7 Gables Book Report

The story springs from the actions of Colonel Pyncheon, whose mysterious death seems to have been a direct result of his prior evil conduct. He built The House of the Seven Gables on a plot of land that he had wrongly taken from Matthew Maule in Salem, Massachusetts. Maule, who, was hung during the Salem witch hunts in 1692 for allegedly practicing witchcraft, suspected Colonel Pyncheon of encouraging the persecution so that he could take his property. Colonel Pyncheon’s evil scheming would be the root of the curse that would loom with the Pyncheon family. Hepzibah Pyncheon, an aging spinster, inherits the house that Colonel Pyncheon had built and opens a small cent shop in the face of growing impoverishment. The house has lost all its former grandeur and presents a dismal appearance. Hepzibah allows the bright-spirited17-year-old Phoebe Pyncheon to come live in the house along with an artist, Holgrave, who occupies one of the gables and is a descendant of Matthew Maule, the old enemy of the Pyncheons. Holgrave is an artist, and he and Phoebe fall in love. Phoebe “is like a ray of sunshine flooding a dark corner.” She signifies the future hope of the Pyncheon family and eventually marries Holgrave. The se

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How Does He Reflect The Attitudes of his Time Period?

As I mentioned previously, it is evident that Hawthorne had a very different view from some of the popular attitudes of his time. In Europe, a person's position had a great deal to do with heredity, and couldn't vanish with the loss of money. In the spring of 1850, he moved to Lennox, Massachusetts where he began writing The House of the Seven Gables, which was less somber than The Scarlet Letter. A hidden spring releases the frame and reveals a hiding place where the now useless deed to the territory in Maine has been for two hundred years. The effect of Hawthorne's creation of isolated and withdrawn characters, and his probing of the psychology that led to their alienation, may now be seen in the novels of such various writers as Henry James, William Faulkner, Albert Camus, and Robert Penn Warren. ” With the development of this facet of his plot, Hawthorne sheds some light on the social structure of early America. ” Through Hawthorne’s main works, a new idea emerged that came to contrast the views of that age.

People were optimistic about the capability of human nature to lead us in the right direction. And so it was difficult for him to share in the expectations of a "new" world when what he saw was the past visiting its sins upon the present.

How Did This Book/Author Affect His Time Period?

Hawthorne’s novel, The House of the Seven Gables, has had great significance in the world of historical literature since it was published. The Marble Faun was published in 1860

. At the time, the mood in America was generally liberal and optimistic. cret of the portrait of Colonel Pyncheon is explained at last. Hawthorne also brings light to the Salem Witch Trials that took place in the 1690s by examining some of the forces that may have motivated people to purge their communities of “evil and possessed beings.

Approximate Word count = 902
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

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