches Coverdale, Hollingsworth, Zenobia, and Priscilla about animal husbandry and farming throughout their time at Blithedale. Although Silas lives at Blithedale from the beginning, he is not a co-founder of the society. A member of the laboring class, Silas is hired to help the Boston intellectuals learn to run a farm, but he doesn’t share the same expectations or beliefs about Blithedale’s future as an agrarian utopian society. In fact, Silas seems pessimistic about the farm’s ability to thrive, suggesting that the founders will become tired and disillusioned soon enough, and his pessimism proves more or less correct when the project falls apart. Throughout the story, he has an almost uncanny ability to predict how people will act. For instance, after Coverdale decides to go to Boston for a couple of weeks following an argument with Hollingsworth, Silas implies that Coverdale is going to abandon the project. Coverdale denies this, but it proves true—Coverdale returns briefly to see Zenobia, Hollingsworth, and Priscilla again (the night Zenobia drowns herself), but he leaves right after Zenobia’s funeral and never returns. Silas helps find and retrieve Zenobia’s body after she drowns herself.