Curse of the Pyncheons in The House of The Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

In a passage from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The House of the Seven Gables, he reveals the complex character that is Judge Pyncheon. Hawthorne suggests that the virtuous appearance Judge Pyncheon exhibits covers the immoral reality that lies behind his lies. Hawthorne leads the reader to speculate on Judge Pyncheon’s questionable character through his skeptical tone and syntax.

In a surface examination of the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne, it is quickly evident that no good things come from the wilderness. Therein, the wilderness is often associated with the savages and the devil. In his work The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne finds herself exiled by society for having an adulterous affair with the town reverend which brought forth the child known as Pearl. Pearl is quickly established as the child of the wilderness: wild, capricious, and thought by the town to be a demon-child. She represents several entities in the novel just by her being, but when her morality is delved into, much more of the nature of the story can be revealed. Pearl’s role is often overlooked as a formative force in the novel. Some scholars have gone as far as to denounce her as unnecessary to the story’s makeup. Upon close examination, it can be determined that Pearl is indeed a necessary element. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Pearl presents themes of morality, both personal and cultural, as well as the divide between society and nature, through her interactions with Hester, Reverend Dimmesdale, and the scarlet letter itself.

Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the greatest American authors of the nineteenth century. He published his first novel Fanshawe, in 1828. However, he is widely known for his novels The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables. His novel, The Scarlet Letter, can be analyzed from historical, psychological and feminist critical perspectives by examining his life from the past, as well as his reflections while writing The Scarlet Letter. In order to understand the book properly, it’s necessary to use these three perspectives.

The Dark Side of Judge Pyncheon in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Novel, The House of the Seven Gables

Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of America's most renowned authors, demonstrates his extraordinary talents in two of his most famed novels, The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables. To compare these two books seems bizarre, as their plots are distinctly different. Though the books are quite seemingly different, the central themes and Hawthorne's style are closely related (Carey, p. 62). American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne is most famous for his books THE SCARLET LETTER and THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES, which are closely related in theme, the use of symbolism, characterization, and style.

Just as in Poe’s, this story places significance upon the appearance of the house and its surroundings. The Dorsets host parties for each generation of children in their neighborhood. Enhancing further the evidence of gothic style found in Taylor’s story, the parents’ curiosity is overcome by a feeling of horror concerning the types of events that unfold during those parties. The parties also act as points of isolation for the children and the Dorsets. Except for the people who attend the party, no one knew the explanation or the necessity for the annual event. The presence of curiosity and secrecy help to support the gothic basis for this story.

The novel The House of Seven Gables conveys its messages through the usage of images, which is done through inanimate object or places. This can be seen in the house of the seven gables and the daguerreotype of judge Pyncheon. Hawthorne present these images in such a manner, that their original meaning in the novel is no longer applicable. While many see his writing style as a tedious form, such writing has made the images created by Nathanial Hawthorne. Nathanial Hawthorne may be seen as a writer with a tedious writing style, such as the long descriptions of the images in the novel. Nevertheless it’s an effective manner to use allegory in a novel.

We set our scene in a Puritan town in 1600s New England. Nathaniel Hawthorne weaves a tale of imperfection, guilt, and secret sin. In the strict town, resident Hester Prynne stands upon a scaffold with a baby and a Scarlet Letter upon her bosom, both tokens of her sin. The intricate letter “A” stands for her very sin of adultery which lead to the birth of the child in her arms. The townspeople cannot help but stare at symbol of imperfection, but they cannot stare at what is underneath it all. Hidden and locked away was the same imperfection hidden on the town’s own reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. A man of God with a burden to bear, the guilt would seep into his soul. Him, the father of Pearl, the baby born into

