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A summary of Preface in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of The House of the Seven Gables and what it means. Perfect for acing essays, tests, and quizzes, as well as for writing lesson plans.
The titular House of the Seven Gables seems to be stuck in the 17th century in which it was built. It is haunted by a centuries-old feud which seems to consign the very building—as well as is residents—to inescapable decay. A youthful newcomer like Phoebe can temporarily arrest this aging process, but the House takes its toll on her as well.
- The Sins of One Generation Are Visited on The Next
- Class Status in New England
- The Deceptiveness of Appearances
This theme is the “moral” of The House of the Seven Gables, as Hawthorne states in the Preface, and he takes many opportunities to link the misdeeds of Colonel Pyncheon to the subsequent misfortunes of the Pyncheon family. The Colonel’s portrait looms ominously over the action of the story, and the apoplectic deaths of three separate Pyncheons clea...
Hawthorne satirizes nineteenth-century New England society’s preoccupation with class status in The House of the Seven Gables.His critique of class distinctions becomes most pointed when Hepzibah frets over opening the store and when Holgrave proclaims his revolutionary ideology. The feud between the Maules and the Pyncheons is a class conflict of ...
The House of the Seven Gablesfrequently uses the Judge’s infectious smile to demonstrate that appearances can mask underlying truths. Even as his cruelty becomes apparent, Judge Pyncheon’s brilliant smile continues to dazzle almost everyone. Hepzibah’s scowl, which results from a physical impediment (nearsightedness), keeps customers away from her ...
The moral of the story—the "wrongdoing of one generation lives into the successive ones"—is supported by the themes of guilt and retribution. This moral, or theme, is a key characteristic of most Gothic fiction (like Walpole's The Castle of Otranto , one of Hawthorne's influences) and had a major impact on the development of the horror genre throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
Critical Essays Hawthorne's Preface. When Hawthorne defined his purpose as a writer of "romances," his first care was to distinguish the romance from the novel. After we finish reading his definition of a novel, as opposed to a romance, we get the feeling that Hawthorne was groping toward a conception of fiction that was more unique than he ...
PDF Cite. As stated in the preface, one of the primary themes in The House of the Seven Gables is that “the wrong-doing of one generation lives into the successive ones.”. In this case ...
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Year Published: 1851 Language: English Country of Origin: United States of America Source: Hawthorne, Nathaniel. (1851). The house of the Seven Gables.
