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In his preface to The House of the Seven Gables, author Nathaniel Hawthorne states his book’s primary “moral”: “the truth, namely, that the wrongdoing of one generation lives into the successive ones […] [becoming] uncontrollable mischief.” In other words, one generation’s misdeed affects subsequent generations in ways that the original perpetrator can neither predict nor control ...
Hawthorne is adamant that The House of the Seven Gables be understood as a work of fiction. Consequently, he devotes the final passage of the Preface to dispelling the notion that the novel is a critique of any actual place. Despite their lineage and prominence, Hawthorne says, the families in this novel are entirely of his own creation ...
- 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 ...
Nathaniel Hawthorne notes that The House of the Seven Gables is a romance, not a novel. A novel "must rigidly subject itself to laws" and adhere to normal circumstances. A romance, in contrast, gives the writer "a certain latitude" to include elements that do not adhere to everyday life. Hawthorne explicitly states that the book includes ...
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 ...
He would be glad, therefore, if — especially in the quarter to which he alludes — the book may be read strictly as a romance, having a great deal more to do with the clouds overhead than with any portion of the actual soil of the County of Essex.
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Jun 4, 2018 · A romance, according to Hawthorne, is different from the novel, which maintains a “minute fidelity . . . to the probable and ordinary course of man’s experience.”. In the neutral territory of romance, however, the author may make use of the “marvellous” to heighten atmospheric effects, if he or she also presents “the truth of the ...
