The House of Seven Gables is a Transcendental plus Gothic novel in one, built up of many expressive details in which creates the very figurative story. Nathaniel Hawthorne in The House of Seven Gables, reveals symbols through descriptive characterization of the many protagonists. These main characters of Hepzibah, Clifford, Judge Jaffrey and Phoebe Pyncheon as well as young Holgrave Maule and the deceased Colonel Pyncheon and Matthew Maule, are more than just names created to tell a story, but yet pieces of the meaning of the puzzle that Nathaniel Hawthorne assembled. They are all figures rather than characters-they are all pictures rather than persons ( James, 312). Indeed they are all figures, in which through they tell a story as well as existing for a purpose.
             Colonel Pyncheon, the Puritan ancestor of the present characters in the novel, can be summed up as a person who is a greedy, selfish beast. He symbolizes the evil that has been brought upon the Pyncheon house because of his desire for a petty piece of land. One may ask whether or not he was sincere about wanting this land, or if that was just the kind of person he was. The reader ponders over whether he really desired the land or if he just had a strong hatred for Matthew Maule and wished him out of the picture. Colonel Pyncheon's portrait is still in tact over a century and a half later when the story takes place. His picture hangs on the wall of the parlor in the House of Seven Gables, looking distrustfully over the inhabitants of the house.
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