47 pages • 1 hour read
Alice HoffmanThe Invisible Hour
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “1837”
Part 2, Chapter 4 Summary: “The Man Who Disappeared”
The point of view switches to Nathaniel Hawthorne, giving a narrative account of his life from childhood to the moment when he encounters Mia in the woods. Nathaniel’s father died when he was four years old, and his mother was incapacitated by grief. When Nathaniel was nine, he injured his leg and was housebound for nearly two years. The isolation and early tragedy led him to experience periodic dark moods and an active imagination. One of his ancestors was a judge at the Salem witch trials who never regretted his actions, and he and his descendants were cursed by his victims. Nathaniel believed that he could right the wrongs of the past with his present actions.
When his father died, Nathaniel’s family was left with very little money or property, and they were supported by Nathaniel’s uncles, Richard and Robert Manning. Both men believed in practicality above artistry and encouraged Nathaniel to give up dreaming and writing to become financially sound. Though grateful to his uncles, Nathaniel resisted, “insisting that no man could be both a bookkeeper and a poet, and that he intended to be the latter” (135).
His imagination and solitude, combined with a passion for literature from his mother, resulted in Nathaniel becoming a writer. He depended primarily on his sister Elizabeth for her input as a brilliant reader and occasional writer. She published under Nathaniel’s name because it would have been inappropriate for a woman to publish her own writing at the time.
Nathaniel frequently spent evenings with his good friend, Franklin Pierce, meeting women in taverns and in the woods. Though Franklin was often popular, Nathaniel’s good looks led women to actively seduce him. However, he largely engaged them in conversation and learned about their lives as inspiration for his stories.
Now, on a spring night, Nathaniel is woken by a dream of his death. His sisters, disturbed by his screaming, rush to his room, but he dismisses them. Struck by an intense sensation that he needs to live rather than merely exist, he puts on his coat and walks into the woods. He has the sense that he is sleepwalking, as though he is still dreaming. He feels a tingling in his extremities just before he discovers Mia asleep on the grass, wearing the black dress from Constance’s funeral and her mother’s red boots and holding The Scarlet Letter.
Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary: “We Walk Invisible”
When Mia wakes in the field and sees Nathaniel under a pine tree, she has the sense that she’s always known him. The new growth of spring surrounds them in the field. Nathaniel asks her if she’s lost, marveling at the oddity of her appearance and the feeling of magic in the air around him. Mia is initially speechless, and her voiceless staring recalls mythological creatures in stories—especially because she’s wearing red boots, which are often associated with witchcraft. He sees the book in her hand, but she refuses to show it to him, worried about the consequences.
Mia knows nearly everything about him, and she worries that her presence in his time will affect his life in unforeseeable ways. He asks if magic brought her to the field. She gradually tells him that she’s from the future. He wonders whether his active imagination has taken over, causing him to go mad, because he’s inclined to believe that there’s some magic in Mia’s appearance. They walk together, talking about their lives. Nathaniel generally enjoys talking with women, but Mia’s level of engagement rises above any woman he’s talked with in the past. However, he’s still incredulous when she tells him that she works at a library and has attended college. He asks if she’s an angel, and she asks what it would mean if she were.
They arrive at a pond, both hot from walking. They swim, Mia fully clothed and Nathaniel shirtless. They swim and joke with one another until Mia is reminded of the massive effect a single person can have on another’s life, and it occurs to her that she’s already changed the trajectory of Nathaniel’s life. She swims to shore and wrings out her hair. As she prepares to leave, Nathaniel asks if he’ll see her again. She tells him that she’ll see him the next day and walks deeper into the woods.
She finds a small, abandoned cabin overgrown with vines, with a bed, cradle, and spinning wheel inside. She thinks of her mother and what their lives would have looked like had they settled somewhere like this rather than the Community. She sleeps and dreams of her mother, waking in the night to see the stars through the holes in the roof of the cabin.
Mia and Nathaniel spend five days talking, walking, and exploring together. They spend a night together in Mia’s cottage making love, and Nathaniel brings Mia flowers, food, and a couple of his sister’s dresses. The time away and the missing food and clothing alert Elizabeth that something is going on. Suspicious, she follows Nathaniel and sees the lovers swimming in the pond. She is both concerned for Nathaniel’s welfare and envious of the freedom the two share. The next day, Nathaniel asks Elizabeth to bring a message to Mia. When they meet, Mia shows Elizabeth the cottage, leading Elizabeth to tell Mia the cautionary tale of the unwed mother who froze to death with her infant in that cottage. Elizabeth argues that Mia and Nathaniel’s relationship is unwise. When she sees Mia’s copy of The Scarlet Letter, she begins to believe Mia’s story that she came from the future and insists that Mia never show Nathaniel the book. When they leave the cottage, Elizabeth takes Mia to the hill where local women who have unwanted pregnancies bury their babies. The same hill housed the bodies of those killed during the witch trials. Mia becomes convinced that leaving is the best choice.
