"[The] sympathy or magnetism among human beings is more subtle and universal
than we think; it exists, indeed, among different classes of organized life, and vibrates
from one to another" (Hawthorne 178). 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 (O' Connor 6) .
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
to drink" (Hawthorne 4-5) . The physical wrongdoing of Colonel Pyncheon against
Matthew Maule was avenged at the former's death, with the curse being fulfilled.
However, the essence of the crime lived on through the generations.
By chapter two, the focus of the novel has shifted to the modern generations of
the Pyncheon family. The family has severely declined since the Colonel's time, yet the
curse of greed is as strong as ever. The remains of the family consist of a decrepit
spinster named Hepzibah, now the caretaker of the house of the seven gables; her insane
brother Clifford, who was just recentl...