preview

Examples Of Gothic In The House Of The Seven Gables

Decent Essays

Hawthorne’s Treatment Of The Gothic In The House Of Seven Gables

Hawthorne is renowned for his use of psychological analysis in his works, and the reason behind this fame is quite evident in ‘The House of the Seven Gables’. An immensely powerful example of Hawthorne’s psychological perspicacity is what Marilyn R Chandler calls ‘the parallel between the house and the human psyche’: “the grand edifice represses—literally shoves underground—the secret that will become its curse.” (Chandler 82) In 1850, a few months before the publication of ‘The House of the Seven Gables’, Herman Melville reviewed ‘Mosses from an Old Manse’, a short story collection by Hawthorne, in his essay, ‘Hawthorne and his Mosses’. Melville lavished immense praise on Hawthorne, …show more content…

This change is very much evident in ‘The House of the Seven Gables’. The dark, decaying, claustrophobic mansion - ‘conceived in the grotesqueness of a Gothic fantasy’, ‘the scene of events more full of human interest, perhaps, than those of a gray, feudal castle’ - at once establishes itself as the central symbol of the novel and imparts an unmistakably Gothic flavour to the narrative. The image of the compass is invoked in relation with the house in the very first sentence of the story - it is as if Hawthorne’s language, too, is carefully calibrated to reinforce the idea of the house as the centre, the essence of the romance, and the one constant presence in the lives of the principal characters. Confusing in its size, with ‘foot worn passageway(s)’, ‘crazy doors’ and a ‘creaking staircase’, the house serves as a pole star for the reader, helping her to navigate her way through the narrative, as early all events - present and past - of the narrative take place within the house, or with the house as the backdrop. Phoebe arrives at the house, and leaves, only to come back for good. Holgrave, the daguerreotypist, having led a nomadic life, finds refuge underneath the seven gables. Hepzibah and Clifford flee in haste, and return, weak and weary, drawn …show more content…

All veils are lifted towards the end, however. Judge Pyncheon is proved to have died of entirely natural causes. With the death of the Judge, the grasping, greedy nature of the Pyncheons - their fatal flaw, if you will - that set in motion the entire unfortunate chain of events, is shown to vanish too. The curse that hung over each successive generation of the Pyncheons is rendered hollow by the union of Holgrave and Phoebe, and the strange realm of witchcraft is also subverted by the slightly more credible science of mesmerism. The aura of the uncanny starts to dissipate, and is finally dispelled with the help of reasonable, rational explanations centred in the realm of the mundane, and psychological justification wherein lies Hawthorne’s specialty. Lionel Trilling, in ‘Our Hawthorne’, also appreciates Hawthorne’s unmatched skill in this sphere: “Many of the tales, or romances as he thought of them, are multi-levelled, ironic explorations of the human psyche - capable of endless extensions of meaning and of stimulating repeated analysis and interpretation.” (Trilling

Get Access