Nathaniel comes to see her at dusk after leaving his uncle. They swim together in the darkness and lie together in the grass when the water is too cold. Mia refuses to let Nathaniel come to the cottage with her, and she disappears into the night.
Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary: “Brother Sparrow”
Nathaniel is heartbroken when Mia leaves. He searches everywhere for her, and when he fails to find her, he falls into a deep depression. Elizabeth attempts to convince him that it’s for the best because they could never have a life together, but Nathaniel sinks deeper into his sadness. He only leaves his room to walk the woods and visit the cottage in the evening, believing more and more completely that he’s cursed. He tries to write but feels that without Mia, he has no inspiration. He disappears entirely for two days, and Elizabeth finds him drunk in a seedy tavern. She brings him home, and he tells her that they aren’t living, only surviving, and that they can’t expect to find happiness.
Elizabeth decides that something must be done to rescue her brother from his dark mood. First, he agrees to go to Maine with a college friend but comes back worse than when he left. Then, their uncle, Robert, suggests a fishing trip to Nathaniel, and he agrees when he hears that they’ll be going to Lenox, which is close to Blackwell. They stay at the Jack Straw Tavern and fish for blue trout at the Last Look River, drinking Love Me Twice ale in the evenings and listening to the local folklore. Although initially Nathaniel still can’t write and feels the sting of Mia’s absence, the beauty of the river and the solitary fishing allow him to move forward.
Part 2 Analysis
The characterization of Nathaniel in this section contrasts with the other men in the novel. Ken Jacob and Noah fail to support Ivy in her pregnancy and her independence. As a husband, Joel controls Ivy and uses her love for Mia as a weapon against her. As a father figure, Joel uses his power to try to possess and control Mia. Nathaniel, in contrast, cares for his mother and his sisters in his father’s absence. He is described as devastatingly handsome, so much so that sex workers try to seduce him and offer their companionship for free. However, he is more interested in listening to the women he meets than taking advantage of them physically. Elizabeth, his sister, sees him as a romantic who would always choose to honor a woman rather than damage her reputation. Nathaniel’s intellectual interests and emotional maturity allow him to dissolve Mia’s resistance to romantic connection.
The motif of the red boots takes on a new meaning when Mia and Nathaniel meet. While the boots represent Joel’s guilt and grief in the first section, Nathaniel interprets Mia’s boots as a sign of mystery and magic. Her appearance suggests to Nathaniel that she is associated with magic. That association makes her fascinating to him, helping to create the bond between them. The boots make her stand out, illustrating the theme of The False Security of Invisibility: It is wholly because Mia is so visible that she finds a safe, loving relationship with Nathaniel.
The symbol of sparrows is associated with Nathaniel throughout the section. Sparrows are traditionally symbolic of freedom, protection, and hope, all of which Nathaniel gives to Mia in their affair. When he goes for his walks, he is “alone […] except for the presence of passing sparrows and crows” (145), indicating his relationship with nature. Sparrows also emphasize the difference between Mia and Nathanial. When Mia tells him about airplanes, he asks if people fly “[l]ike a sparrow” (152), making clear that the two have incongruous frames of reference as people from different times. Similarly, when Elizabeth argues that Mia should leave their time and return to her own, she says, “A fish and a sparrow cannot live in the same world” (166), positioning Nathaniel’s sparrow-like identity as the reason for their incompatibility. The sixth chapter, titled “Brother Sparrow,” explores Nathaniel’s spiral into heartbreak and his slow emergence back into his love of words and writing, again emphasizing Nathaniel’s love for nature and solitude.
Mia’s discovery of the cottage and Elizabeth’s story both reflect Choice’s Risks and Rewards. Mia has nowhere to stay in Nathaniel’s time until she finds the deserted cottage. The cottage initially represents the reward of Mia’s choice to escape her real life to travel back in time. It also offers an alternate life for Ivy and Mia, where they could have lived invisibly, like Hester and Pearl Prynne in The Scarlet Letter. However, when Elizabeth finds her, her story about the mother and daughter who froze to death demonstrates the risks of the choice to have a child out of wedlock. Elizabeth further illuminates the risks to women in her time when she shows Mia the hill of rue, where women have hidden the results of unplanned pregnancies. The choice to terminate a pregnancy carries danger since the herb used can be poisonous, but the consequence of having the baby is similarly dire. Mia’s experience in the 19th century demonstrates that women face risks no matter what choice they make, building empathy for the decision her mother made to join the Community.
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