Essay, Research Paper: Hawthorne's HOSG "Hepzibah As Heroine"

Nathaniel Hawthorne, lauded as one of America's greatest novelists, creates a literary masterpiece in his favorite work, The House of Seven Gables. Hawthorne, famous for his technique as well as his Puritan morality, introduces characters rich in background, and detailed in every way. His characterizations are so life-like, in fact, that the book's success rests upon the shoulders of the Pyncheons and the Maules whose lives revolve around the House of the Seven Gables. In a large, stately home we find the Pyncheon family, descendants of a strict Puritan heritage. The house itself becomes a character, because it symbolizes the values and feelings of those inside. "The aspect of the venerable mansion has always affected me like a human countenance, bearing the traces not merely of outward storm and sunshine, but expressive also, of the long lapse of mortal life, and accompanying vicissitudes that have passed within." (11) Hawthorne describes the house as symbolic of the Pyncheon family that resides within, with its "shadowy and thoughtful gloom," and its "scattered shavings, chips and shingles." (17) The story begins in the 17th century, when the Pyncheons settled in Salem under the watchful eye of their patriarch, the avaricious Colonel Pyncheon. The land on which the house stands did not belong to the Colonel, rather, it was a possession of the Maule family, long settled in Salem. When Colonel Pyncheon found the land to his liking, he brought Matthew Maule, the rightful owner of the land, up on witchcraft charges. Because of fear of witches in Salem throughout this epoch, Maule was executed summarily, and the land was taken by Colonel Pyncheon, who spent countless hours and dollars on the construction of his new home. When its seven gables were complete, he decided to celebrate, inviting the entire town. On the day of the gala, the colonel was found dead, killed by the curse of Matthew Maule and his family. "The iron-hearted Puritan, the relentless persecutor, the grasping and strong-willed man, was dead!" (20) At the time Hawthorne begins his story, the House of the Seven Gables, after being passed down as a fateful heirloom, is inhabited by four people, one of whom is not a Pyncheon. These characters include Phoebe, a young country girl with bright spirits, Clifford, a feeble-minded old man, Holgrave, a young daguerrotypist renting a gable, and Hepzibah, the quasi-matriarch forced to earn her bread in a small cent-shop. All of these characters are bound by two things: the gloomy curse of the house in which they inhabit, and the evil atmosphere created by Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon, Hepzibah's cousin, who is a vestige of the late Colonel Pyncheon, greedy and manipulative in every way. The four characters who live on Pyncheon Street are constantly reminded of the morbid past that haunts their home, and Maule's curse indeed has a deadening effect on all of them. For example, Clifford, after only a few days in the house, is drawn to the windowsill and comes inches from flinging himself over the balcony, in order to escape the dreary, gloomy lifestyle he experiences. Much like Hawthorne's other famous novel, the Scarlet Letter, the true personalities of the characters only come out when they are faced with hardship. All of the characters in the novel are heroes in one way or another. Yet we find the true heroine of the novel in Hepzibah, the old maid whose only joy in life is her feeble-minded brother. Hepzibah is a heroine because her love for Clifford pushes her to courage and strength, and ultimately, to escape from the House of Seven Gables.
