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Domesticity In Hawthorne's The House Of The Seven Gables

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The House of the Seven Gables has often been described as containing “domestic” ideas, and many readers have noted that Hawthorne draws on his own personal cult of domesticity in patterning Phoebe after his wife Sophia. But when we isolate the particular conventions of the domestic novel, we can see the great extent to which The House of the Seven Gables resemble this popular genre in its plot, characters, setting, and imagery. Most importantly, Hawthorne’s story embodies the primary ideology of the cult of domesticity: the value of love and human relationships as opposed to materialism and self centeredness.
Modern readings of the novel often concentrate on this static nature of the house. But reading more closely with a domestic lense, we see just how the plot focuses on two female characters. After the novels historical introduction, the narrative opens with Hepzibah, who dominates the action for three chapters until Phoebe arrives. A common complaint about Phoebe is that we have not seen enough of her to prepare us for her pivotal role in the novel's conclusion, but looking at the narrative structure we can see how she unobtrusively controls the action. Chapters 5-14 all depict Phoebe's interacting in turn with each of the …show more content…

A domestic analysis of House of the Seven Gables may suggest a new way to approach the troublesome question of the novel's conclusion. The marriage of Phoebe and Holgrave, the new affluence of the three Pyncheons, and everyone's removal to the late Judge’s country house pose significant critical problems. Hawthorne appears to begin with a story that condemns the past, aristocratic ideology, and isolation and to conclude having all of the characters embrace these corrupted values. Was Hawthorne merely having all the characters embrace these corrupted values? Was Hawthorne merely uncomfortably giving in to public demand for a happy ending? Or is the ending an ironic condemnation of Holgrave and

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