The House of the Seven Gables - April Class

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The House of the Seven Gables

Plot OutlineChapter 1-The Old Pyncheon FamilyMid-1600s, Matthew Maule builds a small

house next to a lovely, clear spring.Colonel Pyncheon accuses Maule of

witchcraft.Maule is convicted and hanged/warns that

God will give Pyncheon blood to drink.Colonel Pyncheon builds a house with

seven gables/Maule’s own son helps design and build the house.

On the day of the house’s opening, a great feast is held.

Colonel Pyncheon fails to greet his guests.They find him sitting dead at his desk/blood

coats his beard and his shirt.Future generations of the family continue

to occupy the house over the next century and a half/unable to claim a gigantic tract of land in Maine.

Thirty years before the novel a wealthy Pyncheon is murdered by one of his nephews.

The killer is convicted and jailed for lifeJudge Pyncheon builds a large house just

outside of town. The sister of the jailed Pyncheon continues to

live alone in the house of the seven gables.The Maules have somewhat faded.Some who remain are believed by

townspeople to have inherited mysterious powers from their forefather.

Outside the house of the seven gables stands a gigantic elm planted over eighty years ago by one of the earliest Pyncheons.

In a nook between two of the gables grows a cluster of flowers known as Alice’s Posies.

The house also contains a door on the front gable, leading to a little shop.

Chapter 2: The Little Shop-WindowHepzibah, who has a scowl on her face

caused by nearsightedness, spends a long time getting ready.

She has opened a little shop because of extreme poverty.

She delays opening the shop for a long while. She opens the store window and quickly runs into the living room of the house, crying.

Chapter 3: The First CustomerWe meet Holgrave, a young man of twenty-

two who makes daguerreotypes, an early kind of photograph. He tries to encourage Hepzibah.

Hepzibah overhears a conversation between two workers who are pessimistic about her business prospects.

Customers begin to come periodically starting with a little boy who buys a gingerbread man.

Chapter 4: A Day Behind the CounterJudge Jaffrey Pyncheon walks by the house

and frowns at the shop but smile at Heppzibah.

Hepzibah is visited by “Uncle Venner,” an elderly man who is known around the neighborhood as something of a character.

After Venner leaves Hepzibah has trouble concentrating on helping her customers and getting the specific items they want.

Just as she closes the shop Phoebe arrives.

Chapter 5: May and NovemberPhoebe awakens and begins to make her

space more comfortable bringing brightness to the house.

Hepzibah tells her she cannot stay because Clifford would be returning. She, however, convinces her to let her stay two weeks.

Phoebe helps out in the shop and sells almost all the stock that day.

Hepzibah and Uncle Venner discus Phoebe’s good qualities.

Hepzibah gives Phoebe a tour of the house pointing out where Colonel Pyncheon died and a harpsichord played by Phoebe’s great-great-grand-aunt, Alice Pyncheon, whose ghost is believed to still haunt the house.

She mentions Holgrave, the lodger, who seems to live by his own laws.

Chapter 6: Maule’s WellPhoebe goes to the garden and discovers that it is

decaying. She also discovers a rooster, two hens, and a chick, and she starts to feed and take care of them.

Holgrave suprises her and she shows caution when talking to him. However, she is somehow drawn to him.

He shows her some of his daguerreotypes including one that she believes is Colonel Pyncheon.

She thinks she hears Hepzibah speaking to someone. It sounds almost like human speech.

Chapter 7: The GuestPhoebe helps Hepzibah to cook a large

breakfast. The latter experiences mood swings throughout the process.

Clifford, who seems somewhat senile, joins them for breakfast.

He can’t stand to look at his sister’s face.He familiarises himself once more with the

house and seems to take a liking to sensual pleasures.

Chapter 8: The Pyncheon of To-dayWhile Phoebe is in the shop Judge

Pyncheon walks in. She recognizes him from Holgrave’s daguerreotype.

He wants to see Clifford but Hepzibah blocks the entrance.

Chapter 9: Clifford and PhoebeHepzibah comes to realise that she

repulses Clifford.Phoebe becomes the sole source of

happiness for the two elders.In the shop, too, Phoebe continues to be an

asset, and most customers prefer her to Hepzibah.

Chapter 10: The Pyncheon-GardenPhoebe spends time with Clifford in the garden

(which she cares for, along with Holgrave).Hepzibah has begun arranging Sunday-

afternoon lunches with Phoebe, Clifford, Holgrave, and Uncle Venner.

On one such occasion, Uncle Venner mentions that he dreams of eventually retiring to the workhouse, which he refers to as the “farm,” and Clifford insinuates that he has bigger, more ambitious plans for Uncle Venner.

Chapter 11: The Arched WindowHoping to lighten Clifford’s mood, Phoebe

often takes him to the window of the front gable, which looks out onto the street.

One day an organ-grinder, who works with a monkey and a moving diorama, begins playing in front of the Pyncheon house.

Another day, a procession passes through the streets – Clifford suddenly steps onto the windowsill and seems about to jump off.

On Sunday, the entire town turns out for church, as does Phoebe.

Clifford suggests to Hepzibah that perhaps they too could go to church. They dress and walk out the door, but then immediately stop. They cannot make themselves go farther.