In order to understand how much of a hero Hepzibah truly becomes at the end of the House of Seven Gables, one must look at her trials and tribulations throughout the novel. Hepzibah Pyncheon endures the worst melancholy that the curse she lives with has to offer, including poverty, a daily monotony, and the burden of caring for a feeble older brother, Clifford. "Inaudible, consequently, were poor Miss Hepzibah's gusty sighs. Inaudible the creaking joints of her stiffened knees, as she knelt down by the bedside. And inaudible too, by mortal ear, that almost agony of prayer… Evidently this is to be a day of more than ordinary trial for Miss Hepzibah, who, for above a quarter of a century gone by, has dwelt in strict seclusion, taking no part in the business of life, and just as little in its intercourse or pleasures. Not with such fervor prays the torpid recluse, looking forward to the cold, sunless, stagnant calm of a day that it to be like innumerable yesterdays!" (33) Hawthorne introduces the quintessential old maid as lifeless, weary woman, whose days repeat themselves. Indeed, her daily life is a bore. Sleep, eat, and the occasional day of work in the garden are all that occupies her time. She is, as a result of both the house and Maule's curse, an insipid old hag. There is no sunshine in any part of her day because she does not venture outside the melancholic house, and is consequently an unhappy person. Hawthorne describes her as "torpid," and "stagnant," and it is hard to imagine how such a miser could possibly become a hero. This is actually one of the novel's greatest qualities - the unforeseen heroine. At the beginning of the novel, and throughout the book, the reader sees Hepzibah as both torpid and stagnant, an unlikely candidate for a hero. However, as the novel progresses, the reader becomes aware of Hepzibah's moral progress - her subtle transition into a heroine. Not only is Hepzibah faced with a daily monotony filled with the darkness and gloom of the house, but she is also faced with a more practical problem: the lack of money. For years, the Pyncheon family had lived off the wealth of their patriarch, the illustrious Colonel Pyncheon. His savings, however, has slowly dwindled away, leaving Hepzibah and her immediate family with little or nothing in the bank. The banal old woman, therefore, is forced to earn her own bread, going against the traditions set by her great-great grandfather decades before. "Poverty, treading closely at her heels for a lifetime, has come up with her at last. She must earn her own food, or starve! And we have stolen upon Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon, too irreverently, at the instant of time when the patrician lady is to be transformed into the plebeian woman." (39) Her financial tribulations cannot only be accounted to the fact that she has no money, rather, one must also note that at one point, she had money, and was never taught how to earn it. It is her former nobility that impedes her progress at this point in the novel. Had she been raised like a commoner, she would have learned how to set up a proper shop, and to earn money accordingly. In any case, as inexpensive as her torpid life would seem to be, Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon is in dire need of sustenance, so she sets up a small cent-shop in the House of Seven Gables. However, her entrepreneurial aspirations are held back by numerous things, one of which being the house in which she lives. The first difficulty in setting up the cent-shop is the simple idea of competition. "The business of keeping cent-shops is overdone, like all other kinds of trade, handicraft, and bodily labor… there is another cent-shop right around the corner." (47) It is obvious how difficult it will be for Hepzibah to succeed when the business of cent-shops is not in demand. However, competition is not the only obstacle the old maid faces; people, and would-be customers, are genuinely frightened by her melancholic disposition. Hawthorne recounts the conversation of two laborers on Pyncheon street, discussing the failure of Hepzibah's cent-shop: "Make it go? Not a bit of it! Why, her face - I've seen it, for I dug her garden for her one year - her face is enough to frighten the old Nick himself, if he ever had so great a mind to trade with her. People can't stand it, I tell you! She scowls dreadfully, reason or none, out of pure ugliness of temper!" (47) Hepzibah's frightening scowls, indeed, are enough to drive away most customers, except for a hungry young boy who becomes a regular at the cent-shop. The reader soon learns of course, that this is not Hepzibah's fault, rather it devolves back to the house in which she lives. It is the house that makes her scowl, that gives her a melancholic disposition, therefore, it is the house that prevents her from succeeding in her business. Indeed, the gloomy presence of the seven gables would be enough to frighten would-be customers, in addition to the general malaise that afflicts its inhabitants. Hepzibah's failure to start a business is not the only obstacle she must face to overcome the melancholic aspect the House of the Seven Gables has given to her life, however. Early in the novel, Hawthorne describes a scene where Hepzibah admires a miniature. "Of the possessor of such features we shall have a right to ask nothing, except that he would take the rude world easily, and make himself happy in it. Can it have been an early lover of Miss Hepzibah's? No; she never had a lover - poor thing how could she? Nor ever knew, by her own experience, what love technically means. And yet, her undying faith and trust, her fresh remembrance, and continual devotedness towards the original of that miniature, have been the only substance for her heart to feed upon." (34) The original of that miniature, we learn later on in the novel, is Hepzibah's feeble-minded brother Clifford. He comes to symbolize throughout the novel, the unhappiness which the house imparts on its inhabitants. He is walking despair; rarely smiling, and entrapped by the seven gables. Clifford is so old and sickly that he becomes another burden in Hepzibah's life - he is her brother, and she is compelled to care for him, as hard as it may be. Even looking at Clifford becomes hard for Hepzibah, for she is emotionally overwrought staring at his emasculated visage: "Her heart melted away in tears; her profoundest spirit sent forth a moaning voice, low, gentle, but inexpressibly sad. In this depth of grief and pity, she felt that there was no irreverence in gazing at his altered, aged, faded, ruined face." (104) Clifford is merely another hurdle in Hepzibah's quest to attain happiness, but it is her undying love for him that truly makes her a heroine.