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, is a novel that portrays the Christian beliefs of Original Sin. Much like Adam and Eve, Hester Prynne was a woman who was ostracized from society due to her relationship with Arthur Dimmesdale. Throughout her expulsion, Prynne gains sympathy for the poor, donating all of her income to help them. The sympathy that Prynne gained is similar to the knowledge that Adam and Eve gained about the good and evil in the world because in both stories, the characters gain knowledge as a result of their sin. Similarly to The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables is based upon the Christian belief of Original Sin. Characters like Judge Pyncheon and Clifford suffered due to the sins of Colonel Pyncheon.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the most important authors in the history of American literature and the genre of Romanticism or Dark Romanticism, due to his unique style of writing and his focus upon subjects of Puritan religion and the unknown. I consider Hawthorne an important author, due to the fact that he skillfully and accurately based his fictional writings upon happenings of colonial times, was one of the first authors to display unfortunate outcomes for his characters’ immoral choices according to Puritan beliefs, and wrote of things that were considered taboo in his time, such as witchcraft, scientific innovation and experimentation. I strongly believe that Hawthorne’s influence for his writings were his Puritan ancestral background, his fascination with Puritan beliefs, and his interest in what was considered the unknown such as witchcraft and science. According to the Norton Anthology Textbook Vol. B, Nathaniel Hawthorne was “born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804” (370). Hawthorne belonged “to a family whose ancestral roots were tied to Puritan history, with his family being among the first settlers of Massachusetts and having one of his relatives serve as a judge during the Salem witch trials” (370). Hawthorne, as a young boy, “had a particular interest in writings such as John Bunyan’s Puritan allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress, and by his mid-teens he took interest in British novelists such as Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollet, William Godwin, and Sir Walter Scott”

Nathaniel Hawthorne is respected as “one of the great masters of American Fiction” (“Hawthorne, Nathaniel” 363). He is an accomplished author who wrote novels as well as children’s literature. However, Hawthorne’s strength is American short story; his “haunting” tales are undeniably responsible for establishing this genre as a “significant art form” (“Nathaniel Hawthorne” Columbia 1). He is known for his “penetrating explorations” of the conflicts within one’s conscience and the consequences that plague his characters, as a result of their disobedience (“Nathaniel Hawthorne” 1). These “dilemmas” of the “human condition” are prominent in his story, “The Birth-Mark” (Tuerk 1). Mosses of an Old Manse, is a compilation of short stories; which

"The House of the Seven Gables" is a romantic novel set in a grand and rustic, old house with seven

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a man who was both plagued and absorbed by the legacy of the Puritans in New England. He was related to John Hathorne, a Puritan judge during the infamous Salem Witch trials of 1692. In The Scarlet Letter, his fictional account of mid-17th century Boston presents an opportunity to examine different themes commonly associated with Puritans. Particularly the nature of sin, personal identity and the repression of natural urges are themes that appear repeatedly through the novel. While his account of this time period may not be completely historically accurate, it is indicative of the persistent thematic influence of Puritan culture on American and New England society.

The Scarlet Letter is a modern classic of American literature written about controversy and published with controversy. The main topic of the book, adultery, is written in a dark and sad way, as Hawthorne describes injustice, fate or predetermination and conscience ( Van Doren, 1998) . No other American novel of the time has such a controversial theme as Hawthorne's, The Scarlet Letter. The setting of Nathanial Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is the seventeenth century Puritan New England. But Hawthorne's writing for this book is heavily influenced by his own nineteenth century culture. Hawthorne strongly believed in Providence. Hawthorne was descended from the Puritan

The idea of inherited curse and sins makes one ponder the deep concept of pre-destination and free-will which is often debated upon. Whether the inherited curse was incurred upon the House and Pyncheons due to the Maule’s curse alone or was their own folly liable and blameworthy too. This perhaps is a conflicting issue of the text. One can interpret this dichotomy in both ways. Readers can see the deaths of Colonel Pyncheon, old Jaffrey Pyncheon and Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon either as a result of that inherited curse given by Mathew Maule or even due to the faults of each of them individually. The similar fashion of each death results the reader’s thinking meander into the stream of a single thought that these deaths are result of some supernatural or mystical element which is not ordinary. This supernatural element only, instill within our understanding that the characters have least agency of their destinies. This paper, hence, can comment on the fact that perhaps these happenings and deaths are not human governed and therefore lie not in their hands to