Another afternoon, Clifford amuses himself by blowing bubbles out the window, only to have one land on Judge Pyncheon, who looks up to the window and makes a slightly sarcastic comment to Clifford before moving on. It’s a brief exchange, but it leaves Clifford paralyzed by fear.

Chapter 12: The DaguerreotypistPhoebe becomes friends with Holgrave, the

daguerreotypist. Phoebe discovers that Holgrave, at the age

of twenty-two, has already lived a diverse life

His ideas unnerve Phoebe.Holgrave is wrongly convinced that he can

read Phoebe like an open book.

Chapter 13: Alice PyncheonThis chapter is the text of Holgrave’s story about

the Pyncheon curse, which he reads aloud to Phoebe.

Gervayse Pyncheon, the grandson of Colonel Pyncheon, summons a carpenter named Matthew Maule, the grandson of the same Matthew Maule who placed the curse on the Pyncheon family.

Gervayse wants Matthew to tell him where the deed for the extensive piece of land is.

He promises Maule the house in exchange for the deed.

Maule requests the presence of Alice Pyncheon, Gervayse’s daughter, to assist in the acquisition of the deed.

Maule uses Alice as a medium to contact the spirits of Colonel Pyncheon, the older Matthew Maule, and his own father. In Alice’s vision, the two Maule spirits physically restrain the ghost of the Colonel from divulging the document’s location, and he is so choked with his own secret that he begins to cough up blood.

He tells Pyncheon to keep the house of the seven gables and glories in the fact that he now has control over Alice.

Over the next few years he has her at his beck and call until he unintentionally kills her.

Chapter 14: Phoebe’s Good ByeWhen Holgrave finishes the story he

realises that he has “mesmerized” Phoebe; however, he does not take advantage of the situation.

The discuss Hepzibah and Clifford.Then Phoebe returns home for a while.

Chapter 15: The Scowl and SmileThe absence of Phoebe and a lingering

storm make the house a dreary place.That same day Judge Pyncheon has come

to pay his two cousins another visit.He wants to see Clifford as he believes he

knows the whereabouts of the deed. However, Hepzibah refuses.

Finally, the Judge threatens to have Clifford locked up in an asylum if he does not divulge the secret.

Chapter 16: Clifford’s ChamberHepzibah delays going to get Clifford.When she finally enters he is not there.She searches everywhere then finally resorts

to asking the Judge for assistance in locating him, but the Judge remains motionless in his chair in the parlour regardless of how loudly Hepzibah yells.

Suddenly, Clifford appears proclaiming their freedom while pointing inside the room.

At Clifford’s insistence they flee the house.

Chapter 17: The Flight of Two OwlsClifford and Hepzibah flee the house of the

seven gables, worried that they will be implicated in the death of Judge Pyncheon.

They board a train, and an old gentleman sitting on the other side of their passenger car strikes up a conversation with Clifford.

Chapter 18: Governor PyncheonJudge Pyncheon is both spoken of and

directly addressed in this chapter, as if the man were not dead but merely asleep or meditating in his chair.

The narrator lists a number of things the Judge had planned for the day including a dinner party at which the Judge had planned to get himself nominated as a candidate for governor of Massachusetts.

A solemn march of ghosts begins.Among them is the Judge’s own son, whom

he has long ago disowned. The novel wonders what the son is doing here—if he is dead, then the Judge’s property will go to Clifford and Hepzibah.

The Judge continues to sit slumped in his chair, and the novel’s reverie is interrupted by the tinkling of the shop bell.

Chapter 19: Alice’s PosiesAlice’s Posies, the flowers that grow in the

dust between two gables, have bloomed.Several merchants and customers call at

the house but receive no reply.Phoebe returns, as good and bright as ever.The door opens a crack and slams shut

once she has entered.

Chapter 20: The Flower of EdenHolgrave informs Phoebe of the events that

took place. Holgrave tells Phoebe that he has not told

the police or called witnesses because he knows that to do so would implicate the absent Clifford and Hepzibah, and he hopes that the two return soon.

They profess their love for each other.At that moment Clifford and Hepzibah

return.

Chapter 21: The DepartureThe death of the Judge reveals some past

secrets.The death of old Jaffrey Pyncheon thirty or

forty years before was dismissed by doctors as an accident, but circumstances made it seem suspicious, and the suspicion fell on Clifford.

Unbeknownst to him, the Judge’s son has died of cholera in Europe, and his inheritance now goes to Clifford, who decides to move to the Judge’s lavish estate with Hepzibah, Phoebe, Holgrave and Uncle Venner.

Holgrave, by pushing a hidden spring that knocks the Colonel’s portrait to the floor, reveals an ancient parchment entitling the Pyncheons to the giant tract of land in Maine. This is now useless.

Holgrave adds that he knows about the spring because he is a Maule, and that the parchment was hidden by the older Matthew Maule’s son when he built the house.

The two workmen comment that the world works in mysterious ways, and as Uncle Venner walks past the house of the seven gables, he thinks he hears the strains of Alice Pyncheon’s harpsichord.

CHARACTERISATIONHepzibah PyncheonPhoebe PyncheonHolgrave MauleClifford PyncheonJudge Pyncheon

Hepzibah Pyncheon