The House of the Seven Gables is a novel written in 1851 by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is a recognized classic of American literature.
The house
The novel begins:
- Halfway down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. The street is Pyncheon Street; the house is the old Pyncheon House; and an elm-tree, of wide circumference, rooted before the door, is familiar to every town-born child by the title of the Pyncheon Elm.
The Pyncheon family actually existed and were ancestors of American novelist Thomas Pynchon.[1]
The House of the Seven Gables in Salem, Massachusetts - today a museum accompanying a settlement house - was at one time owned by Hawthorne's cousin, Susanna Ingersoll, and she entertained him there often. Its seven-gabled state was known only to Hawthorne through childhood stories from his cousin and, at the time of his visits, he would have only seen three gables due to architectural renovations. Reportedly, Ingersoll inspired Hawthorne to write the novel, though Hawthorne also stated that the book was a work of complete fiction, based on no particular house.[2]
Plot summary
The novel is set mainly in the mid-19th century, with glimpses into the history of the house, which was built in the late 17th century. The primary interest of this book is in the subtle and involved descriptions of character and motive.
The house of the title is a gloomy New England mansion, haunted from its foundation by fraudulent dealings, accusations of witchcraft, and sudden death. The current resident, the dignified but desperately poor Hepzibah Pyncheon, opens a shop in a side room to support her brother Clifford, who is about to leave prison after serving thirty years for murder. She refuses all assistance from her unpleasant wealthy cousin Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon. A distant relative, the lively and pretty young Phoebe, turns up and quickly becomes invaluable, charming customers and rousing Clifford from depression. A delicate romance grows between Phoebe and the mysterious lodger Holgrave, who is writing a history of the Pyncheon family.
An organ grinder's visit disturbs the ex-convict's fragile grasp on reality. Judge Pyncheon threatens to have Clifford committed, but his true purpose is to gain access to the house to search for a lost land deed. Hepzibah and Clifford escape on a train (then a very modern form of transport) after the judge dies unexpectedly in the house. However, they soon return, to Phoebe's relief. Events from past and present throw light on the circumstances which sent Clifford to prison, proving his innocence. The novel ends with the characters leaving the old house to start a new life, free of the burdens of the past.
Characters
- Hepzibah Pyncheon - Hepzibah is an unmarried older woman, a descendant of the Pyncheon who built the house of the title. She is from a high-society class but destitute. At the beginning of the novel, she has opened a cent-shop in the first floor of the house because of the financial ruin of the family.
- Holgrave - a daguerreotypist who boards at the house who, unbeknownst to any of the other characters, is a descendant of the original Matthew Maule. (Who had been hanged as a witch at the instigation of the original Colonel Jaffrey Pyncheon, in order to thereby steal the land upon which the house was built.)
- Phoebe Pyncheon - a young cousin of Hepzibah's, Phoebe has grown up in the country without airs. She shows up, intending to stay a couple of weeks. She immediatedly wins over the Pyncheons and their neighbors with her natural charm and vivaciousness.
- Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon - He is a well-to-do judge and political aspirant who lives on a comfortable estate out of town. In appearance and character he so strongly resembles the "original" Colonel Pyncheon, who built the house, that some people mistake portraits of the ancestor for the descendant. In fact, he is just as vicious and unrelenting as his ancestor in his hunt for a lost land deed, the purported source of new wealth for the desolute Pyncheon clan.
- Clifford Pyncheon - Clifford is Hepzibah's elderly, nearly bed-ridden brother who comes to live in the house after being released from prison, where he was serving a sentence for the alleged murder of his uncle; but as it turns out, he was framed by his own cousin, Jaffrey.
- Uncle Venner - A jovial old man (he is, in fact, even older than Hebzipah) who is the only neighbor to the Pyncheons still in good standings with them.
- Ned Higgins - A young precocious boy who drops by Hebzipah's cent shop every now and then to deplete her supply of gingerbread cookies.
Major themes
Hawthorne, frequently haunted by the sins of his ancestors in the Salem witch trials, examines guilt, retribution, and atonement in this novel. His Pyncheon family carries a great burden — for almost 200 years — as a result of the dishonest, amoral way that the land on which the titular house sits was acquired. In the Preface to the novel, he states that its moral is that "the wrongdoing of one generation lives into the successive ones and... becomes a pure and uncontrollable mischief."
Publication history and response
The House of the Seven Gables was Hawthorne's follow-up to his highly successful novel The Scarlet Letter. It took him ten months to write it, completing it in early 1851.[3] After its publication, Hawthorne said, "It sold finely and seems to have pleased a good many people".[4]
Influence
The novel was an inspiration for horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, who called it "New England's greatest contribution to weird literature" in his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature". Seven Gables likely influenced Lovecraft's short stories "The Picture in the House", "The Shunned House" and novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.[5]
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
The novel was notably adapted for the screen in 1940 with Margaret Lindsay as Hepzibah, George Sanders as Jaffrey and Vincent Price as Clifford. It was directed by Joe May with a screenplay by Lester Cole.[6] There was also a silent short in 1910 and a remake in 1967. It was also adapted (loosely) as one of the three stories in the 1963 film, Twice-Told Tales [1], along with Rappaccini's Daughter and Dr, Heidigger's Experiment. All three sections featured Vincent Price.
References
- ^ Joseph A. Conforti, Imagining New England: Explorations of Regional Identity from the Pilgrims to the Mid-Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 248-62.
- ^ Joseph A. Conforti, Imagining New England: Explorations of Regional Identity from the Pilgrims to the Mid-Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 248-62.
- ^ Stern, Milton R., Introduction to "The House of the Seven Gables", Viking Penguin Inc, 1981. p. vii.
- ^ McFarland, Philip. Hawthorne in Concord. New York: Grove Press, 2004. p. 137. ISBN 0802117767
- ^ S.T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, p. 107.
- ^ The House of the Seven Gables at IMDB
External links
Online editions
Study Guides
Essays
