House of the Seven Gables
Essay by review • October 23, 2010 • Essay • 2,872 Words (12 Pages) • 2,577 Views
The House of the Seven Gables
"[The] sympathy or magnetism among human beings is more subtle and universal
than we think; it exists, indeed, among different classes of organized life, and vibrates
from one to another" (Hawthorne 178). Loosely based on the events of Hawthorne's own
life, The House of the Seven Gables attempts to show the suffering of descendants forced
to repent for the sins of their "father", while they are unknowingly renewing the curse by
nurturing the ancestral greed that has passed through the generations (O' Connor 6) .
Thus the various themes of the novel reflect the central idea of continued sin through the
greed and guilt of a declining family.
Each generation struggles to escape the sins of the past, only to be thrust
forcefully back to face the offenses of their forefathers. The House of the Seven Gables
is a tale of loneliness and greed caused by the sin of preceding generations. The opening
of the novel is set in puritan times during the Salem witch hunts. The villainous Colonel
Pyncheon wrongly accused the innocent Matthew Maule of witchcraft so that the Maule
land would fall into the Pyncheon family's hands. Upon his death, Maule "addressed
[Colonel Pyncheon] from the scaffold, and uttered a prophecy...God will give him blood
to drink" (Hawthorne 4-5) . The physical wrongdoing of Colonel Pyncheon against
Matthew Maule was avenged at the former's death, with the curse being fulfilled.
However, the essence of the crime lived on through the generations.
By chapter two, the focus of the novel has shifted to the modern generations of
the Pyncheon family. The family has severely declined since the Colonel's time, yet the
curse of greed is as strong as ever. The remains of the family consist of a decrepit
spinster named Hepzibah, now the caretaker of the house of the seven gables; her insane
brother Clifford, who was just recently released from prison; their devilish cousin Judge
Jaffrey, a man fixated upon his own greed; and their distant cousin Phoebe, the sunny
country girl that will be their redemption. Also, the last surviving descendant of the
Maule lineage, the handsome Holgrave Maule, resides at the house.
In a compilation by F.O. Matthiessen, it is stated that the "main theme was not the
original curse on the house, but the curse that the Pyncheons have continued to bring
upon themselves". It is not Maule's death which needs avenging, but the anguish caused
by the Pyncheon family's greed. "Lust for wealth has held the Pyncheon' in its inflexible
grasp". What Hawthorne saw handed down through the generations were not material
unrealities such as gold and family position, but inescapable traits of character (145).
Even in the modern times of the novel, the family is ruled by greed and pride.
The characters are haunted by their own selfish desires; the sin of the past is reborn
through the greed of the family. Only the light-hearted "flower" Phoebe Pyncheon is
untouched by the family's inescapable destiny. And while Hepzibah and Clifford
Pyncheon suffer from illusions of grandeur, they lack the strength of will to achieve their
ultimate desires.
Hepzibah and Clifford, the "child-like" inhabitants of the house, suffer from the
"iron will" of Jaffrey's hunger for more wealth to add to his already abundant supply.
Jaffrey even subjected his own kindred to the harsh hell of prison and destitution just for
the inheritance of an elderly uncle. Even though approaching old age, Jaffrey would still
persecute his cousins for a wealth that would only pass momentarily through his hand
before his own death. He is the reincarnated villain from the past, come to continue the
curse of a bygone generation in a modern day setting. "[His] guilt is never rendered in
observable terms; at the moment of his death, he is as imposing and impenetrable as
ever" (Crews 177).
But the other characters are not without their faults, though not as tainted with
evil as Jaffrey. Hepzibah would rather think herself better than society rather than be an
actual, participating member. She let her youth and whatever beauty she had slip away in
the dark recesses of the dusty old house, all the while clinging to the notion that she was
a member of the long-dead aristocracy. She also dreamed of the vast fortune she was
bound to receive from the "Pyncheon territory", a "delusion of family importance" each
Pyncheon has clung to "from generation to generation" (Matthiessen 143). She lived in
solitude for the better part of thirty years, remaining an "old maid" who "never had a
lover". When her finances become dependent on actual labor, she felt that she had
"brought
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