The Marble Faun

"Sin has educated Donatello, and elevated him. Is sin, then -- which we deem such a dreadful blackness in the Universe -- is it, like Sorrow, merely an element of human education, through which we struggle to a higher and purer state than we could otherwise have attained. Did Adam fall, that we might ultimately rise to a far loftier Paradise than his?" (Hawhthorne, The Marble Faun) This is a problematic comment on the theme of the Fortunate fall stated by Kenyon, one of the four protagonists in the novel. I enjoy such discussions in this novel on romantic unions of two young couples in an Italian setting. I find the work intellectually involving.