In the early 19th century, many New England writers sensed dark undercurrents in their countrymen’s increasing materialism and secularism (Madsen, 229).  In response, Hawthorne reminded his readers of their Puritan heritage – “as a consequence of original sin and predestination, human beings are equal in depravity and thus joined in a brotherhood of sinners within a democratic society” (Bluestein, 196).  Such depravity would be kept in check by a covenant-based society, the secular law of which compelled members to behave towards each other in keeping with the Bible, with particular emphasis on the Ten Commandments (Zanger, 471). Hawthorne, well-versed in these Puritan ideals, incorporated them into much of his writing, including The House of The Seven Gables(House) (Mills, 78-9).

In the preface, itself contractual in tone (Castiglia, 4410), Hawthorne states House is a romance, a “fictional story” relating “improbable adventures of idealized characters” using “allegory … rather than realism” to achieve its purpose (Baldick, 291). Set in Salem, Massachusetts (where Hawthorne was born and raised), House features an inherited curse, family secrets, and a spooky old mansion. Its purpose is to portray how “the wrongdoing of one generation lives into the successive ones” (Hawthorne, 5). My essay explores how Biblical allegory, or the Bible as a symbolic vehicle of the imagination (Madsen, 230), achieves Hawthorne’s stated purpose.

We start with the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-3, during which the “holiest” of the community circled the gallows loudly, applauding the “work of blood” (Hawthorne, 11). It had been easy work. Witches, known by the ancient Sumerians as “connoisseurs of slander”, had long been associated with evil and sin (Soden, 200).  The Mosaic Law delivered by God to the Israelites, along with the Ten Commandments, picks up on this: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (Exodus 22:18 KJV).  Perhaps Colonel Pyncheon, the ancestral patriarch of the fictional family whose fortunes House follows, fancied himself following the rules when he “sought the condemnation” of his long-term enemy, Old Matthew Maule, as a witch. Unfortunately, in doing so, the Colonel broke several of the Ten Commandments himself. Because he coveted Maule’s house (Exodus 20:17) – or, in this case, the land upon which that house rested so that he might build his own new house there, Pyncheon bore false witness against his neighbour (Exodus 20:16), who was, as a result, wrongly killed (Exodus 20:13). With the “reputed wizard’s death”, Colonel Pyncheon knew the man’s humble homestead would fall – an easy spoil – into his “grasp” (Hawthorne, 11), and so it did. This contravenes Exodus 20:15, which prohibits stealing. Little wonder that at the moment of his execution, Old Matthew Maule, well aware of Pyncheon’s intentions, points his finger at the Colonel and, “with a ghastly look,” utters the curse – “God will give him blood to drink”, likely referencing Revelation 16:16 KJV – “For those that have shed the blood of saints and prophets will have blood to drink.”

Whilst digging the foundation for Pyncheon’s new house – the house of the Seven Gables – a ‘family mansion – spacious, ponderously framed of oaken timber, and calculated to endure for many generations” – the water in Maule’s Well, once “delicious” and of “pristine quality” grew “hard and brackish” (Hawthorne, 11-12), likely referring to Revelation 16: 3-4, wherein with the second and third of the seven angels breaking their vials, the earth’s waters become blood or as blood and thus unusable. Some believed this the first in a series of events that would fulfil the curse, perhaps in line with the Biblical book of Revelation and with good reason: ancient Near East curses invoking gods to strike down and punish enemies did so in line with religious beliefs about those gods (Maraqten, 189-90) and the Puritans were Christian. Next, in contravention of Exodus 20: 10 (prohibiting work on the seventh day), the Colonel holds a grand housewarming party on Sunday and is found dead by his guests in his “oaken elbow-chair” with an “unnatural distortion” in his stare and so much “blood on his ruff” (Hawthorne, 13-17). Ought we to believe this next in a series of events in keeping with Old Matthew Maule’s curse? Salem’s good men and women certainly did (Hawthorne, 17).

What happens next? If Beebe (8) is correct in suggesting that the house of the Seven Gables, which lends its name to the title of Hawthorne’s romance, functions as the central character of that romance, a unity unto itself “as if the house stood in a desert, or, by some spell, was made invisible to those who dwelt around, or passed beside it” (Hawthorne, 174) – then for clues, we must look to the house itself.  Although Hawthorne never reveals why this house has seven gables, I suggest it is because the number seven represents divine perfection, totality, and completion, as, in Genesis 2, God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh (Saaty, 358). What could complete the biblical narrative commencing in Genesis better than Revelation, the final book of that narrative, the structure of which, arguably, is seven-fold (Smith, 373)?

