The narrator of this passage from The House of Seven Gables reveals the character of Judge Pyncheon through tone, selection of detail, and his point of view. The tone of the passage is ironic; for example, the narrator states that the Judge is a person of “eminent respectability” but the narrator really feels quite the opposite about the Judge. The selection of detail reinforces this point. The narrator lists characteristics that are seemingly good and upright about Judge Pyncheon, but do not actually tell anyone anything about who he really is. For example the reader is told that the Judge is treasurer of an Orphan’s and Widows fund, it does not say a lot about him, it would be better to know he gave money to the fund. At the opening and the ending of the passage, the narrator gives the reader his own negative point of view about Judge Pyncheon’s character.
             The ironic tone of this passage and the long list of good deeds suggests to the reader that, on the outside, Judge Pyncheon seems pure. In actuality he is not, rather he is a cold, rigid man. The reader sees this by the way that the judge “cast[s] off an expensive and dissipated son, delaying forgiveness until within a final quarter of an hour of the young man’s life.” All of Judge’s Pyncheon’s exemplary achievements, listed by the narrator, are all external things rather than achievements reflecting inner goodness. For example, the Judge produces two types of pears, and a type of a bull. These accomplishments tell the reader nothing about what Judge Pyncheon is really like. The lists explain Judge Pyncheon in an ironic light of purity, but, again, all that is listed is external. “The purity of his judicial character,” and the “snowy whiteness of his linen” are both things that seem pure, upright and good. The narrator i!
             s trying to tell the reader through these things that Judge Pyncheon may seem...