The hollow of the three hills

The Hollow of the Three Hills is a story of dishonor, deceit, and death. The author, Nathaniel Hawthorn portrays the main character as a beautiful woman with a shameful and abominable past. She tries to run from her problems but comes to find out no matter how big or small a problem, trying to run from it will only make the problem follow.

The main character was so driven by curiosity and remorse that she brought herself to go see a witch. They met in a place described by Hawthorne as "a hollow basin, almost mathematically circular, two or three hundred feet in breadth,...the resort of the Power of Evil and his plighted subjects."(Hawthorne 103) This describes the character as someone who is a plighted subject who had such a secret that she had to be where "no mortal could observe them"(Hawthorne 103) She wanted this witch to help her see and hear what was happening with her loved ones; but she only had one hour to do so and after this one hour she would die Hawthorne did not come out and say this but in saying things like "there is but a short hour that we may tarry here."(Hawthorne 103) and I will do your bidding though I die(Hawthorne 103). She had run from everything that was important to her because the most important, was dying. Hawthorne was not too clear in stating what exactly the problem was but it seemed that her daughter had fallen ill.

Throughout the story Hawthorne masks this fact well and uses foreshadowing nicely. In one part where the main character is looking in on her parents by means of the witches powers and Hawthorne describes her parents as speaking "...of a daughter, a wanderer they knew not where, bearing dishonor along with her, and leaving shame and affliction to bring their gray heads to the grave. They alluded also to other and more recent woe,"(Hawthorne 104) The daughter wandering bearing shame is the main character, who tried to run from her problem which was what they spoke of next. The more recent woe they were alluding...