The House of the Seven Gables

Clifford Pyncheon is the brother of Hepzibah and has been unjustly imprisoned for 30 years. He took the fall for Uncle Jaffrey’s death, with Judge Pyncheon enabling his unjust conviction. After being released from prison, he returns to his sister and the house of the seven gables with deep trauma from his experiences. He is unable to navigate the outside world and is even ill-at-ease sometimes with the house itself, having a strong reaction to the portrait of Colonel Pyncheon (See: Symbols & Motifs), which bears a close resemblance to Judge Pyncheon. Clifford requires constant care, which Hepzibah and Phoebe lovingly provide.

After Clifford discovers Judge Pyncheon dead, he and Hepzibah flee the house, terrified that Clifford will once again be unjustly accused of murder. Clifford becomes strangely revitalized on the train they take to flee, and it appears that the farther he is removed from the house, the younger he becomes. Nonetheless, Clifford realizes that he and Hepzibah must return to the house and the scene of Judge Pyncheon’s death. This act of bravery ends up freeing him permanently from his past: The town comes to realize that Clifford did not kill his uncle, and though not legally exonerated, Clifford is socially vindicated. His new life in a new home with Hepzibah and Phoebe at the novel’s end suggests that a brighter future lies ahead.

Phoebe Pyncheon is a 17-year-old girl whose father is a cousin of Hepzibah and Clifford. Though a Pyncheon, she is raised in the country and outside the domain of the Pyncheons.

Phoebe arrives at the house on the evening after Hepzibah’s first day at the shop and right before Clifford returns to the house from prison. Her mother has remarried, and she is hoping to find a home with Hepzibah. She is not only extremely competent with all the tasks she takes on at the house—including housekeeping, shopkeeping, and caregiving—but has an uncanny ability to revitalize spaces and people. Upon arriving at the house, she immediately and effortlessly transforms her bedroom from a gloomy dungeon into a happy and livable place. She intuits what needs to be done and always does it extremely well, effortlessly creating beauty as she attends to her tasks. This ability carries over to her care of Clifford, who prefers her even to Hepzibah, whom he loves.

Phoebe is cheerful and “sunny,” and, as she tells Holgrave, likes to follow a straight path. Her brightness contrasts with the gloominess of the house and the oppression that Hepzibah and Clifford have endured the last 30 years. However, Phoebe does start to undergo some changes after a few weeks of living in the house of the seven gables, becoming more serious in her demeanor. Her transformation implies that the house and its violent legacy may be casting a shadow over her the way it has with Hepzibah and Clifford. Nonetheless, Phoebe still represents the hope of a better future: Her growing bond with Holgrave and her love for the garden implies the possibility of renewal and growth for the Pyncheon clan.

At the novel’s end, Phoebe is planning to marry Holgrave. Their love affair is significant, because it means that the old rift between the Pyncheon and Maule families will now be permanently healed. Phoebe’s act of moving with Hepzibah and Clifford to their new home solidifies the fact that they are now a true family unit.

Holgrave is a 20-year-old boarder who lives in one of the gables at the house. He is “self-made”: He left his family as a child, educated himself, traveled the world, and has held a range of jobs from editor to hypnotist to dentist. He is currently working as a daguerreotypist, yet he assumes that this job will only be temporary, as he has not made commitments in his life.

Holgrave is a reformist, and Hepzibah admires him for following “a law of his own” (85). Holgrave hates the “worshipping” of “The Dead” and “The Past” that he thinks is embodied in the house of the seven gables. He tells Phoebe that he lives in the house so that he can learn more about this worshipping and resist it. Holgrave’s attitude represents a significant alternative to the past-bound lifestyle of the Pyncheon clan, who are especially vulnerable to The Influence of the Past on the Present. Holgrave is adamantly opposed to inheritance and the accumulation of nostalgia and wealth in family homes. He argues that all houses should be constructed only to last a generation, so that each generation must build its own home. However, he is nevertheless also strangely consumed by the Pyncheon family, writing a story that explores past generations of the Pyncheons, which both attests to this obsession and his attempts to cope with it.

