than we think; it exists, indeed, among different classes of organized life, and vibrates

from one to another. Loosely based on the events of Hawthorne’s own

life, The House of the Seven Gables attempts to show the suffering of descendants forced

to repent for the sins of their “father”, while they are unknowingly renewing the curse by

nurturing the ancestral greed that has passed through the generations. Thus the various themes of the novel reflect the central idea of continued sin through the greed and guilt of a declining family.

Each generation struggles to escape the sins of the past, only to be thrust

forcefully back to face the offenses of their forefathers. The House of the Seven Gables

is a tale of loneliness and greed caused by the sin of preceding generations. The opening

of the novel is set in puritan times during the Salem witch hunts. The villainous Colonel

Pyncheon wrongly accused the innocent Matthew Maule of witchcraft so that the Maule

land would fall into the Pyncheon family’s hands. Upon his death, Maule “addressed

[Colonel Pyncheon] from the scaffold, and uttered a prophecy...God will give him blood

Holgrave, the last descendant of the Maule lineage, also represents a force of

The imagery of Alice’s garden hints to the condition of the characters’ psyches.

Phoebe remains ignorant to this notion, stating that she is “no angel”, but “people never

grasp”. What Hawthorne saw handed down through the generations were not material

Some topics in this essay:
Hepzibah Clifford, Jeffrey Hepzibah, Clifford Pyncheon, Interbreeding Colonel’s, Seven Gables, Holgrave Jeffrey, Matthew Maule, FO Matthiessen, Colonel Pyncheon, Hepzibah Clifford’s, hepzibah clifford, colonel pyncheon, house seven gables, matthew maule, house seven, jeffrey pyncheon, seven gables, clifford hepzibah, “pyncheon territory”, house hearts, pyncheon family’s, marriage phoebe holgrave, hepzibah clifford pyncheon, descendant maule lineage,