Hepzibah, in The House of the Seven Gables, is truly a heroine, not only because she sacrifices gentility in order to feed her family, but also because of her interminable love for her feeble brother, Clifford. As we discussed before, Hepzibah, in the early part of Hawthorne's novel, is faced with financial difficulties. She is forced to set up a cent-shop under trying conditions, impaired by the melancholic gloom of the house, as well as her lack of common knowledge. Hepzibah, the old-moneyed noblewoman, is forced to teach herself the ways of a commoner, and to earn her own bread. "What had she to do with ancestry? Nothing; no more than with posterity! No lady, now, but simply Hepzibah Pyncheon, a forlorn old maid, and keeper of a cent shop!" (51) Hepzibah can no longer survive on ancestral wealth - she is forced to make the transition from gentility to plebeian. After only a few days as a commoner, Hepzibah even grows to resent nobility a little. As she notices a gentlewoman on the street, she says: "For what end, for what good end, in the wisdom of Providence, does that woman live? Must the whole world toil, that the palms of her hands may be kept white and delicate." (54) Apparently, it has no taken much time for the old maid to make the transition into common life, for she already resents the aristocracy. Indignation towards gentility is not what makes Hepzibah a heroine, of course, rather, it is her success as a plebeian that makes her so heroic. It is hard to imagine having to make such a transition, with absolutely no knowledge of business or common life. It is Holgrave that serves as Hawthorne's messenger in relaying the old maid's heroism: "Hitherto, the lifeblood has been gradually chilling in your veins as you sat aloof, within your circle of gentility, while the rest of the world was fighting out its battle with one kind of necessity or another. Henceforth, you will at least have the sense of healthy and natural effort for a purpose, and of lending your strength - be it great or small - to the united struggle of mankind. This is success - all the success that anybody meets with!" (45) It is the daguerrotypist that makes the reader realize how truly heroic a step Hepzibah has made. She is truly a heroine because she overcomes the burden of gentility for her family's well-being. Her cent-shop, however, is not the only thing that makes Hepzibah so heroic. It is her undying love for her brother Clifford that proves her heroism as well. We have already seen how burdensome Clifford is; with his suicidal tendencies, and his gloomy disposition. Yet Hepzibah continues to love him, and hopes, along with herself, to help Clifford escape the house. It is the liberation from the seven gables that is the climax of the old maid's heroism. Hawthorne discusses Hepzibah's love for Clifford early in the novel, while describing the miniature of Clifford, with "her undying faith and trust, her fresh remembrance, and continual devotedness towards the original of that miniature." (34) Yet as the novel progresses, and Clifford becomes trapped by Maule's curse, Hepzibah's devotion grows stronger, and it is her and her alone that keeps Clifford alive and well at the end of the book. Again, Hepzibah is a surprise heroine, a shocking transformation to the reader as well as to the characters in the book. Even Holgrave, the daguerrotypist who praised her success as a shopkeeper, doubts her ability to escape the house. "Miss Hepzibah, by secluding herself from society, has lost all true relation with it, and is, in fact, dead; although she galvanizes herself into a semblance of life, and stands behind her counter, afflicting the world with a greatly-to-be-deprecated scowl. Your poor cousin Clifford is another dead and long buried person, on whom the governor and council have wrought a necromantic miracle. I should not wonder if he were to crumble away, some morning, and nothing be seen of him more, except a heap of dust." (191) Holgrave's statement is meant to make the reader doubt Hepzibah and her brother, and that doubt adds to the excitement of their final escape from the Seven Gables. Hepzibah, too, doubts