By the novel’s end, Holgrave has made two important confessions: He confesses his love for Phoebe, and he reveals that he is a Maule. His love for Phoebe tempers his former free-spirited ways, as he admits that he is now open to settling down and may even construct a proper family home for their children. His confession that he is a Maule reveals precisely why he was so fixated on the Pyncheon family’s history and The Complications of Home, but his lineage is also the key to healing these centuries-long wounds. In uniting his life with Phoebe’s, the two families come together in harmony, bringing a definitive end to the tensions between the two clans.

Judge Pyncheon is the first cousin of Hepzibah and Clifford. He presents an air of confidence, respectability, and effortlessness: His clothes and everything about him seem to fit him perfectly, yet this is only a façade. The judge has done nothing to exonerate Clifford, despite his knowledge that Clifford never harmed Uncle Jaffrey. He then takes credit for helping to release Clifford from jail after 30 years, which he uses to manipulate Hepzibah. After Clifford has been released and gone home, Judge Pyncheon threatens to have him committed to an “asylum” if he does not reveal the location of the deed for the land parcel and the remaining wealth of Uncle Jaffrey.

There are important parallels between Judge Pyncheon and his ancestor, Colonel Pyncheon. Phoebe is struck by the strong physical resemblance between the two men, as Judge Pyncheon reminds her of Colonel Pyncheon’s portrait. Clifford also responds with fear to the portrait, seemingly because it reminds him of Judge Pyncheon, and he is desperate to avoid the judge when the judge demands to see him. Judge Pyncheon’s greed and cruelty mirror those same qualities in Colonel Pyncheon, transforming Judge Pyncheon into the main heir of The Legacy of Violence that Colonel Pyncheon set in motion. Like the colonel, Judge Pyncheon is willing to see an innocent man (Clifford) branded a criminal, and will even send Clifford to an “asylum” under false pretenses to get his own way. The judge abuses both Hepzibah and Clifford, all with the goal of securing more wealth, despite having inherited all of Pyncheon’s wealth apart from the house.

Judge Pyncheon’s sudden death also mirrors the death of the colonel, but his death enables the miseries of the family to finally end. Hepzibah and Clifford move into his former home in the countryside, escaping once and for all from the gloomy past the house of the seven gables represents.

Colonel Pyncheon is the 17th-century Puritan patriarchal figurehead of the Pyncheon family. He is a domineering, greedy, violent man who is constantly seeking more material goods and wealth.

As the town expands and Matthew Maule’s property becomes more valuable, Colonel Pyncheon decides that he wants Maule’s property for himself. After years of trying to acquire it, he finally accuses Maule of witchcraft and presses hard for him to be executed so that he can seize the property. Colonel Pyncheon has the house of the seven gables built by a carpenter who is also a Maule. At the housewarming, Pyncheon is discovered dead, seemingly having died of the curse Matthew Maule put on him moments before his execution.

Colonel Pyncheon’s greed and violence has had consequences for both his victims and his descendants. His descendants live in the house he built and, more profoundly, under The Legacy of Violence he bequeathed them, as represented in the portrait of him that has hung in the house since it was built (See: Symbols & Motifs). At the novel’s end, the colonel’s portrait falls as the hidden niche is discovered, marking the end of his power in the lives of his descendants.

Matthew Maule is a small landholder who has built a modest cottage for himself through his industriousness. When Colonel Pyncheon tries to take his land from him, Maule defends his land and home. Pyncheon responds by having Maule convicted of, and executed for, witchcraft during the Salem witch trials.

Just before his execution, Maule addresses the crowd and points his finger at Pyncheon, proclaiming, “God will give him blood to drink!” (85). His unjust death sets in motion The Legacy of Violence that will haunt the Pyncheon family for generations. In the centuries after his death, the townspeople spread rumors that Maule’s descendants have inherited supernatural abilities.

Maule’s grandson is also named Matthew Maule, and is a figure in Holgrave’s story. Holgrave explores this later generation’s desire to exert control over the Pyncheons and the subsequent death of Alice Pyncheon.