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Phoebe Pyncheon. The name Phoebe derives from the Greek word “ phoibos, ” which means “shining.”. Phoebe is therefore an appropriate name for a character who brings the only rays of light into the somber Pyncheon home. At times, Phoebe literally brings a breath of fresh air into the house, throwing open her windows, rearranging her room ...
(Here intercourse just means conversation – no hanky-panky intended.) Phoebe finds Mr. Holgrave off-putting and distant to start with, and Mr. Holgrave thinks Phoebe is kind of dumb. But eventually the weirdness of the experiences they share leads Mr. Holgrave to tell Phoebe he loves her, with the dead body of Judge Pyncheon in the next room.
Seeing the Judge’s momentary coldness, Phoebe quickly observes that Holgrave’s claim about daguerreotypes was true—they really do capture a person’s essence. She also perceives that the Judge’s personality seems to be hereditary, instinctively picking up on the nature of the multigenerational Pyncheon curse.
Chapter 12: The Daguerreotypist. Phoebe has now been at the Pyncheon house for a month. Since she is young and hungry for company of her own age, she becomes friends with Holgrave, the daguerreotypist. Their conversations are especially important to Phoebe, who craves a break from the dour company of Clifford and Hepzibah.
Judge Pyncheon is a cruel man, he suggests, capable of doing horrible things, but his secrets remain a mystery to Holgrave. Holgrave and Phoebe part as friends. When Phoebe prepares to depart, Hepzibah sadly observes that she has lost her smile because “there has been too much weight on [her] spirits” at the house of the seven gables.
Holgrave adds that Colonel Pyncheon appears to have “perpetuated himself” in the subject of Holgrave’s daguerreotype, Judge Pyncheon. Phoebe is startled by Holgrave’s passion. He admits that the topic has seized him “with the strangest tenacity of clutch” since moving into the House. To cope with that, he has written an episode from ...
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If Clifford and Hepzibah don't tell the city marshal that Judge Pyncheon is dead, it'll look even more like they killed him. At the same time, as Mr. Holgrave (the lodger) explains to Phoebe, Judge Pyncheon's natural death is very similar to his Uncle Jaffrey Pyncheon's death 30 years before. So if Clifford comes back before the body is ...