herself at this point in the novel, for she believes she has little to live for. It is in fact, her love for Clifford that keeps her alive, because if she died, she would be failing her brother. Chapter twenty-seven details the siblings' escape from the house that has entrapped them for so long. We know that the "Flight of the Two Owls," is not Phoebe's doing, for she has departed from the house. Phoebe's absence allows Hepzibah's heroism to shine, and the reader becomes aware that it is not the country girl that helps them flee. The scene in the novel with Clifford and Hepzibah on the train is the culmination of the old maid's heroism, and Clifford is no longer feeble-minded, proved by his speech to the train conductor. In fact, Clifford becomes so self-sufficient he becomes Hepzibah's guardian towards the end of the novel: "At home, she was his guardian; here, Clifford had become hers, and seemed to comprehend whatever belonged to their new position with a singular rapidity of intelligence. " (226) Clifford, at the end of the novel, becomes strong willed, and self-sufficient, but only because Hepzibah's love made him so. It is this brotherly love that makes the "torpid and stagnant" old woman a true heroine.
All of the characters in The House of Seven Gables have at least one heroic quality. Clifford, Phoebe, Holgrave, and Hepzibah alike are all heroes in one way or another because they escape the desolation and catatonia of the house. Clifford, for example, enters the novel in a melancholic state, and continues to suffer along with the rest of the Pyncheons. One of the most poignant scenes in the novel is when Clifford's desire to escape the house sends him into a suicidal state. "At last, with tremulous limbs, he started up, set his foot on the window sill, and in an instant more would have been in the unguarded balcony…Had Clifford attained the balcony, he probably would have leaped into the street; but whether impelled by the species of terror that sometimes urges its victim over the very precipice which he shrinks from, or by a natural magnetism, tending towards the great center of humanity, it were not easy to decide." (148) However, in the end of the novel, Clifford has been rejuvenated, and escapes the house, becoming a hero in the process. After their flight from the mansion, Hepzibah asks Clifford if they are in a dream. Clifford, in true heroic fashion, responds, "On the contrary, I have never been awake before." (224) The once feeble minded old man has escaped the house and his evil cousin Jaffrey, and become a true hero in the process. Phoebe, too, is a heroine. She brings light and happiness to the foreboding lifestyles of Hepzibah and Clifford, and helps them in their quest to escape the seven gables. Every time Clifford met with Phoebe in the garden, the reader can see the happiness that the young country girl creates. "Phoebe's voice had always a pretty music in it, and could either enliven Clifford by its sparkle and gaiety of tone, or soothe him by a continued flow of pebbly and brooklike cadences." (130) Again, however, the true heroine of the book is Hepzibah, because she makes the greatest transition, and it is her love alone that helps the Pyncheon family escape the evil house. It is the scowling old maid that proves the old adage, "Don't judge a book by its cover." Hawthorne proves this perfectly in his closing paragraph to Chapter II: "Nevertheless, if we look through all the heroic fortunes of mankind, we shall find this same entanglement of something mean and trivial with whatever is noblest in joy or sorrow. Life is made up of marble and mud. And, without all the deeper trust in a comprehensive sympathy above us, we might hence be led to suspect the insult of a sneer, as well as an inmitigable frown, on the iron countenance of fate. What is called poetic insight is the gift of discerning, in this sphere of strangely mingle elements, the beauty and the majesty which are compelled to assume a grab so sordid." (42)




Bibliography
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The House of Seven Gables. Penguin Books: New York. ©1961