The House of the Seven Gables: Cycles of Guilt and Revenge
As someone from Massachusetts, I knew I had to choose a literary house based in my home state. Thus, I thought of Nathaniel Hawthorne and his book The House of the Seven Gables. Hawthorne begins the fictional tale of guilt and revenge by recounting the history between the Pyncheon and Maule families. Colonel Pyncheon had a greedy desire for the land owned by Matthew Maule. He immediately turned to the immoral and decided to procure the land at all costs, including the life of Matthew Maule. At the peak of witch-fueled hysteria, Colonel Pyncheon accused Maule of witchcraft. Maule was swiftly executed but not before directing a curse toward Colonel Pyncheon by saying, “God will give him blood to drink!” That did not deter Colonel Pyncheon from building a house with seven gables on the land he unjustly acquired. There for generations, the Pyncheons have resided. Once a well-respected family, the Pyncheons had fallen from grace to the point where current resident Hepzibah Pyncheon must run a shop out of her home in order to support herself. Hepzibah has also been living with a young photographer named Holgrave who lodges at the house. Hepzibah has even more to navigate when her brother Clifford returns from jail, and a distant relative by the name of Phoebe also comes to stay with her.
The real home that inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne still stands in Salem, Massachusetts—ironically it only has three gables. The Turner-Ingersoll mansion was owned by several generations of Hawthorne’s relatives. Hawthorne was born in Salem and lived in New England most of his life. Before writing The House of the Seven Gables he returned to Salem for a time and drew inspiration from his cousin's house, the Turner-Ingersoll mansion, as well as his own family history. While visiting his cousin he saw the vestigial remnants of other gables in the house’s architecture. Gables are vertical triangular structures formed when two parts of a roof intersect. To fit the style of the time the house had been reconstructed to have only three gables, but the thought of seven sounded more intriguing to him.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Today the house has been converted into a museum. The inside of the house can only be accessed by reserving a guided tour and there are special packages to see the gardens on a guided tour as well.
Hawthorne’s ancestors were important figures in Salem’s history. Some of them helped establish the town, but none are more infamous than his great-grandfather, John Hathorne. John Hathorne was an acting magistrate during the Salem Witch Trials who allegedly judged one woman particularly severely. Her scorned husband then prophesied that God would take revenge on Hathorne and others who had persecuted her. Allegedly Hathorne truly believed in witchcraft and had no regrets for sending the accused to their deaths. After the witchcraft hysteria began to die down the Hathorne family began to lose their high-class status in the town. The parallels to the altercation between the Pyncheon and Maule families are obvious.
The Turner-Ingersoll mansion today.
The memories Hawthorne experienced in his lifetime at the Turner-Ingersoll mansion were overwhelmingly positive. Knowing Hawthorne I wasn’t shocked per se at the turn in tone The House of the Seven Gables had compared to his actual experience with the house, but after learning the history of his family I understood further. Tales like the one that occurred at the hands of his ancestor fascinated Hawthorne. When he discovered the torrid details of his family’s past he was influenced to change his last name from Hathorne to Hawthorne, a symbolic separation from his ancestor’s misdeeds. Not only is it evident in The House of the Seven Gables, but in his other novels as well. Hawthorne admonished Puritanism and was intrigued by the inherent evil of humanity. Hawthorne’s disgust with his great-grandfather’s actions greatly inspired his work. By creating a story catalyzed by the senselessly evil act of accusing another of witchcraft for material gain he was able to explore evil acts and the fallout they create.
The most glaring fallout would be the Pyncheon family's descent from respected to needing to sell baked goods in order to stay afloat. Generation after generation of Pyncheon is plagued by this uncontrollable sorrow and guilt. Hawthorne illustrates his idea of justice in a very cyclical manner. Though Colonel Pyncheon got away with his initial evil, sentencing Matthew Maule to death, he receives justice swiftly. Colonel Pyncheon was discovered covered in blood in his study while celebrating the completion of the House of the Seven Gables. His sins follow the family line into Hepzibah’s generation. Her brother Clifford is wrongfully accused and sent to jail over the death of their uncle, when it was their other relative Judge Pyncheon who inadvertently caused his death and allowed Clifford to take the fall. The figure of Judge Pyncheon grows to represent the inherent evil present in Colonel Pyncheon. It is said multiple times that he looks exactly like the Colonel and his motives are similar. Judge Pyncheon believes in the existence of a valuable deed to land in Maine and wishes to cash in on this asset. Despite being terrified of Judge Pyncheon from the moment he is introduced into the story, by the end Clifford murders him. He rid the family of his evil presence, and around the same time, the portrait of Colonel Pyncheon hanging in the home falls, symbolizing the end of the hold the guilt he caused had over the family. However, Hawthorne could not allow for more violence to be the only end to a cycle of violence that spanned generations. The story concludes with Phoebe and Holgrave falling in love. Phoebe, though distantly related, is a Pyncheon, and Holgrave is discovered to be related to Matthew Maule. The two uniting marked the end of the cycles of guilt and thirst for revenge in their families.
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