Fast forward to the seventh generation of the Pyncheon family still in possession of the house (Hawthorne, 199): (1) Hepzibah, the wizened old maid living in aristocratic poverty, (2) her feeble brother, Clifford, recently released from thirty years in prison for a murder he did not commit, (3) young cousin Phoebe, whose “sweet breath and happy thoughts” could “purify all former evil” (perhaps referring to Romans 16:1-2 KJV, where Paul commended “Phebe” – “a servant of the church”, for her compassion and practical service), (4) Holgrave, a border who, unknown to all but himself, is the last of Old Matthew Maule’s descendants and finally, (5) Judge Pyncheon, a clone of old Colonel Pyncheon – “here is the old Pyncheon come again!” (Hawthorne, 20). Unfortunately, the “similarity, intellectual and moral, between the judge and his ancestor” was “at least as strong as the resemblance of mien and feature” (Hawthorne 90-1). To wit, in breach of Exodus 20:17, Judge Pyncheon had coveted the fortune Clifford stood to inherit from their uncle, then stole (Exodus:15) the uncle’s will in Clifford’s favour, and finally covered his misdeeds by ensuring Clifford went to prison for the murder of their uncle, whose death had been accidental (bearing false witness, Exodus 20:16).

We enjoy a glimpse of the story’s final denouement when Holgrave “forbade himself” to forge the final “link” that, through mesmerisation (a “tendency” in his “blood”), would have given him complete “mastery” over Phoebe’s “free and virgin spirit” as one of his ancestors had tragically done to one of Phoebe’s ancestors (Hawthorne, 152-153).  In a display of his “integrity”, Holgrave instead informs Phoebe that the “drama which, for almost two hundred years, has been dragging its slow length” will soon end (Hawthorne, 156). But Holgrave, who is “somewhat of a mystic”, warns Phoebe that, although his “motives and intentions” remain a “mystery”, Judge Pyncheon “still keeps his eye on Clifford” and since the Judge is a “determined” and “relentless” man some “misfortune” remains “impending” (Hawthorne, 157). 

While Phoebe is away, Judge Pyncheon appears, saying that he will return Clifford to prison unless Clifford reveals the great family secret that will make the Judge even wealthier (Hawthorne, 168). Despite Hepzibah’s pleas that Clifford knows no such secret, the Judge sits in the same “oaken elbow-chair” where old Colonel Pyncheon died and demands to see Clifford. Shortly afterwards, when Hepzibah and Clifford find the Judge dead in circumstances similar to those in which the housewarming party guests two centuries earlier found the Colonel, they flee the house.  At midnight, when the house is empty, the dead Pyncheons “come out of their graves” to gather in a “fantastic scene” in the parlour (Hawthorne, 198-200). Is this in keeping with Revelation 20:12-13, depicting the resurrection of the dead raised for final judgment? Are the “ghostly” Pyncheons seeking redemption of sorts as, one by one, they touch the “odious” portrait of their ancestor, Old Colonel Pyncheon, behind which they know lies that great family secret, the secret to the family’s long-lost fortune?

Alas, it is too late for the ghostly Pyncheons; like them, their fortune is past its prime. But those remaining will enjoy a “change of fortune” (Hawthorne, 223). The recently deceased Colonel’s immense wealth, including his “elegant country seat” (perhaps suggesting the holy city, new Jerusalem, in Revelation 21), passes to Hepzibah, Clifford, Phoebe, and Holgrave, now engaged to marry Phoebe. As these four drive away to their new home, leaving behind the house of the Seven Gables, a neighbour remarks, “If you choose to call it luck, it is all very well; but if we are to take it as the will of Providence, why I can’t exactly fathom it!” But we can. Although Hawthorne never specifies the curse is broken, we realize the story’s conclusion carries its own redemption – a release from the burdens of the past. Old Matthew Maule’s curse has run its course, just as we learn from Revelation 22:3 that God’s curse in Genesis 3:17-19 in response to original sin, has ended. So, with the seventh generation of the Pyncheon family, we achieve divine perfection, totality, and completion – “the flower of Eden has bloomed” (Hawthorne, 219). I would also like to think that the brotherhood of sinners bound together in depravity has also been disbursed.

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